From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Mon Oct 31 17:23:24 1994 Received: from top.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.6/newPE) id AA03040; Mon, 31 Oct 1994 17:23:22 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.148] by top.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id RAA14831; Mon, 31 Oct 1994 17:16:32 -0500 Date: Mon, 31 Oct 1994 17:16:32 -0500 Message-Id: <199410312216.RAA14831@top.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Re: Distributive Justice in a Pure Service Economy Status: R From: Paul Hsieh [In an excellent post describing a service-based economy], Bryan Douglas Caplan writes: > To make this clearer, consider the case of a trained surgeon > in such an economy. He spent many years in study to acquire his > skills; but of course his raw talent and intelligence played > a big part too. Now this surgeon finds that his labor is extremely > valuable; he has the power to save lives. People will pay an > enormous amount for the value of his services. > It is not difficult to see that this surgeon is going to be > extremely rich because of his special talent. > And the question will naturally arise: Does justice permit, > or even require, that the surgeon be forced to provide free > services for others, or give some of his payment back to the community? > Either choice commits us to forced labor: either the doctor > must be forced to toil, or else his patients must be forced to > give some free labor services up as a "tax" every time they > pay him. > > But suppose that we recoil from this notion of forced labor. > Where are we then? Quite simply, we are left with a libertarian, > free-market economy > And yet it is _very_ difficult to abandon the intuition that > the surgeon cannot morally be forced to give free services to > the needy, or even to reduce his prices to the slightest degree. I am most definitely not a statist. However, I can envision mechanisms that would allow a non-libertarian to practice redistributive "justice" and mask the true nature of the forced labor/slavery involved. Let's take the example of the surgeon that Bryan mentioned: A government might first declare that medicine is such an important skill in the "public interest", that it must be licensed and regulated by the state. In other words, no one could just study medicine through the free-market education system, hang out a shingle, and let the market determine which patients came to him. Instead, the government would set up mandatory accreditation standards for medical schools, and devise various exams and other hoops for young physicians to jump through prior to being allowed to practice. Only someone who went through this process and acquired a government license would be permitted to practice medicine. Anyone else would be charged with "practicing medicine without a license" and thrown into jail. So far, no one is being forced to work. In fact, if anything, the government has placed impediments to working in this sector of the economy. Next, the government might declare itself the middleman for transactions involving physician-delivered medical services. Someone who wanted an operation had to pay the government, who in turn would reimburse the physician. Fee schedules would be set by "negotiation" between the government and various medical organizations. Although this would introduce some market distortions, they couldn't be too far out of line from the natural prices. If the fees fell too low, young physicians would decide that they wanted to become computer scientists or physicists or science-fiction writers, instead of surgeons, and drop out of the system. In general, the government would be (at least dimly) aware of this, and wouldn't regulate the fees in too draconian a fashion. Finally, the government declares health-care a "right". If 10% of the population currently do not see a doctor because they can't afford to, they are allowed to become free riders on the health-care system. All of the fees paid out by the government to the doctors are reduced by 10%, to accomodate the 10% increase in demand for services, while still preserving the balance of payments. In essence, the doctors are forced to give a mandatory 10% discount on services to the paying patients in order to subsidize the non-paying patients. Here, the problem is that a physician doesn't necessarily know if a particular patient is a paying patient or a free rider. Hence, he will end up delivering more-or-less equally good quality care to everyone. If he could distinguish the payers from the non-payers, normal human nature might tempt him to give the payers better quality service, while being somewhat less conscientious towards the nonpayers. But if this information is withheld from the physician, he wouldn't be able to act in such a fashion. (Although perhaps he might be subtly demoralized, and therefore treat *all*patients with less care and thoroughness than if he were working in a completely free market.) The slavery here is more subtle. No one person is extracting a specific act of labor from the doctor. The forced labor is distributed throughout the entire system. And that is what makes it so insidious. Since a doctor cannot practice without a government license, he is forced to abide by the conditions the government sets if he wants to work in his field. If all it involves is a mandatory 10% discount ("just a small