JE Roemer Theories of Distributive Justice 6 Neo-Lockeanism and Self-Ownership
Takanori Ida 2001/2/16
6.1 Nozick’s Theory of Distributive Justice
Nozick:
- Justice in acquisition, 2. Justice in transfer, in accordance with the notion of Entitlement
Neither interested in maximizing anything nor equalizing anything
Place certain restrictions on individual freedom
Locke’s statement:
A person is entitled to appropriate part of natural world, not yet privately owned, as long as he leaves enough and as good in common for others.
Nozick’s amendment:
As long as he leaves no one worse off than she would have been had that part remained unowned.
Possibly, just but highly unequal distribution. Seemingly, powerful justification for highly unequal capitalism such as monopoly and hiring discrimination.
Similar to “first come, first served.”
6.2 Challenge to Nozick
Cohen’s criticism 1:
Self-ownership postulate: Moral right to use her powers to benefit herself, as long as she does no harm to others.
No-harm baseline: What the welfare of others would have been if the resource had remained unowned or in common use.
Nozick’s baseline is arbitrary.
Gibbard’s criticism:
Hard libertalian position: Everyone has an equal right to use all things, calling for some kind of redistribution taxation. If everyone has a right to take unowned land, no one has a right to take it without the consent of others.
Cohen’s criticism 2:
Nozick’s transformation of Locke’s proviso, with respect to the baseline, is arbitrary.
Rawls’ radical challenge to Nozick:
Deny the moral attractiveness of self-ownership because the distribution of personal characteristics is morally arbitrary.
6.3 Joint Ownership of the External World
Seek for the correct generalization of the Lockean proviso.
Bargaining approach:
In the absence of an agreement on how to distribute the proceeds from production,no good is produced and each consumes nothing.
Result: 1. The less-skilled works less than the more-skilled. 2. Output is shared equally.
Axiomatic approach:
Axioms: Domain, Pareto, Self-Ownership (the more-skilled receives weakly higher welfare than the less skilled), Technological Monotonicity (no one should end up worse off in the more abundant world), and Protection of Infirm (the weaker agentis rendered as well off as she would have been had the other been precisely as able as she).
Theorem 6.1: A unique and egalitarian mechanism, equalizing the utilities of the agent at the highest feasible level.
6.4 Generalization of Locke on Economic Environments
Natural ways of generalizing Locke’s proviso to worlds where resources are scarce.
Example: A lake and the technology of fishing.
The world of constant returns:
A natural Lockean solution: Let each fishers fish as much as she wishes. Free access solution and Pareto efficient.
The world of decreasing returns: when a fisher uses the lake, she does not leave enough and as good for others.
Four solutions candidates:
FND: Privatizing the lake and giving each fishers a share of the firm equal to her historical share of labor is Walrasian equilibrium that dominates any other Nash equilibrium. (See Theorem 6.2.)
FEB: The equal benefits solution is Pareto efficient and the smallest allocation mechanism. (See Theorem 6.3.)
FP: The proportional solution to the amount of fish they catch is Pareto efficient. (See Theorem 6.4.) Furthermore, Kantian-stable (no fishers prefers an allocation where all increases or decreases their labor supplies by the same fraction).
FCRE: The constant returns equivalent solution is the unique mechanism that satisfies Pareto and Free Access.
6.5 Implementation
The notion of decentralizaion (Maskin):
FEB and FP: Implemented in Nash equilibrium.
Also, FCRE: Implemented in subgame perfect Nash equilibrium in a two-stage game.
FND: Not implemented. (Theorem 6.7.) No mechanism that Pareto-dominates equilibrium under unrestricted common ownership. Damage for Nozick.
Implementation theory is not compelling.
6.6 The morality of Self-Ownership
A denial of the thesis of self-ownership:
The lottery of two good eyes.
The second eye lottery.
The illegality of prostitution.
6.7 Conclusion
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