His basic premise, as I understand it, was that if you took people to the point before they were born, and told them to design the economic system, they would design the system to maximize the earnings of the least fortunate person in the system. This depends on the assumption that no one would want to risk being poorer, no matter how much richer they could theoretically be.
Some people, though, would likely vote for a system that maximized the TOTAL output. They'd be willing to risk being poor for a small chance at being incredibly rich. If you play poker, this would be the same concept as maximizing Expected Value.
Other people would take the small chance to be rich even if it didn't maximize TOTAL output, as all of the slot machine players in the world show.
quote=Gumby;556340]Good call, nfs. My beliefs have been heavily influenced by A Theory of Justice.
I have not read the theory firsthand, but I think I get the gist of the argument so far -- If we are allowed to in crude shorthand notation say that Randians subscribe to 'survival of the fittest', then Rawlsians might be said to want 'justice for the mostest', with a key contention being that your conditions at birth are the prime indicator of your odds of future success, and so ought to be negated somehow in your own race for the riches.
If I have not too badly mangled the theories/positions by my hatchet-chopping simplification, I would propose that there is a chance both may be reconciled:
"Driparians" <he he he> believe roughly in the Randian 'survival of the fittest' or 'social darwinism' or 'meritocracy' or 'pay to play' -- call it what you will. Not in the absolute, not to the bitter extreme, not without commonly accepted scruples and morals that help ALL of society live together, but as a general guiding principle.
Driparians ALSO however, believe in a 'maximum justice for the mostest' theory, because in the end we all are brothers on the same planet. But we do NOT limit our desire to reach equality to just any one solitary individual, or doling out community or country handouts wily-nily, because that flies in the face of the first tenant.
They believe that to hugely artificially reallocate status-quo resources, opportunities, etc outside of what the prevailing conditions would provide is right-hearted but wrong-headed. Instead, they place some faith into the pre-existing decisions and outcomes and presume that if individuals born to a community can't collectively (individual + community power together) muster enough horsepower to prevail over the existing order, they must not have too much more of a compelling story. Yes, some have the advantage of being born into a clan that was fortunate enough to be born into a clan that was fortunate enough to.... have resources, weapons, cash.. whatever... but the point is, somewhere in that lineage through effort, smarts, muscle, or happenstance, likely a combo, they succeeded where others failed. Is it right to reverse the outcome of all preceding acts and persons and history by just arbitrarily redistributing a set of the same chips evenly to everyone born to the planet? What if their genetic make up in one area is to be sickly, mentally incapacitated, physically weak, but have an inordinately fecund nature, combined with singularly robust offspring through childhood, even though they are physically and mentally not fit to the work of the day when grown?
The terrific thing is that it is NOT a zero sum game we are in. When we teach others to efficiently use their own natural resources, improve local healthcare, convert labor to food and well-being, who says it should hurt the existing folks? It need not. BUT if we artificially tax the working, to fund the unproductive, in a way that guarantees no growth for the recipient, no eventual autonomy, or no gain to the person taxed to prop them up, then I say this flies in the face of common sense, and justice in it's absolute most expansive sense. I am talking about a meta level beyond our current feeble religions and superstitions, but the meta-sense that we owe it to forces beyond us (the rest of the universe, those that follow us, those that came before) to most expeditiously change from our current inefficient, warlike, goofy natures, into the lowest impact, least wasteful, most evolved, most knowledge-shared and equalized being possible. Blindly funding sloth and backwardness by handcuffing those who provide utility to society does not seem to fit that model to me, but giving a helping hand does.
China is about ready to kick all the world's collective butts in maybe 50 -100 years max. Economically, militarily, population-wise.
So, I'd sure rather they be Driparians (saying: 'got room for us, guys, if we pull our weight?') than pure Randians (saying: 'wipe out all others when we are able') or pure Rawlsians (saying: 'put the rest of the world into glass jars like bugs and make 'em eat duck tongues until they are converted to Mandarin like us and assimilated to our ways?)