amount of your already bloated salary, doctor"), many non-physicians probably would not object. This would be especially true if they could be sold on the idea of health care as a "right", rather than as any other necessity that must be acquired through the market (like food, clothing, or shelter). Even many doctors would be willing to accept those terms rather than quit the field -- after all, the profession is still inherently fascinating, money is still pretty good, etc. The US health care system has not gotten to this point (yet). I don't know enough details about Canada's or Britain's to be able to comment on how accurate this picture is. But my main point is that the apparent clarity of the injustice that Bryan demonstrated can be (at least partially) concealed, if the statists are sufficiently clever. It is their ability to muddy the waters and mask the true nature of their actions that permits people to believe in the morality of this form of redistribution without recognizing the implicity slavery. [Paul now climbs down from his soapbox...] ==================== ~~~ *** ~~ || || * * ~ ~~ || Paul Hsieh, MD || /\ ** ** _ || || _ | | ** ** __ | | || || __| |__|__|__ ** ** | |___| | ==================== | | | | ** ** | | | | From: Alan Eaton What was the value that was placed on the surgeons education, or on the tools of trade for the musicians (instruments, sound systems, roadies...). It would seem to me that the providers of services (education) to those persons who will subsequently be able to request large labour transfers (the surgeons) should also be able to make a significant case f If this is the case then the surgeon will be significantly indebted to his educators. So, some sicko need only go to the educators to request medical services and then the educators will reclaim an appropriate amount of the surgeon's debt. The problem with such services as surgery is that it takes a long time to become proficient enough to be able to ch.^ nything. During that time the future surgeon will not be able to participate in labour transfers as he will have neither the time nor the skills to provide anything. And this is on top of his education expenses. Not being educated in the ways of economics - supply and demand etc - this seems right to me: if someone is going to get filthy rich from your services you will probably want a piece of the action. So, distribution of services will still happen and everyone can stay equal. (although i am sure there would be loopholes somewhere) It might also be the case that the morals of such a society might change their emphasis. Sure, it is morally wrong to force labour from someone. But, isn't it also mora + wrong to ignore those in need? (what is the drive behind the voluntary relinquishment of both services and materials to the starving millions?). Those persons who choose to ignore such morals may find themselves just as shunned as those who renige on labour transactions. Even worse, they may be judged morally deficient and so those who are not thus will feel oblidged to force the deficient ones into correctional institutions or to suffer some other form of morall correction. Again i am treading on unknown terrritory here. I am willing to bow to those of you with superior morals (or understandings of :). ---------------------------------+---------------------------------------- Alan Eaton | sometimes words have the wrong meanings aeaton@enterprise.powerup.com.au | From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Wed Nov 2 09:45:41 1994 Received: from bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.6/newPE) id AA22079; Wed, 2 Nov 1994 09:45:40 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.195] by bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id JAA11939; Wed, 2 Nov 1994 09:42:20 -0500 Date: Wed, 2 Nov 1994 09:42:20 -0500 Message-Id: <199411021442.JAA11939@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Re: Distributive Justice in a Pure Service Economy 1/2 Status: RO [Moderator's note: The following contains quite a bit of citing as opposed to summarizing, which is something that I would like to cut down on for ASP-Disc. Summarizing a little with short, represent- ative quotes can be used to greatest advantage, I think. Larry] From: Steven Blatt > From: Bryan Douglas Caplan > > 1. The Pure Service Economy > > Imagine a society in which _goods_ are superabundant, but in which > _services_ remain scarce. That is, property narrowly conceived > is virtually there for the taking, but the _labor services_ of other > people most decidedly are not. Now such a situation would hardly be a > utopia: for some of the things most essential to life -- surgery for > example -- would still be scarce. > This pure service economy is difficult to imagine. We need a radical distinction between goods and services. If services are scarce, then so must goods be. If surgery is scarce, then so must be surgical robots. If haircuts are scarce, then so are barber automata. Any service could conceivably be provided by a good. Goods are not scarce--toasters are growing on trees? Or people enjoy making them? It is not clear whether _goods_ or _natural resources_ are scarce in this economy. > It follows that the only thing that would cost > something would be labor itself; and of course it > could only be purchased with a corollary offer of labor. To keep the > example simple, let us add the stipulation