Comments on: Two Views on Luck and Redistribution

By: Defending against lameness since 2008

Defending against lameness since 2008 — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:37:48 +0000

[...] Two Views on Luck and Redistribution [...]

By: Sean Stoner

Sean Stoner — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:25:14 +0000

Good post - I think it is interesting that the academic left doesn't embrace the social insurance viewpoint more in their philosophical discussions. One of the more basic viewpoints of redistribution of wealth that I don't see discussed here at all, however, is the basic premise that wealth is created on the backs of the commonwealth and should be given back to the degree that it provides social insurance and is the foundation upon which future generations (not from the lucky sperm club) of any socioeconomic class can also create wealth. This is the premise of the estate tax and the philosophy to which wealth creators like Warren Buffet subscribe. Any thoughts about this perspective?

By: jaltcoh.blogspot.com

jaltcoh.blogspot.com — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:43:02 +0000

FYI, this post has been indirectly linked by Althouse:

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2008/07/3-argument...

By: Club Troppo » Egalitarians for inequality!

Club Troppo » Egalitarians for inequality! — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 02:49:18 +0000

[...] a recent post, Will Wilkinson says that luck egalitarianism is motivated by "a kind of extreme desert [...]

By: essence schedule

essence schedule — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:26:01 +0000

[...] is that the lucky compensate the unlucky. This has been an extremely popular view in academic politihttp://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2008/07/02/two-view-on-luck-and-redistribution/Essence expects to match last year’s attendance New Orleans Times-PicayuneThis weekend’s 14th annual [...]

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:17:53 +0000

DJW- if you're still around email me (I don't have your email) and I'll send you Tan's paper. You can get my email via the link in my name.

By: Nicholas Weininger

Nicholas Weininger — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:35:15 +0000

Will, is there any data supporting the thesis that more compulsory state “social” insurance produces higher levels of entrepreneurial risk-taking? People claim that it should be true all the time, but I've not seen anything backing up the claim beyond intuition and anecdote. And I can give intuition and anecdote the other way just as easily (the US's lower levels of “social” insurance coincide with high levels of entrepreneurship; it's unclear whether those most inclined and likely to be successful entrepreneurs actually care as much as the rest of us about the downside risks that “social” insurance ameliorates). Furthermore, note that you have to show not just that it increases entrepreneurship ceteris paribus, but that it increases it enough to outweigh the effects of the taxes on entrepreneurs' gains required to pay for it.

By: djw

djw — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 02:31:06 +0000

As to this:

Could it be because a scheme of redistribution from the lucky to the unlucky that minimizes the harm from bad luck might do too little to limit the gains from good luck? Maybe. But that strikes me as a spiteful worry, hard to credit morally. What’s the moral point of limiting the gains from good luck, once the downside of bad luck has been successfully limited?

One possible answer, I think is that the two simply can't be analytically separated so neatly. I'm a big fan of Ian Shapiro's recent book The State of Democratic Theory for a variety of reasons; one salient point relevant to this concern is his entreaty to democratic theorists to concern themselves a great deal more than they are inclined to do with power. It should worry democrats, liberals, etc. that just hierarchies (potentially products of non obviously unjust inequalities) have a tendency to ossify and/or metastasize, and become forms of domination (and, on his view, democracy's central purpose is to limit, prevent, or ameliorate domination). Substantial concentrations of wealth, over time, become substantial concentrations of power. often that power form of power is exercised in informal ways that may not be compatible with democratic accountability, the rule of law, etc.

By: djw

djw — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 02:22:36 +0000

Hi Will, good post. In addition to the Scheffler paper, you should read (if you haven't) “What is the Point of Equality” by Elizabeth Anderson (Ethics 109:2, 1999). She, a Rawls student, agrees with you, Freeman and Scheffler that Rawls shouldn't be simply lumped in with Luck Egalitarians. Also, the first half of her paper does a very nice job of introducing a number of the major strands of luck egalitaranism (Dworkin, Arneson, Van Parijs, Cohen, Ragowski) and does a marvelous job of demonstrating the futility of this line of reasoning. (She also wins me over by being unusually frank about things–the opening sentence is “If recent academic work defending equality had been secretly penned by conservatives, could the result have been any more embarrassing for egalitarians?” I suppose it's possible, but….) She defends an alternative normative justification for egalitarianism that she calls democratic equality, which is vaguely in the vicinity of your social insurance justification in some ways, but goes beyond it in some some other important ways.

Count me as someone who wants to see the Tan paper too, Matt.

By: X. Trapnel

X. Trapnel — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:55:40 +0000

Err, “very worth reading”

By: X. Trapnel

X. Trapnel — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:55:24 +0000

Elizabeth Anderson's “What Is The Point of Equality?” (Ethics 1999) makes some similar points, and is very reading if you haven't seen it. Argues for a 'democratic equality' view rooted (I think; been a few years) something like the necessary conditions to participate on roughly equal terms in the political sphere. Or something. Ugh, bad memory.

By: Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:37:10 +0000

Matt, Thanks for the tip on the Scheffler paper. It's very good.

By: Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:35:30 +0000

Jacob, It's because I'm really ignorant about Dworkin!

By: Dain

Dain — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:42:37 +0000

It seems to me the hardcore luck egalitarians are in a bind when it comes to the efficacy of actually implementing a redistributive apparatus via the state.

If there are no predictable patterns of human behavior/interaction that facilitates minimal levels of “success”, then how can those in government be expected to follow through with their functions in a way that can actually accomplish a welfare state? Are we relying on coincidence and “good luck” when imagining how those in government will make the social safety net actually work out for the poor?

By: Jacob T. Levy

Jacob T. Levy — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:15:13 +0000

Will, presumably you don't think that Dworkin's hypothetical auction/ hypothetical insurance market model, articulated way back in the stone age origins of the luck egalitarianism literature, is the sort of thing you have in mind, or you'd have mentioned it…? If not, I'd be curious why not.