feotakahari

To be fair, stealing inherently reduces social order and security. You can’t feel comfortable saving money if you expect that this money may someday be stolen. It’s also true that people who steal from “the wealthy” are often stealing from people who are also economically struggling (e.g. poor people in Nigeria who think they’re morally justified in ripping off poor people in America, because Americans must be capable of recovering from financial loss, right?) I also have no particular grudge against wealthy people, and there are people who put their wealth to good use helping others.

On the other hand, I can’t reasonably argue that a dollar for a man who has a million dollars is worth as much as a dollar for a man who only has one dollar. If you can’t afford to pay your rent, having just a little more money means a big increase in your happiness. If you’re in a stable position and have satisfied your basic needs, there are only so many things you can do with a little more money in order to become happier. In that sense, free trade commonly produces situations in which resources are not optimally distributed for maximum happiness.

This doesn’t mean I’m encouraging you to go out and try to be Robin Hood. It’s admirable to be Galileo, but a lot of the people I’ve seen invoke Galileo have been misusing and abusing him. And while I admire Martin Luther King Jr.’s efforts to be a “gadfly” and create situations where people were forced to acknowledge and think about racism, a lot of the people on Tumblr who try to imitate his style go too far. Yet still, if you want to go rip off Martin Shkreli, I can’t really argue that you’re doing the wrong thing. Just create more utility with the money than he is.

Side note 1: This is where I really struggle with Internet piracy. Assume you have finite spending money for either a restaurant or a video game. I can argue that pirating the video game is immoral because the game developers might go out of business. But I can also argue that buying the game is immoral, because not spending money at the restaurant may make the restaurant go out of business. Maybe Utilitarianism just isn’t meant to handle artificial scarcity.

Side note 2: In theory, a progressive income tax redistributes money from the rich to programs that can help the poor. Since the tax is expected, it doesn’t reduce social order. Good luck trying to close all the loopholes in the current American tax code, though.