Advocates of social justice believe the moral justification of our institutions depends on how well these institutions serve the interests of the poor and least advantaged.Read more at location 2031
The hard libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick argues that we cannot ask how we should distribute wealth unless we have the right to distribute it.Read more at location 2036
Nozick says this applies to governments as well. Nozick says that we live in a world with a history. People have prior claims over their wealth.Read more at location 2039
Nozick says the term “distributive justice” connotes that wealth is like manna fallen from heaven,Read more at location 2044
there is no more of a distribution of wealth in society than there is a distribution of sexual partners, spouses, or friends. As a matter of fact, some people have more and better friends than others. Some people have more and better sex with more desirable partners than others. We might feel bad for the people who do badly. Still, it makes no sense to talk about fair or unfair distributions of sexual partners, spouses, or friends.Read more at location 2047
No one advocates making supermodels sleep with 40-year-old virgins in order to correct unfair distributions of hot sex.Read more at location 2053
Even if you think it would be better if everyone had equal access to good sex, you have no right to redistribute sexual access.Read more at location 2055
So, for example, suppose in some society, the top 1% have 100 times the income of the bottom 10%. This fact alone tells us nothing about whether that society is just or unjust.Read more at location 2059
Nozick argues that we should not try to make the distribution of wealth fit some preconceived pattern. Instead, we should ensure that people only acquire wealth through just procedures.Read more at location 2066
The entitlement theory says that if the history of acquisitions and transfers is just, then the current distribution is just. But, of course, the history of acquisitions and transfers has been highly unjust. Much of the land we own was seized by conquest from people who had themselves seized it through conquest.Read more at location 2077
Thus, Nozick’s entitlement theory does not justify current inequalities, because current inequalities did not arise through just steps.Read more at location 2082
Some anti-libertarians say Nozick just assumes people have the right to acquire wealth for themselves no matter what the consequences may be. Contrary to Nozick, they see property rights as sets of conventions.Read more at location 2083
Neoclassical liberals believe just social institutions must tend to benefit all, especially the most vulnerable members of society.Read more at location 2089
Neoclassical liberals believe that liberal market societies are the best means to realize the goals of social justice.Read more at location 2090
Neoclassical liberals agree with hard libertarians that everyone has a right to acquire and use property. However, they add that reasonable people dispute the exact nature and scope of property rights. Property rights are sets of conventions, and there are many different conventions any group of people could live under.Read more at location 2092
Thus, if one set of property rights conventions tended to immiserate the poor or leave innocent people without any wealth or opportunity, that would be reason to reject those property right conventions.Read more at location 2097
Libertarians add: Even if the point of government is to promote the general welfare, this does not imply we should have a welfare state. A government might try to promote welfare directly, by creating welfare offices, offering subsides, providing basic income, providing tax-subsidized health care, promoting or providing employment, and attempting macroeconomic adjustments. Or, a government might try to promote welfare indirectly, by providing a basic institutional framework—such as the rule of law, representative democracy, courts, and a well-functioning property rights regime—within which people will spontaneously act in ways that promote the general welfare. It’s an open empirical question about how much promoting the general welfare depends on direct methods.Read more at location 2099
This does not mean that libertarians believe all or even any existing inequalities are therefore just. For instance, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) lobbies the government for corn subsidies. ADM makes money because the government rigs the market in its favor.Read more at location 2109
Most reflective people on the left now reject strict material egalitarianism. Nevertheless, they continue to recognize some pull toward material egalitarianism. In particular, they tend to regard material equality as a baseline from which all departures must be justified.Read more at location 2117
A material egalitarian might say, “Some are rich and some are poor, so we should try to be more equal.” In contrast, libertarians say, “The problem isn’t that some people have more; it’s that some people don’t have enough.Read more at location 2124
Classical and neoclassical liberals are not material egalitarians, but are instead welfarists, sufficientarians, and/or prioritarians.Read more at location 2127
Welfarism holds that part of what justifies social institutions is that they promote most people’s welfare.Read more at location 2128
Sufficientarianism holds that all people should have enough to lead minimally decent lives.Read more at location 2130
Prioritarianism holds that when considering changes to current institutions, all things being equal, we should give more weight to the interests of the worst off members of society.Read more at location 2132