that there is no money, nor > even labor notes; rather, when someone gives a service to one person, he > simply records the deal in a book. If someone reneges on an agreement, > no punishment is inflicted, but word gets around and the reneger finds > that no one wishes to trade with him or her any further. > Or people might hire punishment agencies to punish them if they reneg. > 2. Testing Theories of Distributive Justice > > Now this hypothetical society offers an interesting test for some > competing theories of distributive justice. For if you examine the > hypothetical carefully, you will see that there is no possibility of > re-distribution in such a system save by direct imposition of forced > labor. Since most theories of distributive justice require > such redistribution, this hypothetical service economy presents > the advocates of such theories with two stark alternatives. > Their first alternative is to abandon their redistributionist > theory of justice; their second is to openly embrace forced labor > as a means of achieving a just society. Indeed, the latter > alternative would commit them to the view that not only is forced > labor permissible, but it is indeed mandated by justice. > What is the purpose of this "pure service economy" example? In a goods-and-services economy, redistribution can proceed by taxing goods rather than services--robbery rather than slavery. But statists don't seem to mind this robbery; but surely they do mind slavery. So build a society in which redistribution can only occur by slavery and demonstrate that statist/redistributionist beliefs lead to sanctioning slavery in this hypothetical society; therefore, either the statist premises are incorrect or slavery is cool. The statist may say: inequality is a greater evil than robbery, so in our real goods-and-services economy it's better to rob the rich than let the poor starve. But slavery is a greater evil than inequality, so in a pure-services economy its better to let the poor get heart attacks than to enslave surgeons. Since the real economy is a goods-and-serivces economy, these considerations do not alter my belief in the justice of the welfare state in current conditions. In the key part of his argument, below, Bryan moves to cut off this escape hatch for the redistributionist by tieing any justification of taxation to a justification of slavery, so that one is willing to trade property rights for distributive justice one must also be willing to trade the right of self-ownership for distributive justice. > To make this clearer, consider the case of a trained surgeon > in such an economy. He spent many years in study to acquire his > skills; but of course his raw talent and intelligence played > a big part too. Now this surgeon finds that his labor is extremely > valuable; he has the power to save lives. People will pay an > enormous amount for the value of his services. Of course, they > are paying him back in other services: 1000 hours of maid service > in exchange for 1 hour of surgery; 200 haircuts for a removed > appendix; 20 college educations for a triple bypass. > > It is not difficult to see that this surgeon is going to be > extremely rich because of his special talent. The disparity > in income between himself and other people will be very great. > Indeed, some people may be too poor to afford his services at > all. And the question will naturally arise: Does justice permit, > or even require, that the surgeon be forced to provide free > services for others, or give some of his payment back to the community? > Either choice commits us to forced labor: either the doctor > must be forced to toil, or else his patients must be forced to > give some free labor services up as a "tax" every time they > pay him. > > But suppose that we recoil from this notion of forced labor. > Where are we then? Quite simply, we are left with a libertarian, > free-market economy, in which people own their own bodies and > can acquire the services of others solely by contractual agreement. > Charity can of course exist; the surgeon might help the poor > out of sympathy for their plight. But nothing in the system > assures that the poor will be provided for; that becomes a > matter of generosity rather than of right. > > 3. Redistributionist Charges of Injustice in the Pure Service Economy > > We can easily imagine the criticisms that might be made about > the justice of accepting the libertarian theory of distributive > justice in our hypothetical society. First, the poor and > unlucky have no guarantees in such a society. The better-off > members may choose to help them; or they may not. The care > of the poor becomes a matter of purely private concern, and > the choice to give becomes fully voluntary (and hence uncertain). > Secondly, such a society would permit unlimited inequality. > The surgeon might need to work only one day per year, enjoying > luxury and comfort every other day. Thirdly, success in such > a society would be strongly influenced by "luck" or unearned > good fortune. The surgeon might have to work hard to learn his > trade, but surely hard work isn't the whole story. He also > probably had greater innate intelligence; perhaps a better > family environment than others. Indeed, the well-off member > of this society might be a talentless heavy-metal musician, > whose singing can command large exchanges of labor services > from others. The