The
following is a post by Mikael Kristiansen who is the serving treasurer for the
QUB Philosophy Society and a 2nd year undergraduate studying Politics,
Philosophy and Economics:
Consider a society with a
widely disproportionate distribution of wealth, where only a small percentage
of people, or even a single person, owns property, and the rest subsist solely
on wages from selling their labour. This
state of affairs, depending on your situation and interpretation of the actual
world economy, may sound somewhat familiar.
In what sense can this pattern of distribution of goods be called just,
and what remedial measures, if any, should be taken? Some theories are understood to predicate the
answers to these questions on a distribution meeting some sort of social goal
or its conformity to an ideal pattern of holdings. In contrast, a right-libertarian theory of justice
characteristically holds that a distribution of goods in a society is just
inasmuch as it is the result of free exchanges, regardless of the pattern of
actual holdings. As a result, these
so-called non-patterned theories are
concerned with procedural aspects of property accumulation as relevant to
justice. This, according to Robert Nozick, is made clear via an analogy to
logical inference: ‘As correct rules of
inference are truth-preserving, and any conclusion deduced via repeated
application of such rules from only true premises is itself true, so the means
of transition from one situation to another specified by the principle of
justice in transfer are justice-preserving...’ (1977, p. 151). Rival theories that make reference to social
goals (e.g egalitarianism and utilitarianism) are charged with an error
comparable to manipulating an argument to reach a favoured conclusion and,
perhaps more heinously, unjustifiably forcing individuals to become resources
for others (i.e. by forcibly redistributing the fruit of their labour or their
entitled property, etc.). Thus, a free
market in capital and labour is characteristically prescribed.
Two challenges are outlined
below that have been touched upon by Will Kymlicka and Jeffrey Reiman. These are directed at Robert Nozick’s
entitlement theory of justice, which is of course not the only
right-libertarian theory of justice, but it is perhaps the most well-known, so
it serves well as a starting point for discussion and consideration. How other
theories may fare with these puzzles will hopefully be brought forth by
commentators to this article.
A well-known objection, which
Nozick himself considers, relates to implications of the current distribution
of wealth having arisen through a history of force - e.g. colonialism, slavery,
war, etc. Since justness according to
Nozick’s theory is predicated on a history of free exchange that specifically
disallows force, it seems unclear how his theory defends any actual distributions of goods from
redistribution. Since such an
incalculable amount of prior exchanges were not voluntary, a free market only
multiplies illegitimate exchanges and, on a purely non-patterned historical
account, cannot be morally superior to redistribution, let alone
necessary. Thus, it seems the theory
relies on a pattern of initial states of affair, only realizable in the actual
world by some type of action outside its own scope.
2. Effects of large-scale
property ownership on liberty (Reiman 1981)
Another challenge for the libertarian
theory of justice is to show how large-scale property ownership (in a possible
or actual world) does not result in powers tantamount to the type of force
involved in making an individual into a resource for others. For instance, the ability for someone to
accumulate unlimited property may give that person near absolute power over the
employment of a propertyless person. In
this case, the latter is faced with starvation unless they accept whatever
terms of employment are offered, no matter how undesirable or dangerous the
conditions or insufficient the compensation.
How this is approached by Nozick reveals two important incoherencies,
according to Jeffrey Reiman (1981).
a. Defence from property rights (and consequent circularity).
The first approach is to
claim exercise of one’s rights in such cases does not conflict with
liberty. Following Nozick, the type of
situation facing the propertyless person outlined above does not constitute
force because their lack of options is only the result of other people’s
exercise of their property rights, and these are taken to be compatible with
everyone’s right to liberty. If these
acts constrain someone else’s options, it does not mean that the latter’s
choice is not voluntary; it is voluntary (i.e. there is no violation of
liberty) so long as everyone has acted within their rights.[1] This defence, however, employs a troubling
circularity, according to Reiman, by defining voluntary action within one’s rights by reference to one’s property
rights. This is because previously Nozick establishes the right to property
itself by reference to the right to liberty: one’s right not to be used as a
resource by others begets one’s right to property (thus precluding
redistribution, etc.). Reiman notes:
‘And here the circle is complete: Property
rights derive their content and normative force from the right to liberty. But
the right to liberty is defined by reference (shall we say deference?) to the
right to property: my right to liberty is my freedom from interferences other
than those resulting from others' exercise of their right to property. If the validity of property rights is to be
traced to their compatibility with the right to liberty, this compatibility is
contrived if the exercise of rights to property are by definition not
violations of the right to liberty.’ (1981, p. 88, emphasis added)
Thus, the challenge concerned
must be dispelled without reference
to a right to property to avoid circularity.
