8 ms·

(This is a slightly modified but highly relevant excerpt from a piece I wrote last year: Confusing Math with Morality[1].) In What is Equality? Part 2: Equalit

• matte_black 9y ago
  A random distribution of resources is not unfair, in fact it is the most fair way to distribute resources assuming each participant has an equal chance of gaining resources. A state lottery is not an unjust inequality, it is a justified inequality, because it's outcome is truly random.
  • dvt 9y ago
    You're free to diagree with Dworkin (and Rawls), but keep in mind they are some of the most preeminent minds of the past century. Your argument has to be a bit more thought out than merely explaining how randomness works. You would have to tackle the concept of "ambition-sensitivity" and its relationship to fairness, among other things.
    • matte_black 9y ago
      An appeal to authority is no way to justify your argument. The fact is, a truly random distribution is fair, and no eminent mind in this century or any other will ever disprove that. Whether it’s perceived as fair, is a different story. It seems that the lower one’s chance of winning, the more unfair they perceive the lottery. That does not mean it’s unfair, it means they don’t understand fairness.
      • dvt 9y ago
        Honestly, you're just being obtuse and incredibly disrespectful. These people literally dedicated their lives to studying fairness, economics, and social theory.
        • matte_black 9y ago
          You can dedicate your entire life and more to something, and still be wrong.
      • bjourne 9y ago
        Why is a random distribution fair? Is a normal distribution fair too? A poisson distribution? Are in your mind any distributions that are unfair? What is your definition of fair?
      • bildung 9y ago
        An appeal to authority is entirely appropriate if that authority is indeed an authority on the topic discussed. The logical flaw you allude to only fits if dvt would have said e.g. "I'm right because Lady Gaga said the same argument." While Lady Gaga is an authority, she isn't on the theory of justice.
      • noxecanexx 9y ago
        You refuse explain what you mean by fair. Regardless of whether he is appealing to authority or not you need to dispute his(their) arguments with conterpoints
  • saas_co_de 9y ago
    Unjust as in not justified on a rational economic basis. Lotteries may be "fair" as you describe them but they would be an irrational way to distribute resources on a broad scale. For instance, if your salary each month were a random amount taken out of a general pool distributed by your employer you would only want to stay in your job if you were a really low productivity worker with no other opportunities and would be desperately seeking alternative employment otherwise.
    • matte_black 9y ago
      Lotteries can be a very rational way to distribute resources broadly. In an emergency situation where several people need a resource but there is only a limited amount available randomly distributing the resource is the fairest and the most rational way to get it to those in need in order to prevent other activities such as hoarding, scalping and favoritism.
      • dvt 9y ago
        A trivial counterexample is an organ transplant. It doesn't make sense to flip a coin when deciding whether to give a healthy liver to an octogenarian or a 3-month-old. There are different forces at play here (not 'ambition-sensitive' ones), but it's a case where randomness fails miserably. Obviously, the 3-month-old should get it -- indeed, this is how scarce organs are actually distributed.
        • matte_black 9y ago
          But what if the octogenarian really wants to live? It may be justified to give it to the 3 month old, but that is not fair to the octogenarian and incredibly ageist.
          • oh_sigh 9y ago
            Does the octogenarian want to live more or less than the 3 month old?
          • 9y ago
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • SamReidHughes 9y ago
    A state lottery is something you freely enter by choice. That's different from other kinds of randomness. If random distribution is fair, and if souls are randomly assigned to bodies, then there can be no unfairness in the world. I don't think there'd be a difference in unfairness if souls were in fact allocated to bodies by some sort of deterministic process or by the whims of a maniacal god.
  • dcre 9y ago
    If there's $100 to distribute among 10 people, and everyone has an equal chance of winning, but the winner takes the full $100, then no, of course that is not a just outcome merely because it's random. Come on.
• pedro_hab 9y ago
  I'd argue that this argument is invalid for practical uses. Saying that luck is unfair is in my opinion a useless and even evil idea, it can be used to justify terrible acts. Everything is luck, or did you choose what family you'd be born in? Did you choose your physical attributes? Inequality is inevitable, it is natural, and its fair, everyone got a dice roll, no one had control over it, no one can. In spite of these starting points, which are not the only luck based you will encounter, people can rise where others won't.
