Resolved: Redistribution is ethical

Both Con and I accept that the goal of redistribution is ethical. An excellent start. Now, I think I'll start by refuting Con's points.C1: So?When we get down to it, why is theft bad? Surely there must be a reason; it's not enough to say that theft is theft, therefore it is bad. We would not consider theft bad if theft had never hurt anyone. Rather, we recognize that theft generally does more harm than good, both by making people feel unsafe and by hurting them financially/emotionally. Meanwhile, theft is generally not essential for the thief to receive a benefit that balances out or outweighs the harm incured by the victim.But that doesn't mean theft is innately wrong. Would it be wrong to steal a sample of medicine from a pharamacist, after you had exhausted all other methods available to you, to cure a loved one? If so, why? The pharmacist doesn't depend upon that single item. You offered to pay a fair price (ie what you could afford). He refused. There is no other option. If you do not act someone you love will die.I agree that intents do not matter. The ends do, though. Option one: Theft performed. Loved one does not die. Option two: No theft. Loved one dies.Either way, harm is done. But the first way, the harm is minimized. The ends do justify the means... it's just important to realize that the ends aren't just what you intend, they include what you do. The ends are simply the end state of the world due to your actions.C2: The Moral Goals of Redistribution Are ReachedThe goal of redistribution is not to increase GDP, or to promote business. It is to make sure that people down on their luck survive, and can get another job. Let us look at studies. There are obvious abstract issues. Part of redistribution, for example, is being able to have a home. Given much of the prevailing opinion in this country (USA), it is logical to assume that being able to list an address that was not a homeless shelter would increase one's chances of getting a job, thus by extension increasing their chances of becoming independent. We live in a culture that glorifies the ability to have cool stuff. Redistribution provides the minimal amount of stuff necessary for sanity and survival. If someone wants a nicer car, or better books, or a nice television, or an expensive piece of art, that requires not just living on welfare. For that matter, much welfare currently doesn't even meet the poverty line.[5] Obviously, redistribution lowers income inequality; I think we can all agree on that. This is called the Pigou–Dalton principle. Income inequality is positively correlated with violence, for instance.[1][4] It is also positively correlated with obesity, diabete mortality, and general bad eating habits.[2] This is believed to be due to the stresses of living in a heavily hierarchal society. Income inequality also increases corruption.[3] Obviously, in the event of corruption income inequality can easily increase, as rich people plan to make themselves richer. Con references the Heritage Foundation. However, Con is cherry-picking data. For instance, if we look at government spending, which is closer to redistribution than the wide range of items sampled by the Index, we see that Sweden, Norway, and France all do very poorly, but Slovakia, Albania, and Armenia do just great. Yet overall, Sweden is better than Albania. Why? Because Albania has poor property rights, labor freedom, and freedom from corruption. Meanwhile Sweden has a very low score in government spending and fiscal freedom, and a rather low score in labor freedom, but scores in the eighties and nineties for everything else.[6] The Index was never meant to judge redistribution alone. It was meant to judge many factors, many of which countries with high levels of redistribution (Scandenavia, many European countries) are better at than us. And it is not a measure of overall freedom. Remember that Hong Kong is a special section of China, and is subject to many of the same restrictions. For instance, censorship.[7] As we can see, I don't need to make my own point. I can simply use prove the negative of Con's argument to make my own. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... http://www.nytimes.com... http://www.economics.cornell.edu... http://www.huppi.com... http://www.heritage.org... http://en.wikipedia.org...