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DeBoer is missing the entire point of why markets succeed, because he doesn't understand resources. Resources don't "exist", they are created by people.
He who controls the distribution of resources controls everything. If control of resources is given to the creator of resources, more resources will be created. Some create more, some create less, and all can trade with a second party to improve their lot. If a third party is allowed to control the distribution of resources, that third party will accumulate power.
The purpose of markets and equality of opportunity isn't to distribute resources, it's to keep them away from tyrants.
I mostly agree and this is part of my point. But my main goal was not to harp on deBoer or explain why he in particular is wrong. I was trying to explain why many people make this mistake. My thesis is that there is an intuitive but misguided idea that "people who are good deserve to be rewarded and salary/jobs/other opportunities are an appropriate reward" and that this idea leads people away from policies that lead to greater total societal wealth.
However, I think I do have some disagreements with you. First, things are often not so simple as one person single-handedly creating resources. Often, useful products are the coordinated work of many people and it is not so obvious who deserves how much credit or who should "control" the final product. For example, when RIchard Hamming invented error-correcting codes, how much credit did Shannon deserve for inspiring him? How about Bell Labs for giving him the chance to do basic research without any guarantee that it would pay off? How about the university that educated him? And so on.
Also, while I do think that the free market is underrated by many, I also believe that there are some times where some government intervention is useful. Essentially for all the usual intro economics about public goods, externalities and communication costs, etc (as well as for a few slightly more idiosyncratic reasons that I may write a top-level post about some other time).
You are fundamentally misunderstanding my argument. I'm not arguing that Richard Hamming "deserves" the invention. He may have been inspired by one person, hired by another, and educated by a third. His mom probably deserves some credit too, and perhaps his grandmother. As DeBoer says, there's probably plenty of luck involved as well, all the way down the causal chain. I'm not interested in questions of who deserves what.
Perhaps Richard Hamming was merely lucky enough to be the nearest person to the invention when it spontaneously appeared.
That's good enough for me. I would be almost as happy with resources randomly being assigned to individuals by God, so long as there is a custom of not taking those resources away without the consent of the original owner.
What I want to avoid is allowing a third party to decide who "deserves", based on any metric whatsoever - productivity, need, luck, all are equally bad. That third party then has potential jurisdiction over all resources, and becomes a tyrant.
All those are "intro" for a reason. They ignore the fact that a person must decide what is a public good and what is the price of the externality, that person is granted extraordinary power over others, and they will use that power to accrue ever more power. Like democracy, markets are the worst system possible except for all the others.
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