You’re ignoring the tradeoff between helping the current poor and future poor. The current poor would naturally favor the former, but I don’t think that’s an argument for it over the latter.
Class is fairly heritable. To the extent to which we think people ought to make decisions for their descendants, it may make sense to let current poor make decisions that affect the future poor.
If that’s the only issue, we could choose whatever policy helps the most and then compensate current folks by borrowing. Economic growth will be lower and future folks will be poorer, but the policy will be efficient.
As an aside, we don’t really know how wealthy future folks will be. If a Singularity is imminent, it’s probably efficient to liquidate a lot of capital and help current folks more.
You’re ignoring the tradeoff between helping the current poor and future poor. The current poor would naturally favor the former, but I don’t think that’s an argument for it over the latter.
Class is fairly heritable. To the extent to which we think people ought to make decisions for their descendants, it may make sense to let current poor make decisions that affect the future poor.
If that’s the only issue, we could choose whatever policy helps the most and then compensate current folks by borrowing. Economic growth will be lower and future folks will be poorer, but the policy will be efficient.
As an aside, we don’t really know how wealthy future folks will be. If a Singularity is imminent, it’s probably efficient to liquidate a lot of capital and help current folks more.