(I think I agree with rousseau's implied meaning here.)
... One of the children makes a lot of money, another is very poor. Does the rich child deserve what he earned?
Does the wolf
deserve to kill and eat the lamb it just outraced?
Discussion of an economics issue
often goes astray as soon as a word like "deserve" is introduced.
I agree. I point this out specifically because this seems to be how the argument is framed in modern discourse. The left will claim '
you won the genetic lottery', the right will claim '
you are intrinsically more able', both to justify their specific political aims and goals.
But as you say, I'd argue that neither is looking at the problem objectively. To me, the starting point of the question is this -
what is the ultimate goal of a community. And the answer to that is to create enough stability to allow individuals in the community to reproduce and raise children. From there I don't think we achieve that stability with radical ideas about how humans
should be, or how their societies
should run. The left will believe that they're the marker of all that is good in the world, and that we need to radically transform society, and fast, to equalize everything. But as we've seen with post-Marxian political philosophy this isn't always a good thing. Change needs to be slow, careful, and deliberate, with the intention of maintaining stability.
Ironically, it's a balance of both of these political philosophies that seems to be what is best at maintaining this stability. Conservatism counter-balances Liberal ideas, Liberal ideas counter-balance Conservatism. When none of our dumb idealism and stupidity is allowed to reach into it's excesses, we get a nice, well-functioning society across time. When people who think they understand reality, but don't, gain power, this is when things get muddled. And the reality is that humans are a species with phenotypic variation who naturally compete with each other, but who thrive in communities that set a fair, and ethical playing field - a balance of both philosophies.