[Jabanga]

But we're not punishing them. We're simply not taking, by force, money from one person, to spend it raising the children of another.

If we force people to subsidize other people's poor children, we create perverse incentives to have a maximum number of children with minimum personal investment in each. It cannot end well for society.

[Goronmon]

If we force people to subsidize other people's poor children, we create perverse incentives to have a maximum number of children with minimum personal investment in each. It cannot end well for society.

You have it reversed. Not providing, say, an education to all children, regardless of parental investment, will leave us with a large number of uneducated citizens languishing to fend for themselves. That sounds pretty bad for society.

Not sure how your making the case that educating children ends up poorly for everyone...unless, of course, you mean that it's harder for the wealthy and powerful to control an educated populace compared to an uneducated one.

We're simply not taking, by force, money from one person, to spend it raising the children of another.

No one is forced to live in a country that provides for it citizens. People can always choose to leave if they feel it's unfair to have basic responsibilities like paying taxes.

[Jabanga]

Historically that's not what has happened. Before the era of government education, education was improving rapidly, with literacy rates rising.

As government involvement in education has increased, education outcomes have stopped improving:

https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/111/3/671/1839...

I'm making the case that forcing people to pay for the costs of raising poor children will create an incentive for people to produce poor children.

[openasocket]

First off, your link explicitly blames teacher's unions, not government involvement, for the lack of increase in education outcomes.

You think there are poor people out there thinking: "hey I can have a bunch of kids and they'll all get free educations, let's do it!" Why would they? So that the kid will grow up and get a great job and support them? That's not so much a get-rich-quick scheme as it is a get-rich-in-twenty-to-thirty-years scheme. Plus you'd still have to raise a bunch of kids, which isn't exactly a walk in the park.

And the evidence is on my side. Increased access to education is associated with lower fertility rates, not higher: http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/completingfert...

[Jabanga]

Centralising spending in the hands of a monopoly inevitably leads to rent-seeking behavior, like the rise of teachers unions and legislation like collective bargaining acts.

I think the net level of support people can expect their children to receive from redistributive programs plays a role in their decision to have children when they have low income. It's also important to note that it won't just be schooling if the goal is to provide equality of opportunity. It will have to be food as well, and other resources needed to have an equal opportunity.

As for education and fertility rates, this is not guaranteed to last. Formal education is not something humans were evolved for. But evolution has a way of quickly adapting to maximize its programmed objective: reproduction.

[openasocket]

> As for education and fertility rates, this is not guaranteed to last

That is not a valid retort. You can't just take a bunch of data points and discard all of them because "evolution has a way". I'm not extrapolating based on this data: these studies show that improving access to education in a wide variety of regions and cultures decreases fertility. These are completely valid statistics and research demonstrating that education is correlated with reduced fertility, you can't discard them with idle speculation. If you have evidence demonstrating your position, we can talk.

[Jabanga]

Evolution is a well understood phenomenon. It's reasonable to extrapolate its long term effect, especially when very high levels of government spending on education is such a recent phenomenon.

[openasocket]

You're talking like we don't do these things already. We've have public schools for over a century, we have various forms of welfare, all kinds of special grant programs to help the poor pay for college, etc. And society hasn't collapsed, the poor aren't popping out a dozen kids because they know they get free primary education. All people are proposing is that we improve these programs. It's not an ideological argument, it's a negotiation over degrees.

[Jabanga]

How redistributive were public schools 100 years ago, when they were almost exclusively paid for by local taxes within communities where people had very similar levels of income, and when education spending as a share of GDP was miniscule compared to today?

I would argue that the harm of redistribution has historically been more than counterbalanced by the accelerating rate of technological innovation, but that the last 40 years suggests that the growth of the harmful effects of welfarism are starting to outpace the accelerating natural-rate of innovation. That's what GDP and income growth figures would suggest to me. Also the explosion in single parenthood.

[openasocket]

Subsidizing education is absolutely not redistribution of wealth! It is an investment. Giving a child a good education increases that child's lifelong income, some of which is taken as tax, which can mean putting money into education can result in a profit over time. This is especially true when you consider that giving a child a good education decreases their likelihood of having to live on welfare or unemployment. Not to mention that having a better education decreases criminality! You think welfare is expensive, consider that it costs about $50K a year to hold a person in prison. And I'm just talking about money: there's all kinds of benefits to society as a whole when the populace is better educated. Decreased crime rates means fewer robberies, rapes and murders. A better educated workforce means a larger talent pool for high-tech companies, which is matched by an increased demand for various products.

