Milton Friedman argues against the redistribution of wealth in his passage. He uses the example of finding money on the street to show why someone should not have to share money that they randomly gained. I disagree that the randomness in birth should be his justification for inheritance. Before explaining why I disagree, I will outline Friedman’s entire argument.
His first idea is that people should not be required to give up their belongings, an idea that we are accustomed to. No matter the circumstances, we are all entitled to the things we own. It could be money, property, or material possessions. People should not join forces to coerce someone into giving up their belongings, even if it is for the greater good. Friedman’s second premise is that something is your belonging if it is acquired justly. For instance, when we buy something, we are acknowledging the idea that anything can be ours if we go about getting it in a just manner. The third premise is the justification of a completely random acquisition. The two examples Friedman uses are becoming marooned on a plentiful island and finding a twenty dollar bill in the street. He argues that both of these are random acquisitions, and that the owner has no obligation to share them. The last premise of his argument is that inheritance is random because birth is random. Friedman uses his examples to recreate inheritance in a simpler way. This makes the previous arguments relevant. The fact that inheritance is a product of chance, makes it a justified acquisition. This premise leads directly into the conclusion. Milton Friedman’s overarching point is that each person’s inheritance should not be redistributed in order to even it out with everyone else’s. People randomly have different starting points in life, and that is ok.
I disagree with Friedman’s statement that a random process of getting something is a just process. Friedman underestimates the meaning of random, and tries to analogize partly random scenarios with a completely random process. Finding a dollar bill on the street is not random, and it’s impossible to ignore the slight feeling of deserving of this dollar. I would think to myself “I was paying very close attention to the ground and I noticed it before anyone else did, so I deserve this dollar.” Even if I were stranded in the ocean, I could choose which direction to swim, thereby affecting which island I become marooned on. The lottery of birth is one that nobody consents to nor has any control over.
To more clearly illustrate the problem with Friedman’s belief, I have an example. First, I would like to establish that living the same life from different starting points will almost always result in different ending points. A hardworking person born into poverty will have a very different life than a hardworking person born into wealth. Now, imagine if the “lottery” of birth did not take place at birth. Instead, have everyone be rounded up at the age of eighteen to receive their life’s random starting point. Would it make sense to give a few people a fortune while leaving another group of people with nothing? I assume people would argue to give everyone the same starting point. If you were in that room, what would you want for yourself? When given a voice and an option, the people in the lottery would choose to have equal starting points.
A more relatable example is the Northeastern housing lottery. The system randomly assigns an order for students to select housing for the next year. Say I received one of the best lottery numbers possible. Friedman would see it as justified if I were to make demands to the other people in my housing group. I could force them to pay for my share of the rent because they need my lucky number. The lottery number was randomly assigned to me, so according to Friedman, I should be able to leverage it. I doubt anyone would feel justified doing this. This is applicable since none of us consented to this random process, similar to how children have no choice in the system of birth. We are bound by contract to live on campus and have no input in the process.
Unlike my example, those who agree with Friedman would compare inheritance to genetics, another random lottery that people also do not consent to. They could pose the question “if randomness is an unfair method of inheritance, should we start scientifically leveling the playing field in genetics as well?” The reason I can accept the “lottery” of genetics and not the lottery of inheritance is a simple one: our differences ultimately benefit society as a whole. We need bright individuals to lead companies and we need athletic or artistic individuals to entertain us. Randomness is the best way to select who gets what genes. As long as all genes are present, and everyone has randomly selected talents, we do not need inheritance at birth to randomly select rich people.
If Friedman were to say that wealthy people can give their money to whomever they want, his argument would make sense. But a complete lottery is a terrible way to separate people’s wealth. Not all people born into wealth inherit said wealth, this is because they do not always deserve it.