Equality of Luck

Suppose there are two farmers, Robinson and Friday. There are two distinguishing features of the farmers: Friday drinks beer all day and farms occasionally while Robinson works hard all day and reaps twice as much. Most people would say Robinson's extra earnings are just, since he is rewarded for working twice as hard or because his mind is twice as clear or brilliant. Even though Robinson has more resources than Friday, this also seems fair, since the laws of reality that reward labor and value are applied equally. But let's say that Friday also happens to be lazy, and throws all his empty beer cans onto a heap in the corner, and one day the price of aluminum skyrockets, putting Friday's earnings far above Robinson's. The situation remains fair, since the laws of reality continue to apply equally to each - the price of alluminum was the same for both farmers - even though the outcomes were different. It also remains just, since the rewards for labor and value dictated by the nature of reality remain upheld. Unfortunately, this law does not always operate smoothly. Sometimes there is an element of luck involved which gives outcomes the appearance of injustice and unfairness. This can have a crippling affect on individuals; it shows them that their carefully calculated formulas for estimating the rewards of labor and value were wrong - shattering their entire view of reality and replacing it with an irrational, unpredictable view that is inhospitable to human life. Unfortunately, the only way to sterilize this dangerous and immoral facet of reality would require redistribution, injustice and unfairness, and so we are doomed to cope with and overcome this property, and hope this doesn't involve holding a malleable, uncertain view of reality.

The Economy

Being an economics major, I'm slightly embarrassed to have gone so long without commenting on the current crisis or the government's plan of action (though I have been in some sort of unhealthy denial so far. There's a governmental externality you won't learn about in 101 or 102). I don't have much time to keep up with current events, but from what I can see, Obama and his goons seem to be claiming moral justification for their berserk spending - whatever that means for a "pragmatist". The only way I can make sense of this is if they're hoping to decrease unemployment and therefore dampen suffering. And from what I can tell, they came up with this idea by bastardizing a perfectly good economic rule: Okun's law. Though it isn't so much a law as an observation, Okun pointed out that GDP and employment are proportional: which makes sense - more people making stuff means more stuff is changing hands. What wouldn't make sense is to say that, people moving products around causes them to produce more. GDP is an emergent property of an unimaginable complex system - and it's probably the only system in which one can even conceive of increasing the parts by increasing the outcome. You can't increase the number of neurons in a brain by increasing the level of consciousness, you can't increase the amount of paint in a masterpiece by increasing the amount of art occuring, you can't increase the amount of ram in a computer by increasing its power. And, as we'll see in a few years, you can't benefit the participents of an economy by focusing on the end statement. Okun's law isn't about getting your paycheck and buying things with it - it's about focusing your efforts to create something of value and exchanging it for the product of someone else's labor. And the one thing the government is undeniable incapable of producing something of value.