musician's good fortune in this case may be > exclusively a matter of luck, without a day's sweat and toil > to train for his career. > > To these three criticisms we might add others. If the surgeon > is the only person of his trade, then he may exercise "monopoly > power." Or returning to the case of the talentless musician, > we will notice that production of services in this society is > fully determined by willingness to pay, with no reference to the > true value of the goods produced. > No, it's still dtermined by the intersection of willingness to pay and willingness to provide, except in exceptional cases of perfectly inelastic provision. > The interesting thing here is, of course, that these are _precisely_ > the same criticisms normally made of the standard libertarian, > free-market society in which both goods and services are scarce. > In other words, there is no relationship between the need for > redistribution and the existence of private property narrowly > defined. Whatever complaints may be launched against > libertarianism in the real world may also be made against the > application of libertarianism to the pure service economy as > outlined herein. > The evils of libertarianism are similar in both a goods-and-services economy and a pure services economy; but the evils of redistribution are greater in the pure services economy (slavery) than in the goods-and-services economy (robbery). Redistribution may be just in the latter but not in the former. Further, some people think that it is ownership of physical capital which fosters inequality, which gives an extra argument against libertarianism in the real world which doesn't apply to the service economy. > And yet it is _very_ difficult to abandon the intuition that > the surgeon cannot morally be forced to give free services to > the needy, or even to reduce his prices to the slightest degree. > What we are faced with is the need to openly deny that the > surgeon owns his own body, and may do with it as he sees fit; > and that his services must be obtained exclusively by voluntary > means. In short, if the surgeon says No, then to force him > to work is slavery, no matter what the need of the poor, the > degree of inequality, or the role of pure luck in the surgeon's > success. Of course, this may simply lead one to affirm the > justice of slavery, but that is hardly a plausible escape route. > Say that the surgeon achieved his talent by enslaving his teachers, or by enslaving others to provide him menial services so he'd have time to study. Now that he is not an innocent, perhaps enslaving him is ok. Perhaps we wouldn't even want to call it slavery. So if you think that the current state of society came about illegitimately, and in particular that the haves got theirs by bad means, then this argument doesn't affect you. In fact many redistributionists seem to believe that the current state of society arose illegitimately. Indeed many seem to believe that mutually voluntary transactions are in some cases illegitimate, especially when the transactors are at different socioeconomic levels; the pure-services argument surely will not impress them much. In fact Bryan's argument gives redistributionists ammunition by agreeing that indeed the current state of society has arisen illegitimately. Bryan's approach is: redistributionlists are willing to condone robbery (goods taxation) in order to redistribute; but surely they can't condone slavery (labor taxation). But in fact most people do condone slavery: e.g., mandatory jury duty, military conscription, children, criminals. [Continued in next message.] From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Wed Nov 2 09:48:00 1994 Received: from bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.6/newPE) id AA22301; Wed, 2 Nov 1994 09:47:59 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.195] by bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id JAA12393; Wed, 2 Nov 1994 09:44:45 -0500 Date: Wed, 2 Nov 1994 09:44:45 -0500 Message-Id: <199411021444.JAA12393@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Re: Distributive Justice in a Pure Service Economy 2/2 Status: RO From: Steven Blatt [Continued from previous message.] > 4. Extending the Model > > Now suppose that instead of writing down labor debts in a book, > people started circulating negotiable labor notes. (As was > apparently done in Josiah Warren's 19th-century utopian village). > Would the redistributionist have a firmer case here? It is > hard to see why he would. For these notes are merely a more > convenient way of designating the same agreements as before; > for naturally in the initial setup, the surgeon could agree to > perform surgery on Fred on the condition that Fred gives 100 > hours of wood-working lessons to Ann (and Ann agrees to give > 2 years of flute tutoring to the surgeon). So why should the > more fluid designation of the underlying fundamentals > matter? True, it may now be more _convenient_ for a government > to demand 10% of all notes exchanged; but what we are interested > in here is not convenience but justice. The fact remains that > the 10% tax is blatantly a demand for forced labor; for each > time one person sells labor to another, he is also compelled to > give up an additional 10% of that labor against his will. > > But let us then go further. Suppose that the abundance of nature > dried up, and goods, from land to minerals