Happy to see you writing more long-form! Also also, agree with you on many things and disagree on many things but I'll stick to one: the "durable" policies that you're talking about are insurance, not redistribution.

You only get anything out of social security if you paid into it, and what you get (in SS benefits) is increasing in what you put in. The rich get a smaller fraction back, but they also live longer which offsets this somewhat.

Similarly, unemployment insurance is even more proportional e.g. Danish unemployment benefits are 90% of your income, which means richer people get more. It's mildly redistributive because it's funded by a somewhat progressive tax system & richer people are also less likely to be unemployed, but it's not tax-and-transfer.

Both of these are best thought of as insurance (SS against poverty in old age) which private markets cannot provide due to selection effects e.g. people who are unlikely to be fired will opt out of unemployment insurance, raising the price, causjng more people to opt out until UI is no longer viable. Medicare is literally insurance.

So yes, social insurance is durable, but things like SNAP or Medicare or the EITC are a lot more precarious, as we saw last winter when SNAP benefits were suspended during budget negotiations.

I don't think this undermines this essays claims, but "social insurance is not public aid" is a pet bugbear of mine.