Absolute and relative outcomes and individual effort

Reading Sowell's thoughts on justice and "social justice" in The Quest for Cosmic Justice prompts a thought about one of the issues with which I continue to wrestle. I believe in the agency of man and yet have to acknowledge the element of fortune in terms of the outcomes actually achieved. There are a number of ways of reconciling these contra ideas including the acknowledgment that both might be true simultaneously as Alice discovered in Wonderland.

Perhaps it is also the case that one's absolute outcomes are substantially predictable based on luck of the draw. Nothing is fixed, but you are more likely to end up rich if born into a wealthy family, born into a particular social class, in a particular country, in a particular era. This would explain the startling comparison made by Branko Milanovic in his book The Haves and The Have Nots, where America's poorest are, in absolute terms, better off than all but the very richest of Indians.



However, while absolute outcomes are predicated on fortune, perhaps it is the case that one's relative outcomes are based on personal volition. Being born into any income quintile in the United States means you are going to better off without any effort than most other people in the world. But which quintile you are in within the United States is predictable based on one's own efforts and is driven by such things as will, effort, self-control, self-discipline, futurity orientation, etc.