to wildlife, became > as scarce as they are in the real world. Naturally, people > would want to claim products as their own; they would want to > homestead unowned products and claim exclusive ownership of them. > What objection could be made to this new regime; and would it > create a wedge for redistributionist theories of justice to > come into their own? This is the key portion of the argument, since what we're interested in is the goods-and-services economy, not the pure services economy. > > Again, it is hard to see how it would. The right to claim > unowned products by "mixing one's labor with them" is not > deducible from the claim of self-ownership, but the ideas are > nevertheless closely connected. And so are the objections > that might be levelled against one or the other. > > One might claim, for example, that because the homesteader does > not "really create" the cultivated land, he is not entitled to > it. But of course the homesteader did not create himself either; > does it then follow that he is not entitled to own himself? > Or one might claim that the labor merely _adds values_, and so > the homesteader is merely entitled to own the value that he adds; > and the remainder may be legitimately taxed away for social aims. > But as our example with the surgeon makes clear, the same could > be said about my own labor services. Namely, while I do contribute > to my own value by training and experience and education, a > significant fraction of the market value of my services is > determined by my innate intelligence, dexterity, and so on. > Does my education entitle me merely to that part of my earnings > added by the education? May I be forced to labor a percentage > of the time equal to the percentage of my labor value determined > by my raw talent? One of the many absurdities entailed thereby > is that the totally unskilled laborer is entitled to _nothing_. > Again, then, we see that generalizing the argument against > individual homesteading leads us to the untenable affirmation > of the propriety of forced labor. 1. Slavery is wrong. 2. If robbery (taxation) is justified, then slavery is justified. 3. Therefore, goods taxation is unjust. > > 5. Conclusion: Libertarianism and Its Alternatives > > No moral argument, indeed no argument at all, can compel agreement. > It always remains open to a person to deny the premise OR embrace > the conclusion. Or deny the validity of the argument. The one thing he cannot do is accept the premise > and deny the conclusion. The most desirable feature of an argument, > then, is that the initial premise have greater initial probability > than the conclusion does. > I thought that if the conclusion has very low probability that is considered a reduction of the premise to absurdity and is an argument against the premise. Indeed, that seems to be Bryan's approach to Redistributionism: the Redistributionist premise (high probability) leads to the conclusion that slavery is just (low probabillity). > Now I claim that the argument arising from this thought experiment > does indeed meet this criterion. The truth of libertarianism as > a theory of distributive justice does indeed strike most people > as wildly unlikely; for it is a theory bereft of concern for > equality, poverty, luck, and so on. (Or to be more precise: > it is a theory that says that these concerns are not a matter of > justice and right; it leaves open the possibility that they are > of moral interest, but on a lower level). And yet, if anything > is known about morality, it is known that it is just plain > wrong to force someone to labor against his will, to enslave > him or her. Wrong whatever else must happen in consequence. > This intuition is perhaps the fundamental intuition behind > libertarian moral theory; and it is the intuition that the > proponents of redistributionist theories must reject if they > are to avoid the libertarian position. > Nozick argues outright that taxation is slavery. If so, giving birth to children is evil, since the children will be slaves. True, the birthgiver is also a slave; but victimhood doesn't confer sanction to do wrong unto others. Giving birth is equivalent to selling your child into slavery; you get the benefit (you enjoy having a child to raise), the child gets enslaved. True, your offspring may lead a full and productive and happy life, and if you hadn't given birth to him he would, in consequence, never even have gotten a chance to exist--and yet, if anything is known about morality, it is known that it is just plain wrong to force someone to labor against his will, to enslave him or her. Wrong whatever else must happen in consequence. The premise--slavery is wrong--is more plausible than the conclusion--reproduction is enslavement. Bryan's argument doesn't say that goods taxation is slavery. It says, more subtly, that if the current welfare state is justified, then slavery is justified. Slavery is unjustified. Therefore the current welfare state is unjustified. Accepting Bryan's argument, I can argue that if reproduction is justified, then slavery is justified. Here's how: We've shown that taking goods from people is unjust (if not, then slavery is just). Parents know their offspring will be robbed (taxed). So parents are accomplices in the taxation/robbery. (If not for the parents' actions, the offspring could not have been robbed; the parents know their actions will result in