On Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 1:29 PM, Alain Sepeda <alain.sep...@gmail.com> wrote:
Someone in france, Gaspard Koenig support an interesting view on liberalism. > the system should support autonomy, meaning that people should be secure > enough to dare to behave autonomously and not to depend on anybody. > I like this line of thinking. > real efficient behavior for the poor is not to share your wealth but allow > them to produce it. > I think there's another intuition that is behind all of the focus on basic income and economic inequality, at least in the US. There's a general feeling, perhaps even an assumption, that each person should have access to the same opportunity, e.g., to make it big, to invent something new, to write some famous novel, etc., even if they don't capitalize on that opportunity. So a child that grows up in a poor part of Brooklyn should not be limited by that poverty and should be able to go on and do the kinds of things that a person growing up in a prosperous part of northern California might be able to do. For Americans, at any rate, as long as the disparities are small enough to turn a blind eye, which is something we're very good at, then we are able to continue to believe that people have equal opportunity. But in a world in which automation and other changes result in a massive centralization of economic and political power, it is no longer possible to maintain this self-understanding of equal access to opportunity. So if things continue in the present direction, people understand that the poor kid in Brooklyn will have little practical chance of starting some important business, etc., in the same way that we would be amazed if a kid living on the streets of India went on to found a company like Apple. It's possible, of course, but highly unlikely. A sense that things are heading in such a direction might be leading to additional focus and reflection. Eric
