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You did nothing to deserve winning multiple genetic lotteries, namely having sufficient intelligence to fall into the HN cohort and being born into a wealthy co
by gbacon 8y ago
You did nothing to deserve winning multiple genetic lotteries, namely having sufficient intelligence to fall into the HN cohort and being born into a wealthy country and household with access to it and similar resources. You didn’t earn your spot in the global 1%, but it in no way follows that you should be expropriated to correct the alleged injustice.
Ex post facto law has since the Enlightenment recognized as unjust and even tyrannical. Digging back across generations in search of some offense generations ago and punishing innocent parties today is at best a recipe for chaos.
Lavrentiy Beria was head of Stalin’s secret police and famous for saying, “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.” Expropriating present people because of unfair advantages — a criterion never precisely defined and forever subject to political fads of the day, which is to say meaningless — allegedly enjoyed by past ancestors or owners of property is merely another form of the Beria method.
By your own reasoning, neither did the state today do anything to deserve the property that they’d seize. Even if it were justly redistributed, you’re forgetting about the cut taken by the middlemen in charge of carrying it out — who also did nothing to deserve taking a share of the loot.
No sound economic case can be made that the distribution of wealth was a cause for the Great Depression. Considering how many human abilities have normal and power-law distributions, e.g., attractiveness, musical ability, intelligence, vertical leap, height, programming skill, lifetime poker winnings, writing quality, golf handicap, typing speed, cooking skill, time to change a tire, ability to plan and manage complex tasks, future orientation, etc., etc., etc., income and wealth accumulation being anywhere remotely uniform would be amazing. Considering the math of power-law distributions, your approach would have a huge majority ganging up on a comparatively tiny minority but ironically in the name of fairness.
“No legal plunder; this is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony and logic.”
- frankbreetz 8y agoI feel like "people who won the genetic lottery" who become rich,by inventing something or creating something, deserve it because ideally these people made money by improving society and this behavior should be encouraged. I understand this is not how the world always works, but it should be the world we strive for. In my mind this would be the ideal role of government to encourage behavior that makes society better.
- claudiawerner 8y ago>Ex post facto law has since the Enlightenment recognized as unjust and even tyrannical. Digging back across generations in search of some offense generations ago and punishing innocent parties today is at best a recipe for chaos. That's not what's going on here at all. The idea is that property gained through unjust means originally means that the wealth derived from it is still unjustly derived, even if this unjust appropriation happened long ago when it was not deemed unjust then. You would be right if the case were if you were to be punished for the fact your ancestors owned slaves, but the issue is the benefit gained which is currently there. >income and wealth accumulation being anywhere remotely uniform would be amazing. Nobody is saying it would be uniform, they're saying that the situation at the moment is not due to the difference in those abilities other than perhaps brute strength in subjugation and plunder. It is difficult to imagine what the world would look like if it hadn't happened, but the distribution of wealth would not be as we see it today in any case. >By your own reasoning, neither did the state today do anything to deserve the property that they’d seize. The state may act on behalf of those at a comparative disadvantage, and we have an easier case for arguing they deserve something.