their offspring being robbed; no one is forcing them to have children.) (Say that robbers tell you that if you invite so-and-so to your home, he will be robbed. Even though you won't get any loot, you enjoy so-and-so's company so much that you invite him to your house, not informing him of the robbers so as not to scare him off. You are an acomplice, even though you would have invited him even if you hadn't known that he was to be robbed.) But robbery is wrong (otherwise slavery is right). So reproduction is wrong. So now I can make this argument: either (1) there is a flaw in Bryan's argument (a faulty premise or invalid reasoning) or (2) for anyone (living in a welfare state) to beget children is evil. Redistributionists may say, yes, coercively taking goods from people is not nice, but neither is letting people starve; in some cases the evil of lettting people starve outweighs the evil of forcible taking. Bryan tries to get around this approach by presenting a case where the redistributionist is forced to weigh accepting inequality against forced labor; Bryan's expectation is that the Redistributionist will be unwilling to weigh anything against slavery--slavery is wrong no matter what. But in fact most people have litle problem with some forms of forced labor (see the examples listed above). But say the Redistributionist agrees the Redistribution is unacceptable in the pure-services economy. Now Bryan moves to keep the statist from trading property rights off against distributive justice in the goods-and-services economy by tieing taxation to slavery--if taxation is ever justified, then slavery is too; slavery is never justified; taxation is never justified. My point is that this goes too far, as my argument against reproduction shows. Here's another demonstrative argument: suicide is a slave's duty. Otherwise, the slave is allowing himself to be enslaved; but slavery is completely unacceptable, whatever the consequences of avoiding it. Here's another demonstrative argument: suicide or rebellion is a U.S. citizen's duty. Otherwise, the citizen is allowing himself to be robbed. The citizen may figure, better robbed than dead. But Bryan has shown that we may not weigh the positive effects of allowing the robbery to continue against the negative, since that would open the door to condoning slavery. My arguments don't show that the redistribution is just. Redistribution may be wrong, but not so bad as to preclude reproduction in and accomodation with a redistributive society. Bryan's arguments cut off this route by saying that we cannot weigh the pros and cons of redistribution, just as we cannot weigh the pros and cons of slavery. Cordially, Steven B. From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Thu Nov 3 08:39:50 1994 Received: from top.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.6/newPE) id AA19696; Thu, 3 Nov 1994 08:39:50 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.32] by top.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id IAA23244; Thu, 3 Nov 1994 08:37:15 -0500 Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 08:37:15 -0500 Message-Id: <199411031337.IAA23244@top.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Re: Distributive Justice in a Pure Service Economy 2/2 Status: R From: Mike To Steven B: I'm not sure how serious that argument to the immorality of reproduction of yours is supposed to be taken. I realize it's supposed to be some kind of reductio or parody of Bryan's reasoning, but what are we supposed to conclude from it? Not, evidently, that reproduction is wrong. Are you arguing that, contrary to Bryan's assumption, slavery is permissible? Or are you arguing that the form of argument Bryan used is not valid -- namely, "If A then B; not B; therefore, not A". Either of these would seem an outrageous claim for you to be making. Your argument is not of the same form as Bryan's. Bryan's argument goes like this: The arguments which justify redistribution would, if valid, justify slavery. But slavery is wrong. Therefore, the arguments are not valid. Therefore, they do not justify redistribution. YOUR argument is of a much more dubious form: 1. If you do X, then a wrong action will be performed by someone else. 2. Therefore, it is wrong to do X. That is, you say that because if you have children, they will be subjected to slavery and/or robbery by someone else, therefore, it is wrong to have children. I do not see how this is supposed to follow. I can guess that there's an intermediate stage, which goes: "If you have children, then they will be subjected to slavery. Therefore, if you have children, then YOU will be subjecting them to slavery. Slavery is wrong. Therefore, you should not have children." Now that argument is valid all except for the second step. It may be true that if I have children, then someone ELSE will subject them to slavery. It does not follow that *I* will be responsible for that, because I will not be the one doing the enslaving. To take your argument to its absurd conclusion: Suppose you see a man drowning in a river. You consider saving him. But then you consider the fact that all men are mortal -- hence the man is doomed to die someday even if you save him. If you save him, he will die. Therefore (by your reasoning), if you save him, you will be killing him. Therefore, it is wrong to save him. Or again: it is not the case that parents are morally culpable for all