So don't just write off publicly subsidized education as wealth redistribution!

[Jabanga]

It is a component of child-rearing. Forcing people to pay for the education of other people is redistributive.

If it's truly an investment, we could let the student loan market handle it, since the returns (in increased income) exceed the costs.

As for social benefits, I believe the negative effect of encouraging people to have children when they're not capable of personally supporting them, and of reducing the incentive to be productive, outweighs the positive ones.

Before the era of government education, the level of education in society was improving steadily. I don't see history suggesting that society, left to voluntary relationships and income distribution, enters into a downward spiral.

[openasocket]

> If it's truly an investment, we could let the student loan market handle it, since the returns (in increased income) exceed the costs.

Student loans? I'm talking about primary and secondary education, not college education. I'm assuming you aren't talking about privatizing those and using students loans to funding things, right?

[Jabanga]

I'm saying that if funding primary education produces societal returns, that must mean the net increase in earning potential exceeds the cost of the education, and therefore it would be profitable to issue student loans to the poor parents of children who would make good use of that education.

[Rapzid]

Only 100 years ago? A lot? It appears the federal government has been involved in public education nearly from the start. Article I Section 8 of the constitution provides impetus; "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;". From the very start the federal government has provided land grants for public schools, and States have been happily applying funds received from the federal government to the costs of education.

[Jabanga]

The federal department of education was only created in 1980. All government spending on education, as a percentage of GDP, was a tiny fraction of what it is today. And the revenue for the education spending was weighted far more towards local sources, making it less redistributive.

[Rapzid]

Which superseded the Office of Education, established in 1867. I don't believe the solid historical foundations supporting your point of view(or adopted point of view for playing devils advocate) exist. Even if it did exist I doubt many people are in a hurry to revert our society and education system along with it back to 1789.

I think you would have a hard time finding any credible sources that indicate public education has been anything but good for the world. Cherry picking historical facts and turning a revisionists blind eye to our country's history won't help. As well, the debate over which LEVEL of government should be paying for education is orthogonal to the merits.

[Jabanga]

From a quick reading, it seems like the Office of Education was a small statistics gathering department with a very limited budget and role. The redistributive aspect of government education spending has increased substantially over the last century and a half. This goes back to the debate over whether society benefits if it guarantees equality of opportunity, and whether history vindicates the claim. Education outcomes have been stagnant for the past 40 years, during the era with the greatest amount of government spending and redistributive spending.

Whether it's a small community, with high levels of income homogeneity, funding the public education, or the federal government, is not orthogonal to the debate on guaranteeing equality of opportunity. The massive increase in government spending (at all levels, federal, state and local) on education is also not orthogonal to the debate.

Several economists have looked at the history of education and concluded that we would have been better off if we never transitioned from nongovernment to government education. The trends in place before public education was created were toward greater literacy and education.

[ZoeZoeBee]

First Land Grants for Public Schools came about with the Morill Act in 1862

https://www.nap.edu/read/4980/chapter/2

[Rapzid]

Perhaps for the sole purpose of schools(I don't know). However, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Ordinance_of_1785

I'm not sure what arguing over the minutia even accomplishes. I feel like I'm chasing a goal post all over my Friday afternoon. Government support for schooling has been provided by every level of the US government stack(municipal, county, state, federal) since WAY BACK, even to colonial times, to varying degrees. Public access to and public funding of education has increased along the way, yes.

[Rapzid]

And has more than just not collapsed. Public education is an advancement just as important as any other I can think of. "The public school is the greatest discovery made by man." - Horace Mann. Possibly an exaggeration, but I'm not convinced the importance of public education to our society can be overstated. Everyone alive today is benefiting from a society rooted in public education.

[kefka]

Yeah, I know right? Those poor people's kids don't deserve:

Clean water, electricity, a home, education, or any of those "rich people" things. If they did deserve it, they'd have them. Since they dont, they deserve a life of misery, suffering, and edging to destitution.

