Subject: Distributive Justice

From: [email-masked] (ASP-Disc)
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 19:27:49 -0500

From: Paul V. Torek <[email-masked]>

Bryan Caplan constructs a thought-experiment in which only 
services, not goods, are produced and exchanged.  This is
supposed to present a challenge for redistributionists:
either accept the distribution of wealth that libertarianism
demands for this hypothetical society, or endorse forced
labor.  He thinks (and I agree) that most will choose the
former.  Then he tries to extend this result to the real
world, but there the argument runs aground.

Before I get to the main issue I want to point out that at
least one classic "redistributionist", Rawls, arguably would 
find Caplan's challenge to be no challenge at all.  Here are
his two principles of justice:
        "First: each person is to have an equal right to the
        most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar 
        liberty for others.
        "Second:  social and economic inequalities are to be
        arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected
        to be to everyone's advantage, and (b) attached to
        positions and offices open to all." 
(_A Theory of Justice_, p. 60.)  Note that the first principle
has priority.

The thought-experiment creates a bizarre situation in which the
first principle may do all the work, at least in the economic
realm, while the second comes into play only for social and
political offices and positions.  The Rawlsian, I suspect,
would say "well of course!" to the libertarian prescription
for economic justice in a pure-service society.

But forget about Rawls, and Bryan's fantastic society.  What should
we do in the real world, where production of goods from natural 
resources is absolutely vital?

Well, what objection could there be to allowing individuals to
homestead natural resources, or at least to appropriate things
with which they've mixed their labor?  For starters, there's
the encroachment on the liberty of others, to worry about.  If
I were a libertarian -- and I wanted to be consistent -- I
would find sufficient objection right there.  To see the issue
straight, it's vital to distinguish between factual and
normative statements regarding possession.

"Anna possesses the chestnut" expresses a factual proposition
when it means that Anna has taken control of it.  When it means
instead that Anna owns it -- has a right to it -- the proposition
is normative.  Suppose that Anna is a rat.  Then the first
proposition is easy to accept, whereas even a zealous advocate
of animal rights may balk at the second.

What objection could there be to someone's making use of
unclaimed land?  For my part, none at all.  What objection
could there be to her claim to own it, having used it for
a while?  The objection is that the claim of ownership
requires justification, and the fact of past use doesn't
necessarily provide it.  And what particularly cries out for
justification, is that ownership implies the right to exclude
others, *by force* if friendly persuasion fails.

What should a consistent libertarian say?  That use of force is
either retaliatory, or it is an initiation of force and therefore
prohibited by libertarian side-constraints.  If that force is
retaliatory, where is the first-use against which it retaliates?

The obvious answer is that the trespasser has used force, in effect,
by depriving the homesteader of her property.  But this answer
can only be used *after* it has been shown that it's her property.

A second answer appeals to the idea that a person owns her own
labor, and somehow tries to derive the conclusion that under
some conditions, she then owns whatever she's mixed her labor with.
(John Locke's conditions were very exacting, and do not apply
when goods embody scarce natural resources.)  However, if one
wants to apply this to goods made from valuable raw materials,
there is a problem.  Another person might want the good not for
the value of the labor -- so they are not trying to profit
by usurping that labor -- but simply for the raw materials
embodied therein.  This point reinforces Nozick's challenge:
why is mixing what I own (labor) with what I don't, a way
of acquiring the latter?  Why isn't it instead a way of 
dissipating what I do own? (_Anarchy State & Utopia_ 174-5).

Bryan Caplan considered the objection that labor only adds
value to things that may already have some value, and replied,
if I understand the argument, with an attempted _reductio_.
In producing services, a surgeon's effort (in studying, making
careful incisions, or whatever) only adds value to native
talents (dexterity, intellectual potential) he didn't create.
But it would be absurd to deny that he owns these services
(i.e. can offer them or not, at his discretion.)

The cases are not analogous, because believing in a right
to liberty *just is* believing that people "own" their own
bodies and labor.  (I use scare-quotes because "own" is, IMHO,
an ugly word to apply to one's own body -- though I think
that people who talk this way just mean to assert certain
rights.)  One cannot be a libertarian in any sense of the word,
and reject this.  But one *can* be a libertarian -- sticking to
the meaning of the root-word "liberty" -- and doubt that
using things for a while, or laboring on them, gives you
ownership.  

As you may have guessed, I'm not a libertarian.  I think
that force is sometimes justified not only in retaliation to
force, but in some other circumstances.  For example, tax
money used to fund childhood immunizations is terrific in my
book.  For another, people ought to go ahead and pollute a
little, when further pollution control is impractical, even 
though this forces others to breathe tiny quantities of
poisons.  And for another, people ought to be receive title to
previously unowned materials under reasonable conditions,
*even though* enforcing the resulting property-rights will
often involve using force against people who have not
themselves used force.

This is not to ignore the interests of a person who can no
longer, for example, walk through a certain field, or see
wildlife (whose habitat is destroyed by farming) there.
Those interests do matter, but they are often overbalanced
by other considerations, and civilized life would be impossible
without many such small deprivations inflicted on non-owners
of particular chunks of matter.  What justice requires here
is that the legal and social institutions which enforce
property rights, embody equal respect for all persons affected.
How to accomplish that is a huge question, which I won't say
much about, except that I think it cannot be answered by a
single philosopher (however knowledgeable) in an armchair:  it
requires ongoing society-wide dialogue. 

Fire when ready, Gridley.

--Paul Torek, [email-masked]