the actions of all their descendents (so that Adam is responsible for the Manson murders), even though the parents in some sense cause them. The thing to note is that Bryan never made use of your premise, that a person is morally responsible for anything and everything that will happen if he performs a given action. From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Mon Nov 7 19:31:10 1994 Received: from bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.7/newPE) id AA09708; Mon, 7 Nov 1994 19:31:10 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.41] by bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id TAA11958; Mon, 7 Nov 1994 19:27:49 -0500 Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 19:27:49 -0500 Message-Id: <199411080027.TAA11958@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Distributive Justice Status: R From: Paul V. Torek 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, flink@elf.bsdi.com From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Fri Nov 18 17:47:43 1994 Received: from bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.7/newPE) id AA06741; Fri, 18 Nov 1994 17:47:41 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.67] by bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id RAA19659; Fri, 18 Nov 1994 17:36:49 -0500 Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 17:36:49 -0500 Message-Id: <199411182236.RAA19659@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Caplan and Rawls on Justice Status: R From: Paul V. Torek In reply to Bryan Douglas Caplan -- Thanks for your response. In this message I address your comments on Rawls. In the next I'll address ownership of material goods. >Now at first glance, it appears that Torek is completely correct: >for if Rawls' first principle of justice, giving priority to liberty >means anything, it means that slavery is impermissible. >Redistribution comes into its own only after there are some >re-distributable goods [...] >But I seriously doubt that Rawls would consider this a correct >application of his principles. It is quite clear that he does not >think that coercive paternalism violates his first principle [...] This could be taken as a guide to interpreting his first principle, as you suggest, but I think Rawls fails to infer correctly the implications of his own principle. Whatever social mechanisms are set up to enforce such rules, they will occasionally err by treating rational desires as irrational inclinations. Thus there will be some loss of liberty, and what is gained at this price will not be other liberties, but some protection against loss of well-being. So the parties in the original position will not go for this trade-off, having made maximally extensive equal liberties the top priority. I won't try to interpret the next passage you provide RE: "what he [Rawls] has in mind with the first principle," I'll offer another instead: Thus persons are at liberty to do something when they are free from certain constraints either to do it or not to do it and when their doing it or not doing it is protected from interference by other persons. (p. 202) There's what liberty means to Rawls -- I think it's very much a common-sense use of the term, and I think it obviously applies to people's labor. So if you apply Rawls's Two Principles of Justice to your thought-experiment, you get freedom not slavery. However, I now think my original response on Rawls's behalf may have been too simple. Look at this: The inability to take advantage of one's rights and opportunities as a result of poverty and ignorance, and a lack of means generally, is sometimes counted among the constraints definitive of liberty. I shall not, however, say this, but rather I shall think of these things as affecting the worth of liberty, the value to individuals of the rights that the first principle defines. [I think Rawls means that everyone has equal liberty, but the contribution these liberties make to a person's welfare differs according to the means the person has to take advantage of these rights --PT.] ... The lesser worth of liberty is, however, compensated for, since the capacity of the less fortunate members of society to achieve their aims would be even less were they not to accept the existing inequalities whenever the difference principle is satisfied. But compensating for the lesser worth of freedom is not to be confused with making good an unequal liberty. (pp. 204-5) I entered this quote initially to provide further evidence against your view of Rawls on liberty -- here he denies that poverty means less liberty, and so he closes off an avenue whereby forced labor in your hypothetical society might be "justified". But also, this passage shows that the difference principle -- together with the assumption that any real economy will have goods that can be distributed as it requires -- plays a part in justifying the first (equal liberties) principle. In other words, Rawls might simply be unable to apply his theory of justice to your hypothetical, pure-service economy society. In still other words, contractors behind a Veil of Ignorance, who considered the possible society you describe, might not choose the Two Principles of justice. It seems to me that Rawls might well say that your thought-experiment does not fit the "circumstances of justice" (pp. 126-30); justice is just not "designed for" that kind of society. --Paul Torek, flink@elf.bsdi.com