Hi Stephen,

I never said that you are a socialist - I do appreciate your effort to find a middle ground. The question that you propose has been asked for hundreds of years, and I believe it will continue to be asked. It is asked directly by Scanlon in the late twentieth century and I believe he reached a similar conclusion to yours.

The distinction that I would make between what Scanlon and yourself propose, and what I am suggesting, is what it is that people owe each other; you state that is courtesy and respect and I do not disagree - this can lead to far healthier society and it is unfortunate we do not see more. However, I disagree that this should be applied to economics: I may owe you basic courtesy or respect, but I do not owe you my labor or effort. Not at all. Since capital is just a representation of labor, this would also apply to the results from my labor or effort.

I briefly touch on this distinction earlier in the article when mentioning equality of opportunity vs. equality of outcome. Capitalism stresses that there is an equal opportunity to those that are governed by this system while collectivism (nordic, socialism, communism, etc) aims for equality of outcome even for those that have not put forth the same level of productive work. The statistics I mention from Johan Norberg (who is Swedish) show the astounding prosperity such a system brings.

Cheers, Adam