b. Is there a morally significant difference between large-scale
and small-scale property ownership?
At this point, then, the
right-libertarian can remind us that the only thing that can matter regarding
the distribution in question is whether just procedures have been followed,
thus being justice-preserving in the sense held by Nozick’s analogy with
logical inference. However, such an
approach implicitly treats ‘the moral relationships between persons that
results when large numbers of individuals owning little more than the shirts on
their backs and the muscles in their arms confront, on the “free market,” a
small number who have accumulated large property holdings.... as simple
multiplications of the encounter between small entrepreneurs and free
workers...’ (Reiman 1981, p. 89). This
is precisely what is in question, and it may give us good ground to doubt the
soundness of the analogy with logic.
Reiman explains:
‘[T]he truth of facts does
not depend on their impact on human beings while the justice of action
does. This difference renders Nozick’s
analogy invalid and shows his use of it to be a variety of the fallacy of
composition. This is because where impact on human beings is concerned there
are threshold effects, differences in degree become differences in kind,
quantitative changes become qualitative changes. This can be easily seen if we
substitute for "truth" in the analogy, a characteristic like
"health" which clearly depends on impact on human beings. Substitute
for a "true premise," "a physical fact conducive to
health"; and for "valid inferences," "physical operations
compatible with health." If you think that any number of repeated
operations of the latter on the former are health preserving in the way that
any number of valid inferences are truth preserving, try substituting
"small doses of iodine for the treatment of thyroid conditions" for
the "physical fact conducive to health," and "injection by
sterilized hypodermic needle" for the "physical operation compatible
with health." Now try any number of repetitions of the latter on the
former, but first write out your will.’ (1981, p. 91)
From this, we might have good
reason to hold with Reiman that ‘property accumulation has threshold effects on
liberty’, and that the rights accompanying a reasonable concept of ownership
will vary according to the size (1981, p. 91). We might also be convinced that
a historical account of justice will not give a moral prohibition against
redistribution of holdings that originate substantially in colonialism and
violence.
What are your thoughts on
these problems? Are the problems fundamental to any non-patterned or
right-libertarian account of justice, or are they specific to Nozick? What types of theories might be preferred to
the one outlined above?
Moreover, in what sense might
these concerns problematize the actual world?
How might we know what level of wealth disparity (or labour share of
national income, etc.) would signal liberty threshold-effects in a region or
society? What types of limits, if any,
might we put on property rights? How
might we view the relationship between wealthy and poor countries when it comes
to development issues? What about the relationship between multinational
corporations and workers?
Further
Reading / Bibliography
- Cohen, G.A. (1995). Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Kymlicka, W. (2002). Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction, 2nd Ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, especially pp. 107-103.
- Nozick, R. (1977). Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.
- Reiman, J.H. (1981). ‘The Fallacy of Libertarian Capitalism’. In Ethics, Vol. 92, No. 1, pp. 85-95.
[1] He draws on an analogy where
a group of men and women prefer to be married over not, and all get married but
one man and one woman, who are each other’s last preferences (and everyone
else’s). The choices of others have left them with no option but each other for
marriage, and even though they are each other’s last choice, one would not call
their choice to marry involuntary, according to Nozick. This situation is meant
to reflect that of the property-less person, choosing between working and
starving. Everyone has acted within their rights, so no violation of liberty
has occurred (1977 pp. 262-3). See also
Reiman (1981, p. 87-8).
No comments:
Post a Comment