From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Fri Nov 18 17:51:46 1994 Received: from bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.7/newPE) id AA07165; Fri, 18 Nov 1994 17:51:44 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.67] by bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id RAA20651; Fri, 18 Nov 1994 17:44:43 -0500 Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 17:44:43 -0500 Message-Id: <199411182244.RAA20651@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: property and liberty Status: R From: Paul V. Torek In reply to Bryan Douglas Caplan -- Oops -- left out something on Rawls, in my last post. I'll put it at the end of this one. If you reply to each post separately, please attach that piece where it belongs. >a slight modification where we add money ("labor notes") to the >pure service economy. Do you still agree that redistribution is >impermissible then? Yes, but I would support a tax for national defense, assuming that this society faces threats from other societies. >But I didn't advocate that ["labor-mixing"] view, and in fact did >deny the deducibility of homesteading from self-ownership. >Rather, I was considering the similarities of some of the negative >arguments against private property, and showing that they also apply >to self-ownership, too. This wasn't meant to defend property rights >in objects, except insofar as refuting objections to something >constitutes a defense. Sorry I misunderstood. Now, though, I have to point out that refuting objections to something doesn't help much. At least, it doesn't if the objections refuted aren't the ones opponents are likely to offer. It's important to distinguish objections to private property as such, vs. objections to some *particular argument for* private property. I think that you've mistaken the latter for the former. >Now I'm trying to get a clear grip on your point that private property >prima facie seems to restrict liberty. As far as I can tell, I agree >with your conclusion. Namely, we must _first_ establish ownership >in order to say that infering with continued possession reduces >liberty; and once we establish that someone owns something, then it >no longer makes sense to claim that their action reduces liberty. And when we try to establish ownership of something, we must take into account the fact that when we, as a society, deem one person to own something, we reduce the scope of others' liberties. My right to swing my fist doesn't just end at the tip of your nose. (Who said that, by the way?) It ends at the tip of your Ming vase, your house, etc., too. The more property you have, the less freedom of movement I have. There is potential for injustice here. Consider someone born in a place where everything around her is owned (acc. to her society) by others, so that she cannot even feed herself, whether by hunting and gathering or by farming, without paying steep rent to the land's owner. Such a condition can be slavery in all but name. Unlike yours, the above scenario is not just hypothetical. >Just to take a stab at the underlying question: what justification >could be given for ownership of things? I make no attempt to "deduce" >it from self-ownership. Rather, I think that it just a second, >almost as plausible principle that a person who produces something >from previously unowned materials is entitled to own it. I don't find that plausible. I think it is important to set constraints on who gets what share of the earth's raw materials, and to pay attention to who doesn't get any share worth mentioning. It is a good idea to set up a convenient, salient scheme of acquisition, but the rights stemming from such a scheme are conditional on the protection of the interests of those who can acquire less. By the way, I still consider the term "self-ownership" an ugly metaphor, and precisely because it exaggerates the parallel between liberty and ownership of objects. I *am* (not "own") myself, which identity is a relation I bear to no other thing. And this is precisely why anyone else's objection to my "self- ownership" can be dismissed in a way that their objection to my ownership of material things cannot automatically be dismissed. (I admit that this paragraph doesn't exactly refute your claimed parallel, but simply states my opposition to it.) ---- Addendum on Rawls: >And finally, I would point out Rawls' many denials of the claim >that individuals have deserve their natural talents. [pp. 103-4 >quoted by Caplan, omitted here] You edited out (with a "...") this sentence: The notion of desert seems not to apply to these cases. Which if you refer back to this: The natural distribution [of talents] is neither just nor unjust; ... (middle of p. 102) casts a whole new light on his point. I agree with him that if a person has some *inborn* talent, that's simply a natural fact, and neither just nor unjust. However, I think he draws some bogus inferences about other talents/character/etc. -- but I digress. >If this doesn't seem to be an affirmation of the propriety of >redistribution even in the pure service economy, It doesn't! It's simply a defensive argument, staving off an attack on the difference principle which only Plato, among political theorists, would make. And probably not even Plato. (In other words I think he's defending his theory of justice against a straw-man attacker.) --Paul Torek, flink@elf.bsdi.com