Justice in Holdings
In his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick introduced (to me) the concept of justice in holdings and some different ways of approaching it. These ideas may be old news to people who are fluent in political philosophy, but since they were new to me, and since I think that libertarians (and others interested in individual rights) approach justice in holdings differently than most others, I’ll pass some of these ideas along here.
Justice in holdings refers to the general assessment of whether people within a society have a moral right to the material wealth that they possess. The question is of obvious interest to those of us who are interested in politics because political systems are all about attempting to achieve economic justice for the members of the society. For example, if it is against the law to steal, it’s probably because people in the society think it is unjust for a person to own things that he has obtained by theft.
Various principles can be applied to determine whether the current distribution of holdings in a society is just or not. In his book, Nozick contrasts entitlement principles to patterned principles of distributive justice. Most libertarians bases their assessments fully on entitlement principles. A person is entitled to what he possesses if he acquired it justly; either by acquiring it justly from nature or by having it justly transferred to him by someone who himself held it justly. The principle is historical in that whether the current holdings are just is purely a matter of seeing how they came about. There is no way to simply look at the current pattern of holdings and tell whether it is just without knowing the method by which it came about (unless you can infer from the current pattern that there is no just means by which it could have come about).
A problem we might run into, however, is that the chain of transfer of title becomes more and more unclear as we go back in time. Title to very old things (most notably land) will in almost all cases have a shady past; unjust transfers almost certainly exist in the chain of transfers leading to current ownership. For current ownership to be considered just, is it necessary for every single transfer in the chain of ownership to be just as well? As a practical matter, we need to draw the line somewhere. My own opinion is that if a person acquires ownership justly, we ought to accept that, regardless of the extended history of ownership. Unjust transfers can be left between the two people who were a party to them.
In contrast to entitlement principles, we have patterned principles of justice in holdings. These principles state that people should possess holdings that are in some way related to other factors about them (the people). For example, a principle may hold that people ought to receive their holdings on the basis of how much they need them, or by how morally upstanding or smart they are (or any combination of these). It is all too easy for even the most staunch libertarian (or capitalist) to get sucked into a debate where he attempts to defend his position on the basis of some perceived just pattern of distribution. For example, have you ever made the argument that wealthy people generally deserve what they have because they worked hard for it (or alternatively, that the poor tend to be lazy, and therefore deserve their lot)? Or perhaps you argue that under capitalism, people get paid in accordance with how much their contribution is valued by others. These are arguments based on patterned principles.
Patterning, of course, is hopeless as a rigorous principle (regardless of the pattern desired). How could any desired pattern be maintained? In theory, it could be achieved for a few moments, but as soon as anyone decided to do anything with his holdings, such as buy something, trade, or give a gift, the pattern would be disrupted. If we have a massive transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor to satisfy someone’s notion of justice in holdings according to a pattern, can they then complain about the new pattern that evolves as the former-poor voluntarily transfer their wealth away in exchange for goods and services? What good is the money to the poor if they can’t spend it? Should the redistribution be repeated continually in a vain attempt to maintain the desired pattern?
Even if a pattern could somehow be maintained, can any given pattern be anything but arbitrary? The favored patterned principle at this time would seem to be something like this: “People ought to have the same holdings unless they have done something special to deserve more or less.” What is meant by “deserve”? A number of things come to mind. People may think that those who work harder deserve more, as opposed to the lazy who deserve less. “Nice” people may deserve more than mean people. People who suffer adversity may deserve more than those who “have it easy” (or is this just a special case of working hard?).
What is the basis of this patterned principle though? I can’t see any. Well, I can’t see any reasoned basis for it. Maybe I’m cynical, but I suspect the real basis of this patterned principle is envy. It bothers people when they receive less than others, especially when they think they have worked harder and the other guy has more simply because of random chance (he inherited it, or is smarter or better looking or more driven). This is hardly enough to base a political system on though, especially given the fact that the desired pattern is generally only achievable by means that are unjust according to the more defensible entitlement principles.
I guess I’ll leave it at that. The distinction between entitlement principles and patterned principles is one that I had not considered before. Libertarianism is firmly based on entitlement principles, not patterned principles. In contrast, left-liberals seem entirely obsessed with patterns. While it may make for interesting conversation to discuss the patterns that may or may not emerge under an entitlement system, don’t confuse these side-effects with the real goal.
For more on this topic, I strongly recommend Nozick’s book.