Why some beneficiaries do not like redistribution

In a <recent post> I argued that moral responsibility depended on the concept of free will and consciousness. Actually, the same holds not just for moral responsibility but any kind of responsibility at all.

One issue at the center of US political debate is redistribution. To what extent should we tax the wealthy and those with high incomes in order to provide services for those who are poor?

The classic conservative argument is roughly, "I've worked hard to get where I am and I'm proud of it. Those people who want help are lazy. People who try hard can make it and don't need help." As you might expect, you hear this argument more from people who are wealthier and more successful, but you also hear it from those who don't have much but are proud of what they do have and can see how they would have even less if they hadn't worked hard and been prudent.

The liberal argument is roughly, "Those who are successful have made it partly through their hard work, but they have also made it through the advantages that come from a privileged background, maybe even good genes. Some have literally inherited their wealth, for some luck has played a large role, and some got where they are from illegal and unethical dealings. So it's right that they have more money than other people, but it's also perfectly fine to take some of what they have earned by way of taxes."

So, how much responsibility do we have for how our lives go? If we have no free will, then we aren't responsible at all, but as I have argued no one can really live without the idea that they make choices freely. But even if you allow for free will, science would strongly suggest that factors outside of a person's control have a great deal to do with how well they do in life.

It is apparent to even conservatives that some people are not responsible for their ill fortune, including those born with severe intellectual or physical handicaps. And I believe most will support the idea of helping out such people through government action or private charity.

But a key issue is not just how much control we have over our lives but how much control we want to believe we have. Answer: people want to believe they have control. This is one explanation for why so many poorer Americans vote against their own economic interests. It may not be pleasant to think that they are poor because they haven't worked hard and been prudent. But it might be even more unpleasant to think that they really didn't have much control -- they would still be poor even if they had tried harder. The one reflects poorly on them as individuals, the other undermines their whole idea of humans having control over their destiny. This could also explain why some poor people don't want to tax the wealthy more -- they judge that the wealthy made it through their own choices and should be able to enjoy what they made.

The formulation of the liberal view taken to an extreme is, "From each according to his means, to each according to his needs." It is a truly noble idea. We all work for the benefit of all. The problem comes in practice. Most people value the well-being of their own families more than the society at large. If their level of effort has no effect on how well-off their families are, that is lack of control over what they value, and most of them stop working hard. That is an argument for why we should reward those who succeed far more than the share of their success that is due to their own efforts. Suppose for instance that we say that 90% of a person's success is due to factors beyond their control and 10% to their own efforts. That might suggest taxing 90% of everyone's income and redistributing it according to need. But how people respond to incentives suggests that we should actually let successful people keep far more than 10% -- many times more.

It's also worth reflecting that the idea of government safety net programs is quite a modern invention. It depends on having a considerable degree of wealth in a society. In the US it originated in the 1930s with New Deal programs. Before that, the assumption was that those who couldn't find a way to eke out a living would just die -- which is of course the way the entire natural world operates. Safety nets may be a recent invention, but they are a wonderful one.

I favor a considerable degree of economic redistribution -- universal health insurance, subsidized child care, a vastly expanded earned income credit, perhaps a guaranteed basic income, to name a few -- but have sketched out some reasons for why there is resistance to these ideas even among those who would benefit from them.