On capital vs. information: don’t accept that. If means of production are outmoded and indeterminate, then I guess you wouldn’t oppose a one-time redistribution along egalitarian lines of all the UK’s (or US’s) capital (and land, and property) among its citizens. The ones with all the information will remain unaltered, as so still advantaged as you say. Ditto the justification for hiking inheritance taxes (and lowering income taxes) to pay for redistribution. Take away the advantages of means and let proper free markets reign. And information is only of value to those who are able to use it. I’m guessing the differences in your family are between very intelligent and just plain intelligent. Hardly relevant here. I agree hard work should be rewarded, and handsomely; but bad luck, or accidents of birth and upbringing, shouldn’t be punished.

As I said, we’ll never agree. I don’t see redistribution as doing the poor a favour. Just giving them back what’s theirs.

Let us note the following about Finland; their unemployment rate stands at about 10% — nearly double that of the U.K. or the U.S. Their per capita income is less than 75% of America’s.

It should also be noted that of the top 25 companies in the U.S., 19 did not exist 40 years ago. Finland has nowhere near that level of entrepreneurship.

Returning to personal experience (and I realize it’s far from dispositive), every small businessperson I know in Finland has failed. My wife would love to start a business in Finland, but she knows it would be virtually impossible, groaning under the yoke of so many regs and taxes. Ask anybody who’s done business in both countries, and see what they say. I don’t have personal experience there, but I’d wager anything that it’s easier to start a business in the U.K. too than in Finland.

On the issue of “differential access to the means of production, to capital”… well, it should be clear by now that “access to the means of pruduction” or even to capital is not the dispositive factor in whether one becomes wealthy or not in a modern society. The focus on the means of production is an archaic 19th century obsession, outmoded in our information age. It’s all about control over information, now.

I’d argue that it’s about more than that — it’s about hard work. How many incredibly smart people do you know who just flounder in book shops or other retail dead-end jobs, because they don’t have the cojones, or the motivation, to work hard and get ahead financially. Does the term “slacker” mean anything to you?

Some of the wealthiest people in my family, for instance, are not the smartest. In fact, the three wealthiest never even graduated university. They were simply the hardest-working among us. Meanwhile, here I am, an overeducated slacker wasting precious time posting on a British blog, while they’re out there earning millions. It isn’t fair, I tell you. There ought to be a program to help poor sods like me….

If you can’t “agree that people end up poor simply through limited chances”, how do you explain the limited (and maybe even falling) levels of social mobility in especially Anglo-Saxon economies? There’s a determinism in the social class you enter life in – it’s not a favour we’re doing the poor by redistributing, but giving them what they are justly owed. At the very minimum, a living wage (not, though, a ‘living in Bel Air’ wage).

And:
_The problem is, the more redistribution in a society, the less chances there are for economic advancement. A redistributive structure undermines free enterprise._
…is demonstrably false. The OECD rates Finland as the freest economy in the world, the Fraser Institute rates its level of business regulation only just behind Hong Kong, and the crazyloon Heritage Foundation rate it (aswell as Denmark and Sweden) in their top tier of ‘economic freedom’. It’s one of the most dynamic economies in the world, and over 50% of GDP is spent by the government in redistribution and benefits.

Then we are in agreement. We shall compensate the disabled and the elderly. There is no way to determine which of the rest of the poor were affected through no fault of their own. Therefore we should “compensate” (provide a temporary safety net to — I abhor calling it “compensation,” as if they were victims of a tort) them, but not the able-bodied poor.

Again, I agree that we ought to provide a temporary safety net for the able-bodied poor. But to provide a permanent one is sheer folly. Anybody who knows anything about human nature knows that you will simply be prolonging their misery. More than that, you will be creating a multi-generational dependency, as the children who grow up in such an environment will adopt the same dependency.

Note that I’m not arguing in favour of current methods of redistribution – I just think some form of ‘insurance-style’ scheme is appropriate and moral.

As for an exception for the disabled and the elderly, frankly, I don’t anybody really minds if they develop a dependency on government assistance. There is a categorical distinction between them and the able-bodied, working-age poor, don’t you think? If I have to elaborate on that further, let me know and I will.