Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!cca!ima!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Libertarianism & Luck Message-ID: <1910@inmet.UUCP> Date: Sun, 20-Jan-85 00:48:44 EST Article-I.D.: inmet.1910 Posted: Sun Jan 20 00:48:44 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 23-Jan-85 05:33:48 EST Lines: 100 Nf-ID: #R:whuxl:-42800:inmet:7800277:000:5427 Nf-From: inmet!nrh Jan 18 17:57:00 1985 >***** inmet:net.politics / whuxl!orb / 11:24 am Jan 17, 1985 >> Ok, I have no problem with that statement. So what? Life is a bitch, and then >> you die -- and that's the good news. You aren't going to eliminate luck in >> peoples lives by any statist approach, the luck will just be who controls the >> state, and who dies under it. > >Is it really true that we can't reduce the role of luck in people's lives? An interesting question. Naturally it has very little to do with the note you're responding to -- to reply AS IF the person above had said "You can't reduce the impact chance has on people's lives" is to misstate his position. >Then what is the whole point of buying insurance? Obviously it is possible >to balance out the risks over a larger group of people and therefore >reduce the role of luck. Indeed -- you'll notice a crucial difference between an insurance company and a government here (although you're trying to use them for the same purpose). The insurance company must make sense. It must answer to stockholders. It must make money without extracting by force it from those who choose not to deal with it. If it makes rules not consistent with reality, it dies, and the people who chose to deal with it may suffer. If a government does the same thing, it will steal the resources it needs to support an impossible dream, and everybody within its reach will suffer. >What may be random "luck" for the individual >may still be predictable using probability and the law of large numbers. >Why should a few people gain all the benefits of the economic system >and many other people sustain the losses? A very hypothetical question. I don't know of any economic system where "a few people gain all the benefits of the economic system". If you can find one (other than the trivial case of a society consisting of only a few people) I'm willing to examine the society. I suspect you mean "why should a few people benefit vastly more than others", and I suspect you know the answer to that question: it is that in providing incentive to produce, our society allows choice to its members as to how to use the rewards they get. The impulse is strong to look out for your children (and thus people inherit huge sums without being productive themselves) and to look out for yourself (and thus people assemble more wealth than they need). In a society where no person is forced (except by contractual terms) to deal with others, this is not a problem (wealth tends to redistribute itself (take a look at early America)). In societies where wealth is controlled by means unrelated to productivity or how much material good you do others, wealth tends to be distributed according to whatever rationale dominates the system. The problem is that all such systems come to terms with the common ideas of looking out for yourself and your children. Under any system, some people will be better adapted to the rules than others. Making the rule be that the people must deal with each other on an equal basis (rights-wise) and that they can only get wealth by giving value, ("trade") has the nice pair of properties that it promotes extreme economic efficiency and doesn't require little nasties like government restriction of emigration or immigration, forced slave labor, government control of economic choices (including "which books shall be printed?") and inquiry into private affairs. >Is there really anything wrong >with balancing out such benefits and losses to a certain extent? Let's not be too euphemistic here. Whoever controls the "balancing" apparatus will control the wealth of the society you propose. If you have any central control of this apparatus, you've created a system wherein whoever can control the balancing will look after himself and his children. As David Friedman put it (sorry, I'm quoting from memory here) "A society that depends upon putting Saints in control is perilous -- there are not enough Saints." >Of course the major element of luck in any individuals whole life is >who she or he happens to be born to. Why should those born rich be >able to go through their whole lives without working at all, while others >struggle just to make ends meet? On the other hand, why shouldn't people who earn their wealth be able to give it to whom they please? And what could be more moral (as a parent) than giving it to your children? Part of the apparatus that makes the poor in this country pretty well off compared to the poor in other countries is that there are lots of opportunities. Should not the provider of opportunities be rewarded? Should he not have the right to do what he chooses with the reward (force and fraud aside)? >This is fair? This is justice? Prosecutor: "Members of the jury, is this the face of a fair society?" Jury: "I thought we were supposed to judge the evidence, not the faces." Yes, it is fair, and it is just, and it is even inspiring -- provided you don't let the powerful concretize their position by giving them political power. The most often-used way of doing this is to create some mechanism to regulate wealth, which in turn comes under the control of the then-wealthy, which in turn is used to preserve the fortunes of the then-wealthy against the natural economic forces that make preserving capital difficult for the unproductive. "Socialism" is one good example of this, particularly in the USSR.