"The Word Itself To be clear, I don’t actually care if people use the word “redistribution.” I think some people thought I was against that. I am not. I use it plenty. The word is ambiguous though. It can mean changing the distributive rules from one thing to another. It can be a purely relatively term that is used to quantify the difference between two distributions. It can mean deviating from the Everyday Libertarian distribution (the pre-tax market income, if you will). I honestly don’t mind when people use it to mean all of these things. I do it plenty. It’s fine."
If redistribution can mean changing the rules from one thing to another something must actually be redistributed every time a rule is changed.
If I am making $500 a week from an employer (the distribution baseline), and the state takes $75 of it and gives it to a third party increasing their income from $250 to $325 a week, my income has been redistributed to them. If the rules change again and the state stops taking that $75 a week, the third parties income drops back down to their income of $250 and mine back to $500. but there's no redistribution of income happening here, just the initial distribution from employer to employee.
If the rules change and the state stops taking the $75 but instead starts taking $50, that is still redistribution of income. But, I can't see the logic in claiming EVERY rule change, specifically a rule where the state stops taking income all together and instead enforces property rights and voluntary contracts is redistribution.
I think, and i could be mistaken, that you're claiming when the state changes the rules to take that $75 from my income and give it to a third party that if the rules change back that i am taking that $75 from the third parties income and it's being redistributed to me. My problem with this is that the math and the philosophy don't support this theory.
Maybe you can clarify these points for me.
"The distribution baseline... LOL"
You claim there are two separate baselines, the 'libertarian baseline' and the 'every change baseline', I argue there is only the libertarian baseline. There has to be an initial voluntary trade of rivalrous goods and/or labor in order to make a change and redistribute the rivalrous goods within that trade. That initial transaction is the libertarian baseline, or what I'm calling the distribution baseline. Every change made after that initial trade isn't a new and separate baseline because the libertarian baseline still exists and is the core of every change made. I'm using the term 'the distribution baseline' because there is only one baseline.
Do you still claim EVERY rule change, including the scenario i gave in my previous comment, is 'redistribution'?
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