Eliminate Luck to Have a More 'Just' World?

Luck, whether good or bad, is an inevitable fact of life that plays an important role in the disparity between people in the world. The contrast between those who enjoy privileges and those who are simultaneously mired in misery is undeniable. Does it make sense to try to reduce disparities by eliminating the "luck factor" from intervening freely?

Zero-Sum Game, Double Standards, and the Golden Rule

An obvious attempt is to redistribute opportunities by taking them away from some to give to others, which is known as a zero-sum game. This type of intervention does not directly affect luck as a cause, but only affects people in a given circumstantial situation. By not touching luck as such, new disparities can arise with this type of intervention. For example, the Affirmative Action programs in the USA that seek to reduce historically created injustices to certain population groups, assign quotas to individuals who have certain characteristics of race, sex, socio-economic status, etc., at the expense of quotas that would meritocratically belong to people from other groups. It is argued that using meritocracy alone is unfair because there are individuals who were lucky enough to have better conditions and took advantage of them to be better prepared than others who had less favorable conditions, which does not allow them to compete on an equal footing.

This redistributive search for justice is based on creating new privileged individuals to replace others. If one skin color influenced gaining advantages, now another color would be the one to do so. This eliminates the universal application of meritocratic criteria but maintains the disparity that was supposedly being reduced. The same happens with other coercive measures like confiscatory taxes towards those who are more productive. Reducing inequalities paradoxically creates new elites that end up amassing enormous power and advantages through this path, making inequalities remain or even increase.

It could be said that those who now control the redistribution of privileges were lucky enough to have convinced the majority to apply the ideas from which they are benefiting. But the application of a double standard, where there are meritocratic demands for some and not for all, means failing to comply with the Golden Rule attributed to Confucius: Do not do to others what you would not like done to you.

Multiculturalism and Disregard for Reciprocity

Simple and clear rules are easy to enforce. In societies where there are freedoms, all people can claim their right to have them. For example, the freedom of worship allows, in countries where it exists, for different religions to build their churches; however, some religions such as Islam come from countries where there is no freedom of worship and, therefore, anyone is not allowed to freely profess other beliefs. The multiculturalist argument is that each society has a worldview that must be respected, and again we find ourselves in a paradox: the demand for universal respect but which, at the same time, is not reciprocally applied. The Golden Rule is again ignored because some demand something for themselves that they are not willing to give to others.

Something similar happens with political ideologies that compete freely in democratic elections so that, after convincing a circumstantial majority, from power they try to eliminate democracy itself. A very trite example is that of Hitler and his democratic rise to power, later establishing a fascist dictatorship. When the conquest of power is done by armed means, as in the cases of Russia, Cuba, China, or North Korea, not only is the Golden Rule not respected, but cynically it ends up being argued that these militarisms are "true" democracies.

Again, it could be said that those who are part of the power in those countries were lucky enough to have triumphed in their wars. But the lack of reciprocity that prevents the alternation in power shows the illegitimate intention of applying double standards to prevent changes that reduce their privileges.

Luck is Contingent, Random or Super-random but not Mechanistic

I recently published an article that explains these four types of phenomena: the contingent is not predictable, but explainable; the random is probabilistically predictable, but not fully explainable; the super-random is neither predictable nor explainable (miracles); and the mechanistic is predictable and explainable (deterministic).

Non-voluntary redistributive policies and the imposition of non-reciprocal demands fundamentally seek to deal with disparities that are the product of processes where luck intervenes. They are attempts to make mechanistic (predictable and explainable) something that cannot be. Simple and clear rules like the Golden Rule, the application of objective meritocratic criteria, or respect for basic principles such as the alternation of power in democracy, are mechanistic ways that produce contexts where, although disparities will not disappear because luck will continue to have its uncontrollable effects, they can be substantially reduced over time. Rules, criteria, principles are jointly parts of a Rule of Law, the Empire of Law where no person or group of people is imposed upon others by some particular condition or characteristic they have: race, sex, status, creed, political affiliation, etc.

Juventus has won many championships, was sanctioned and demoted, returned to the League and won again, then stopped winning... etc. Ultimately, their trajectory shows the mix of work and luck that is their own and unique story. In football, whoever wins many championships, scudettos, or classics is not penalized. Those who break clear rules are penalized, but at the same time, merits are respected. Is it a privilege to belong to a winning, fighting, hardworking team? Yes, it is. But nothing should prevent anyone from belonging to other teams that can become as winning, fighting, and hardworking as Juventus.

In every goal, there is a mix of work and luck. The same is true for every scientific discovery, every successful business venture, every personal and collective happiness. Freedom is also paradoxical because it is not the lack of rules that produces it, but the application of clear, universal, and reciprocally applied rules, which creates that mix of work, luck, and acceptance of results (which some might seem more likable or not than others), that make life in freedom a wonderful experience.

Long live freedom, damn it!