^^^ If you can understand the above, its the reason why youre on the wrong side of history here. You can couch the discussion as "stealing from the rich"... But in the end, we all should have equal access and usage to the essentials of life. We have more than enough resources; there just being hoarded by greedy people who are great at explaining why they deserve it.

[Jabanga]

They don't deserve to take someone else's money by force, in order to pay for those things. I don't think opposing forced income redistribution puts me on the side of history.

[kefka]

And you're internalizing "take someone else's money by force". This really goes back to Americans being temporarily embarrassed capitalists, regardless their real financial livelihood. And working-class thinks that we're talking about them when it comes to "We're gonna take their money" - We are, some. But we're also going to provide a baseline for everyone no matter what.

> I don't think opposing forced income redistribution puts me on the side of history.

And here we go again. This is a matter of "How does the government serve the citizenry". And right now, not very well. Government's current modus operandi is to privatize the gains and socialize the losses. In other words, their gains is on the backs of our losses. And from that, we have a legitimate claim on those gains, as they should be socialized as well.

Why? Because people who are rich did not do so themselves in a little bubble. Their successes rest in part on all of us. And it is easy to say, and act, that they need to pay their fair share. And that fair share would be sufficient in providing basic necessities to everyone, regardless of financial need.

People can still make profit, and thrive. I'm not advocating traditional communism. I'm advocating a blend, where the minimums are taken care of. People can still thrive and profit - they just won't be able to stand on our backs for them to get ahead.

[Jabanga]

>This is a matter of "How does the government serve the citizenry".

By taking other people's income? I don't think that's fair.

>Because people who are rich did not do so themselves in a little bubble. Their successes rest in part on all of us.

That doesn't seem like a scientific way to determine how much one owes another person. In my opinion it's not consistent with the principle of justice. It's a very sweeping generalization.

>People can still thrive and profit - they just won't be able to stand on our backs for them to get ahead.

How would they be standing on our backs in the absence of forcible redistribution?

[kefka]

> By taking other people's income? I don't think that's fair.

But you don't ask that when they extract peoples' money on the upswing. Only when I express that "socialism for losses and privatization for profits" do you have any problem with fairness.

> That doesn't seem like a scientific way to determine how much one owes another person. In my opinion it's not consistent with the principle of justice. It's a very sweeping generalization.

You want scientific and fair? We the people should own the proceeds from public lands. And that should be used to bolster lowering costs on food, electricity, water, and other resources.

Instead, our government is making "Deals" like selling whole trees for $3 to a wood cutter. Trees are usually in the range from $1000-$50000 , yet some private entity benefits on public's socialism.

Or we have eminent domain so some company can build something. Doesn't matter if it's not for public works. Again, socialism for the rich, and capitalism for the poor.

> How would they be standing on our backs in the absence of forcible redistribution?

Well, you seem to be an Ancap type, given your economic theory. Well, they'd just pay people to serve as a private militia to protect them. Like Somalia. Because people with pitchforks would come out, and take care of this and properly distribute.

Yeah, people can be richer than others... But there's a point that fairness surpasses when you have 1 person (or company) that owns an impressive amount of goods. We only look no further than environmental, societal, local, and government destruction due to extreme clout.

[Jabanga]

>But you don't ask that when they extract peoples' money on the upswing.

I always ask that.

>You want scientific and fair? We the people should own the proceeds from public lands.

The proceeds of public land is not sufficient to pay for a sizeable welfare state. All land in the US is worth $23 trillion. Assuming a tax equal to 3% of its value is levied per year, that would raise a little less than $700 million.

That has to first be spent on the essentials, like interstate highways, federal courts, and national defence. There's nothing left for welfare. Even if there were, it would better serve society to spend it on general goods to boost productivity, rather than private goods for the poor that discourage it.

No I'm not an ancap.

>But there's a point that fairness surpasses when you have 1 person (or company) that owns an impressive amount of goods.

I don't see this being based on a principle of justice. It's just a gut feeling, which will be highly susceptible to our biases.

[CuriouslyC]

Every capitalist fortune can be trace to appropriation of shared culture and resources. Nothing is created from nothing. The people cede control of culture and resources so that they might maximize the shared good. Intellectual and physical property rights are a grant by the people. Redistribution of income as a condition of that grant is an agreement, not stealing.

