From a more realistic point of view, this is exclusively about the financial aspect of the relationship between a father and a child, that will probably become much less important in a society where all the basic needs are satisfied by the state. If the best college is public and free (I would also be glad if you stopped using college expenses as an argument, because in such a socialistic situation they wouldn't be necessary) then the father will find more meaningful ways to show his love.
College is redicilous. We already waste 12 years of our lives sitting through school. After 12 years, we are then expected to go to college for another 4 to 6 years.
The problem with state run college are the following:
1. Free College Makes Finding Work Even HarderThis has everything to do with supply and demand. Ideally, we want as many people to go to college as there is a demand for college level jobs. Too few, and we have a greater demand for college students, making college a more valuable investment with higher guarantees to get a job. But if you give everyone free college, you get far more people with degrees than what is in demand. This results in many places hiring people based on whether they went to college or not, even when it's not a college level job. To add insult to injury, they hire people with degrees that have nothing to do with their career.
Employers want to hire people who are committed, and college is a great way to show commitment. Whenever free college is introduced, it essentially forces everyone to go to college if they want to make a decent living. This leads me to my next point.
2. Government Funded College Kills Better AlternativesCollege is a broken system. It's incredibly expensive and time consuming. It could EASILY become more efficient, more affordable, and less time consuming. When you have government paying for college, you prohibit change.
You have to understand how business works. Money represents value, and people have to measure whether something is worth trading money for. If the U.S. government wasn't handing out so many college loans, most people who are dependent on those loans wouldn't be going to college, at least they wouldn't be if said colleges didn't change the way they operate.
If people decide college isn't worth going to, the college needs to find ways to become cheaper, more effective, and less time consuming. If they don't make these changes, they go out of business. But since the government prohibits this debt by giving people money to go to college, the college never aims for better efficiency.
Imagine if you own a restaurant with over priced food. You're the only restaurant in town. Few people will eat at your restaurant because they would rather make food at home. Because people would rather eat at home, you're forced to lower prices as well as find more efficient methods of making the food. If the government gave people money to eat at you restaurant, however, then you would have no reason to make improvements! You're making a profit because the government is keeping you in business.
Liberals hate monopolies. They hate it when the government bails businesses out because those businesses should be allowed to die for being reckless. But as soon as we medicine or school, the mindset completely changes. Instead of letting inefficient schools go bankrupt and more efficient schools gain more business, we give students loans to go to the inefficient schools.
One of the biggest, most irrational fears, is that people will stop going to college if the government doesn't hand out loans. If nobody goes to college, most colleges will go bankrupt. If most of these colleges go bankrupt, there will be no higher education! Well, fear not, because like ALL successful business models (that don't rely on government aid or coercion), these institutions WILL find ways of becoming more efficient.
College isn't supposed to be something that's so cheap anyone can get in. Granted, it shouldn't only be available to the rich. We want college to be cheap enough where anyone can find ways of paying for it without inheriting piles of debt, while at the same time being expensive enough to where people will only go to college if it's really worth it.
3. Over Qualification
This has to do with supply and demand.
There are only so many college level jobs available. The goal is to have the supply of workers and demand for said workers be relatively the same. When you offer "free" college, more people end up with college degrees, raising supply.
When too many people have college degrees, only a handful of them end up with the limited number of college level jobs. So now you have people with degrees and no college level job, so they find cheaper work that only requires a high school degree. Employers are more inclined to hire college graduates because they show commitment and because they have more incentive to pay off their debts.
So what does this mean? It means you have high school level jobs being filled with college students. It becomes more difficult for high school graduates to find higher level paying jobs. It then forces high school graduates to go to college. But they aren't going to college for college tier jobs, they're going to college so they can make a DECENT wage.
I don't want everyone to go to college. I know this sounds evil and cold hearted, but it's the exact opposite. We should aim to have enough college students to meet the demand of college level jobs. When people have to start going to college just to make a decent career in something a high schooler could have easily figured out, then we're just wasting time and money.
But wait, you want college to be free for everyone, right? So why did I continue to talk about costs? Understand, nothing is truly free. If you pay for students to go to college, you still have to pay college prices. When the government pays for you college, you didn't get it for free, you pay for it through your taxes involuntarily.
Yes. I do believe it IS an injustice. I do strongly believe that if they don't work, waste their money on alcohol, or had a child at the ripe age of 17, it's either because they have been unfortunate with external circumstances, or because they were born already carrying their defects, the latter including lack of willpower, perseverance, or mental strenght, which cause a lack of effort.
We should find ways to fix this problem. We should find ways to motivate these people to become productive members of society.
The handicapped, the retarded or the lazy deserve NOTHING less than the Nobel prize scientist, and it is UNJUST that they get a worse life, since neither ever had a chance to become anything else than what they are.
It's not that much revolutionary of a stance, really. It's just a consequence of scientific determinism.
This determinism is absolute hog wash. It assumes that because people are lazy, they will remain lazy. Even IF this was true, it does NOT justify us giving them the same life style as someone who actually works and become productive member of society.
