Question regarding redistrubtion

"Redistribution NECESSARILY decreases productivity.

It is always done the same way: tax the rich more, taxc the poor less, give some money to the poor. In addition to the resources being wasted in the process of doing this, productive incentives are harmed. Productive people get less reward for their productivity, so they are less motivated to be productive. Unproductive people get more reward for doing less, so they have less incentive to be productive.

Duh. "




In any case, I thought you would understand after my post about maximizing the population that productivity is not an end in itself but a tool for realizing other normative goals. If we agree that equality of opportunity or outcome is ethcially required, or that ethics require the distribution to be 'ambition sensitive' 'choice sensitive', then it is not an argument against doing so that because of some cost-benefit analysis fulfilling these requirements of justice would be costly.

Example of the FORM of argument you are presupposing:

1. Slavery is morally wrong.
2. However, making slavery illegal would decrease productivity (or flood the labor market in the south, or some other cost-benefit based argument).
3. Therefore, we should keep slavery illegal.

This is not to say we don't have a duty to bring about benefits. What it is to say is that we can only do so in ways that are morally permissible. So it is not in and of itself objection to this theory to say productivity is decreased under it.

I don't necessarily agree with his own reply to your objection, but here is part of Roemer's reply to this objection:

"There are two responses to this objection. The first relates to the incomplete definition of the equality-of-opportunity proposal that I have here made. In fact, the social policy I advocate is the one that equalizes opportunities (for income, say) at the highest possible levels. It is not possible to make this precise without going into some mathematical detail, but the idea is, roughly, that if a taxation policy results in opportunities for income being equalized at a very low level, then it is not the optimal policy. It is true that, under my proposal, mean income, that is, national income per capita, may well be below what it would be without any redistributive taxation: the benefit associated with that reduction in mean income would be increased equality of opportunity.

The second response to the objection is that, if you think social policy should attempt to maximize national income per capita, then you simply cannot advocate equality of opportunity. These two goals are just not simultaneously achievable. If, indeed, the highly skilled would to some degree withdraw their talents from productive use if their incomes were highly taxed, then maximizing mean income in a society could only be accomplished at the expense of equalizing opportunities. Thus, to the extent that our society measures its economic success by the rate of growth of mean income (i.e., GNP per capita), it is not measuring success by the extent to which society achieves equal-opportunity. If we rigorously adopt an equality-of-opportunity ethic, then we must redesign our statistical measures of what constitutes economically successful social policy."