Mozi advocated state redistribution toward poor children centuries before any rival tradition

Evidence

Second. State responsibility for children’s welfare extends to all children in the state’s territory. The Mòzǐ argues, in the Frugality chapters, that the resources spent on extravagant funerals, music, and aristocratic display are resources that should be redirected to feeding orphans, clothing children of the poor, housing widows with young children. This is redistributive social policy in the fifth century BCE. It is substantially earlier than any comparable formulation in any other surviving classical tradition. The idea that the state has a positive duty toward all children, regardless of their family of origin — that idea is in Mozi. — , The Rod and the Child, 994

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s running comparison across classical traditions of state responsibility for children. — connects to: Mozi articulated universal moral concern earlier than any other classical tradition — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 973

Related

• Mozi held that all children are equally objects of moral concern (similarity 0.85)
• Mozi articulated universal moral concern earlier than any other classical tradition (similarity 0.83)