But, as I stated before, determinism is BOGUS. We DO have free will. To suggest someone will remain lazy due to them being inherently lazy is not reality. These people CAN be motivated to work. People who work hard do so because they either have strong values or they are being rewarded for their hard work. There is plenty of evidence that suggests people can be motivated all around you!
The mentally handicapped should be cared for, but they should also be treated humans as much as possible. Mental retardation exists at multiple different levels. Some people with said handicap are able to work a simple job, where others can not progress mentally past the age of 6.
But we don't need the government to take care of these people, or anyone. YOU should take care of these people. Other people like YOU should take care of these people.
I do believe it IS an injustice.
Believing natural phenomena to be an injustice is like believing in original sin. People aren't being judged by their actions, but the environment in which they were born.
Yes, basing on the stance I described above, I believe that would be the most just thing, but it isn't the point of the heritage critique. That was oriented more to giving each person the same starting conditions, then achieve the level of wealth and affluence they can get. That doesn't make much sense with the morals above, but it takes into consideration that a society's purpose is not only to estabilish justice, but also to ensure the progress of mankind, so giving incentives and motivation to the talented is acceptable, because it can lead to a benefit for the whole society, including the more unfortunate ones.
You're more concerned with making sure everyone starts off equally rather than trying to make sure everyone starts off as well as possible.
Let's look at person A,B,C,D, and the amount of wealth they start off with at birth.
A. 60
B.20
C.15
D.5
What bothers me is that people who make the argument you're making would rather everyone start off with, say, 15 wealth. You improved the condition of 1 person, but you made worse the condition of 2 other people. You see this as more fair, and therefore more progressive.
Progression is increasing the well being of individuals. You may or may not be an exception, but people with your thought process would rather take from the privileged as a means of making things "fair".
That doesn't make much sense with the morals above, but it takes into consideration that a society's purpose is not only to estabilish justice, but also to ensure the progress of mankind, so giving incentives and motivation to the talented is acceptable, because it can lead to a benefit for the whole society, including the more unfortunate ones.
This ALREADY happens in a free society.
There are circumstances in which people don't live up to their full potential, but there are multiple problems with starting them out at the same level.
1. Starting everyone out at the same level does NOT insure people will reach their full potential. Since EVERYONE is born different, some people might require more wealth to reach said potential.
2. There are ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, going to be other factors that effect one's development. Having everyone born into the same wealth won't necisarily make their parents better people, or their communities more friendly, or any of the other influences less effective. By taking money away from one group and giving to another, you still don't achieve your completely unrealistic level of equality.
To sum 1 and 2 together, we're all different. It would be nice if we were all born into a rich family, but we aren't. We can't force this to happen. We have to accept that there are unfortunate circumstances and that we should help them to the best of our own ability, not through taking away from others.
3. The ONLY way to make sure everyone is born into the same wealth is to make sure all families are equally wealthy. Even if you take money from the rich and redistribute it, that money is going to flow differently. Some people will save the money, others will spend it. Some will invest it, others will waste it. This will change the wealth of families and will always be present.
In fact, the above is why communists don't believe in a monetary system.
4. As mentioned earlier, not everyone's parents pass away when they are young. As long as we allow parents to spend money on their children, what you propose is literally impossible. You did mention that we should limit how much a parent can spend on their child, but I can't even begin to delve into how many problems there is with this, how immoral it is, and how it would require an omniscient ruler.
It's not so simple. If I murder someone, you're not going to tell me about my right to make my own decision of killing the guy, nor about my right to place the guy's life wherever I wanted in my priority list, you're going to tell me how it was unfair for him to lose his life. So yeah, if it IS unfair to someone, the society CAN prevent people from making their own decisions. The debate is about whether it's actually unfair, or not.
You'll find that my example was perfectly consistent. All you have to do is apply the
non-aggression principle.
If I kill a man, I initiated force against him against his will. I took direct action towards that person and he didn't even have a say. By giving my money to my son, I have not done anything against his will. If, for one reason or another he doesn't want the money, he is free to decline it!
The only similarity between inheritance and murder is that they're both actions, and I provided a link explaining how you can tell whether an action is acceptable or not.
I guess you're right there, but it's also a matter of priorities. I feel that such huge disparities in starting conditions are a huge injustice, and I think it is far more relevant as a problem than the freedom to gift stuff to people. Also, beside the idealistic point of view where property is holy no matter what, it seems to me that the main concern about losing the right to pass down wealth is that, as the world is now, it would entail a big disadvantage for the heir, while in the heritage-free ideal society it would not, as the state would take care of him in a good enough way.
I don't know why you would even want such a society to exist. Why would you aim for a government that not only takes care of people, but in which you're forced to let the government take care of you? Wouldn't it be better to strive for a society in which the people are efficient at taking care of themselves? And when certain individuals aren't able to help themselves, shouldn't we strive for solutions in which we voluntarily help these individuals?