  • adjkant 9y ago
    I think this position is incredibly susceptible to collapse from its own argument. > "people can rise where others won't" Why do they rise? Are they in control over these reasons at all, or is that luck too? This brings up central questions of free will and influence of external sources. As a hard determinist, I'd argue it's all entirely luck to the core. You're going to have a hard time drawing a line between luck and free will that people will ever agree on for the foreseeable future. > "Inequality is inevitable, it is natural, and its fair" Inevitable? I'd agree. Natural? In so much that it is the way of nature, yes. But nature isn't inherently good, it simply is. Fair? Doesn't seem like it is at all to me. Now we have to go neck deep into a discussion on the definition of fairness (please let's not actually here). > "Saying that luck is unfair is in my opinion a useless and even evil idea, it can be used to justify terrible acts." What acts are you referring to? I suspect that these terrible acts rely on far more interpretation beyond "luck is unfair". Those interpretations having flaws does not make this particular idea evil.
    • pedro_hab 9y ago
      That's what I meant, trying to figure it out what's luck and whats isn't is impossible, as you put it > all entirely luck to the core But now how can you, or anyone else have a say in what is equal? It's all so complicated, trying to do anything about it is pointless, it feels to me as arrogant to think you can find a solution to all this. I think you are right, we should focus on the problem itself, instead of what's fair. Everything is luck, you have no control over your starting point. It's all random, to try to say you understand this is the same as saying you understand quantum mechanics: "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." -Feynman Now to say we can fix it with a system of redistribution of wealth is wishful thinking. I'd argue that this system will be unequal, and worse. Reminds me of my SO's siblings, they say my SO is successful because she had a father (showed up after she was 10 btw), or her mother liked her more, or some other reason, which sure has an effect. They had a pretty equal starting point, the are broke because they are losers, to say my wife must share her wealth with them is evil. I always hear the inequality card as "The losers want to be winners". Of course they want, now the question is it fair?
• crdoconnor 9y ago
  You can divide the world's wealth into wealth that was created by human hands and wealth which was 'created' by the planet (land, mineral/ore/oil deposits, etc.). I don't see why it isn't fair to people keep the wealth they create and just divide up the wealth created by the planet equally.
  • socialist_coder 9y ago
    The article (and the recent Piketty book) is trying to explain exactly why it isn't fair for people to keep the wealth that they create: because it enables them and their offspring to stay wealthy at the expense of everyone else. Once you have wealth, there is no mechanism that removes it. And, this process occurs both in human society and in nature.
    • crdoconnor 9y ago
      I don't think that's true, and I don't think Piketty actually did say that. Where people manage to enable themselves and their offspring to grow their wealth geometrically at the expense of everybody else they always do so by using (legal) means of siphoning off both natural wealth and wealth created by others. If you inherited a chunk of stock which your parents bought which grew in value and paid out dividends since they died, for instance, that increase in value is real but it wasn't created by them or by you. Who did create that wealth is context dependent (most of the time it's going to be employees working for the corporation), but the fact remains that it wasn't you or your parents. The same applies if you inherit a bond portfolio (the wealth is created by the people paying you interest) or land titles (in, e.g. a large city, that wealth is created by the people who live and work surrounding that land). That's largely what is driving the inequality Piketty is measuring. 90% of the 0.1% siphoned all their wealth from others (e.g. alice walton types) and created none themselves and, IMHO, all of them siphoned most of the wealth they hold - even the ones that are dubiously considered 'self made'. I think by aiming to create a system where the people get to keep the wealth they create and share the wealth nobody created (and the wealth created that isn't so easy to attribute), inequality will naturally decrease to a more sustainable level that people will consider fair. In practical terms this means legislators should be encouraged to raise taxes on the very wealthy who very obviously siphoned wealth money first (e.g. the Duke of Westminster) before going after the wealthy where it isn't clear how much they created and how much was siphoned (e.g. the estate of Steve Jobs) and developing better ways of separating 'created' from 'siphoned' so that they can be treated differently.