What is your opinion about the morality of wealth redistribution?
My opinion is that it's both moral and necessary, in moderation.
Allow me to expandÂ…
First, subjects like this are great jumping off points for exploratory and open minded discussion of things that at there core, are still merely philosophical opinions. Without exception, whatever anyone posits on this subject, it is an opinion. And that opinion in turn, is based on some other opinion. And so on. At no point in this discussion is it possible to trace the formation of one’s final opinion back to irrefutable fact. This alone usually sends the more astute ‘partisans’ into the shadows. The less astute will boldly challenge the aforementioned truism and disqualify themselves from my further consideration. But whatcha gonna do?
Moving on...
My opinion that ‘some’ amount of wealth redistribution is moral stems directly from my opinion that a peaceful civilization is not possible without it. As simple as that. A society without wealth redistribution is a society without taxes, without common government, without common laws. In short, it’s anarchy. As soon as you impose any taxation, you have crossed the line into wealth redistribution whether you’re honest enough to accept it or not. I know that some will try to argue that if the tax is only imposed to pay for things that do not directly identify the ‘beneficiaries’ (e.g. military, infrastructure and law enforcement), then it doesn’t qualify as wealth redistribution. But of course to make this leap in logic requires one to reason that failure to identify and quantify the distribution of benefits proves that they are shared equally. This is a logical fallacy, pure and simple. Furthermore, in my opinion it is far more likely that the benefits are not shared equally, and I question the worldly wisdom of anyone that claims otherwise.
However, just because a peaceful civilization is no possible without some wealth redistribution doesn’t mean that society should be rigidly constructed for said redistribution (e.g. Communism). It is important to understand the double-edged sword that is wealth redistribution. For all its necessity, it will always wield the potential to destroy economic viability, hamstring innovative progress and in more extreme instances, infringe greatly upon individual liberty. I say ‘potential’ because I believe that a material level of redistribution can be supported before said potential becomes a concern. In short, both too much and too little wealth redistribution, allowed to progress unchecked, will eventually lead to collapse and/or revolt. Logically this implies the existence of some optimal, perhaps non-stationary level of wealth redistribution that balances these constantly evolving, conflicting needs.
For those of you who are willing to accept this foundational thesis, perhaps an equally interesting discussion can be had, not about morality, but where we currently stand in relation to this theoretical optimum. If anyone wants to start a thread about that, IÂ’ll give this some more thought. Until then, back to trolling for me.
manifold out
