I posted this answer:
The question implies a false premise—that luck is the driver of economic achievement. So, I would counter this question with one of my own: How can economic Egalitarians justify forced wealth and income redistribution through coercive government policy—taxes and regulations—in the name of achieving wealth equality?
Economic success is not based on a “genetic lottery” or luck. Natural talents don’t automatically transform magically into economic achievement, like winning some kind of lottery. The same goes for luck. It takes mental and physical effort and good character virtues, exercised over time, to turn whatever “luck” or “natural talents” one is born with into economic success. Plenty of people “win the genetic lottery,” but not all succeed. Why? Plenty of people get lucky breaks, but not all make something of that luck. Because. Some make bad choices, some are unmotivated, some simply misuse their natural endowments. Neither natural talents or luck are anywhere near not enough. They are a starting point, nothing more. Character and effort (and other factors like personal choice and relationships) vary from individual to individual, so wealth outcomes will vary. This human diversity leads to wealth inequality. That’s perfectly natural and morally just.
Of course, it’s perfectly rational to question how a person achieved his wealth, but not that he has more wealth than the next person. Did he achieve it by honorable means, like work and trade, being respectful of other people’s property and liberty? Or did he appropriate it by force or fraud. Honorable people earn their wealth. Burglars forcibly take from others. But this is not a question of wealth inequality. It’s a question of justice. The fact is, there is only one valid way to reduce wealth inequality, if that is your focus—refuse to buy the wealthier person’s product. Any government policy to coercively reduce wealth inequality is legalized burglary.
If by “libertarian,” the questioner refers to advocates of free market capitalism, the libertarian has nothing to justify. Wealth inequality is not a flaw of Capitalism. It is a feature of Capitalism—that is, of a free society, because freedom allows every individual to advance as far as one’s talents, values, initiative, temperament, and moral character—and, yes, to some extent luck—will carry them. That’s one of the features that makes free market Capitalism the only moral social system.
The best resource for understanding wealth inequality in a free society that I can recommend is Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality by Don Watkins and Yaron Brook.
Related:
My QUORA answer to “How do capitalists justify the inequality/high disparity part of a capitalistic society that a socialistic system tends to stop?”
My QUORA answer to “ How do investment bankers justify earning 7 figures?”
Related Reading:
Free Market Champions Must Defend Economic Inequality
Hatred of Happiness, not Justice, Motivates the anti-Economic Inequality Crusader
Obama's Corrupt "Equality" Campaign and the 99/1 Premise
QUORA: How do investment bankers justify earning 7 figures?
An Economic Egalitarian Acknowledges: Ending Income Inequality’ Begins With Legalized Theft.
The Justice of Income Inequality Under Capitalism by Ari Armstrong for The Objective Standard
The Left’s Egalitarian Trap (and Why Republicans Must Not Step In)
3 comments:
Libertarians can justify wealth inequality by saying some people are born with more natural talents as a result of the genetic lottery. In a capitalist system, those of lesser talents are lots better off because of those with greater talents than they would be if nobody had talents greater than theirs.
That's a great utilitarian point that Atlas Shrugged dramatizes wonderfully.
Another point is by "starving" those families who have not aicheved greatnesss are you not limiting the possibility of those genuises who arise out of poverty and hardship.
Post a Comment