[Jabanga]

If you're alleging a particular fortune traces its roots to an illegitimate acquisition, then prove it in a court of law, in front of a jury of your peers. Your statement is a sweeping generalization, and prejudicial indictment, and that is in my opinion not consistent with basic principles of justice.

I personally believe we have a natural right to our private property. Otherwise, why stop at our physical possessions, and not go to our physical body as well?

[nailer]

We force people to pay for roads, firefighters, police, healthcare and ensure all children have the same opportunity.

Healthy adults can stand for themselves, children and the ill need protection.

[Jabanga]

But that's not a justification. That's just telling me we do this a lot.

[eli_gottlieb]

Look, if you want to drag out the old "taxation is theft" chestnut, I'm going to drag out the "property is theft" chestnut, and everyone else can drag out their old chestnuts, and we can totally derail the thread.

Do you want to derail the thread just to vomit out slogans we've all heard a thousand times and found wanting?

[Jabanga]

I don't think that's very constructive. The parent comment said [X] should be the rallying cry. I said in my opinion it shouldn't, and I gave my rationale. By all means bring out your chestnuts. I welcome a rigorous discussion, instead of blind conformity to mainstream political mores.

[eli_gottlieb]

No, you don't welcome a rigorous discussion. You want to repeat discussions we've already had, in which you were not persuaded to others' points of view, and you didn't persuade them either. The likelihood that we'll all see the divine light of von Mises and convert this time is extraordinarily low. Stop trying.

[nailer]

> The likelihood that we'll all see the divine light of von Mises and convert this time is extraordinarily low.

I disagree with Jabanga but the "market incentive to pay for smart kids to learn" is interesting - I'd say it's also very risky - a poor child's parents don't want to pay for the child's education, they're not smart, they decide to rob people, this isn't good for anyone.

But I welcome the discussion and Jabanga has been polite so far.

[Jabanga]

I'm expressing my views. It's not constructive to tell people with minority viewpoints to stop expressing them.

I did nothing more than what the parent comment did.

I also don't think we're in a position to judge the full impact of our words on others, so I don't accept your assessment that no minds were changed by the previous discussions.

[nailer]

You're right, it's not a justification. The reason I think we do all those things is because it's good for society: there might be talented kids that have poor parents, so giving them a good start in life creates more successful adults. More successful adults is good for the economy and for the harmoniousness of society.

[Jabanga]

We could provide people with the market means to provide student loans to the parents of promising children. Then the market will take care of it, without any compulsion, and far more effectively than a nondiscriminating blanket redistribution based solely on reported income levels.

I personally think that guaranteeing equality of opportunity will have more negative social effects than positive, by reducing incentive to produce resources in order to provide for one's own children, since one can instead be poor and let the state force other people to pay for their upbringing.

[CuriouslyC]

What cannot end well for society is an underclass with limited social mobility and access to guns.

If justice is the greatest happiness for the greatest number, some degree of equitable income redistribution is a moral imperative. The exact degree needs to be experimentally determined, as income redistribution does reduce individual autonomy (which has the side effect of reducing happiness) and incentive to work (which results in less wealth to redistribute). The exact amount is also probably population specific, with cohesive, homogeneous populations tolerating more redistribution.

[Jabanga]

The standard of living of the world's poor is improving faster than ever. I don't see cause to be concerned about a violent revolution.

As for the greater good justification: given income redistribution reduces how much wealth is generated, which you acknowledge, it goes to reason that over an infinite timescale, the society without income redistribution will become infinitely wealthier than the one with. A permanent boost to the exponent of economic growth leads, over a long enough time period, to a cumulatively larger gain for the welfare of the poor than any increase in redistribution could provide them, since the benefits of a permanent increase in the growth rate are recurring.

[AbrahamParangi]

I'd argue that Society is literally the business of using force to align incentives towards global optima.

In the same way that society taxes you to pay for goods and services that others use, others are taxed to pay for services that you use. Society does this because it has been historically more adaptive to make everyone pay for roads, fire departments, and strategic bombers regardless of whether or not they actually want them.

If you don't think people should be forced to pay for things that others use, I challenge you to find a society where this doesn't happen.

[Jabanga]

I find that to be an odd definition of society. I think you mean government. And I don't believe redistribution from effective producers of economic resources to less effective producers is societally beneficial.