Classical and neoclassical liberals hold that welfarism, sufficientarianism, and prioritarianism capture all of the moral force of egalitarianism.Read more at location 2133
many libertarians also argue that there is no measurable relationship between economic freedom and inequality. For instance, the Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation annually rank countries by their level of economic freedom. If we graph countries’ economic freedom scores against their Gini coefficients (a statistical measure of income inequality), we find no significant relationship between the two. Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand each have both higher levels of income equality and higher levels of economic freedom than the United States.Read more at location 2139
Instead, most libertarians dispute that welfare states work as well as the Left believes they do.Read more at location 2147
Left wants to rescue the poor with welfare programs. Libertarians want to enrich the poor through high-growth economies.Read more at location 2148
They think that welfare states transfer money not to the truly needy and desperate, but instead to strong voting blocs.Read more at location 2149
You might think: This just shows we need to fix the welfare state. Libertarians say, “Good luck with that.”Read more at location 2152
Libertarians worry that welfare states create perverse incentives and poverty traps.Read more at location 2153
most people underestimate the costs and overestimate the benefits of their bad decisions. It also shows that the poor and uneducated are especially prone to this problem. The economist Bryan Caplan says that if so, when the state offers welfare programs designed to rescue people from their bad choices, it at the same time makes it more likely they will make these bad choices and need to be rescued.Read more at location 2154
If the ant saves food for winter while the grasshopper plays, when winter comes, the hungry grasshopper has no right to demand the ant feed him.Read more at location 2161
Most libertarians believe we should be charitable to others. However, our moral duties to provide charity and to rescue others are usually not enforceable. For instance, suppose my parents have money trouble. Even if I should help them, the state may not force me to help.Read more at location 2166
Some libertarians argue that if the state may not force us to rescue our parents or our friends, then the state certainly may not force us to rescue distant strangers.Read more at location 2169
Libertarians add that regardless of how we evaluate the effectiveness of such programs, welfare programs are not the primary reason the people of the West are as rich as they now are. The West got rich because it had a good mix of stable institutions and relatively high economic freedom.Read more at location 2187
Poor, middle-class, and rich Americans are each much richer than their counterparts 100 or 200 years ago.Read more at location 2190
Libertarians thus say that in the long term, helping the poor is not about giving them handouts. It is about expanding their available range of opportunities available so that they do not need handouts. In the long term, helping the poor requires serious economic growth.Read more at location 2190
Sophisticated critics respond that while economic growth is of course the solution to poverty in the long term, in the short term, there is no good alternative to state welfare programs.Read more at location 2192
welfare state forces some people to work for others. Hard libertarians believe we have moral duties to provide aid for the desperately poor, but we may not be forced or coercedRead more at location 2198
Note that libertarians do not necessarily reject all aspects of the welfare state. Robert Nozick, a hard libertarian, says that the current distribution of wealth in any given society arose in unjust ways,Read more at location 2199
Rectifying this injustice may require a (temporary) welfare state with some redistribution.Read more at location 2201
for them, the extent to which a society may have a welfare state depends in significant part on how well markets work and how well the welfare state works.Read more at location 2205
A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and John Tomasi, among others, each advocate some form of guaranteed income for the desperately poor.Read more at location 2206
They distinguish between a welfare state, which provides social insurance, and an administrative state, which tries to regulate and manage the economy.Read more at location 2210
Consider countries such as Denmark or Switzerland, which have effectively separated their welfare state from the administrative state. The Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation annually rank countries by their level of economic freedom.Read more at location 2212
Hard libertarians would regard Denmark as unjust because it taxes some to provide for others.Read more at location 2216
82. How do libertarians propose to end poverty without an extensive welfare state?Read more at location 2218
Libertarians believe open and free immigration would help alleviate the world’s most severe poverty.Read more at location 2219
Economists conduct studies to estimate the costs of international barriers on labor mobility (i.e., immigration restrictions). On average, they estimate that eliminating immigration restrictions would double world GDP. Poor immigrants would gain the most.Read more at location 2220
The main way libertarians propose to end remaining poverty is to continue doing the thing that has ended poverty in previous eras. As late as 1800 AD, the average person lived on a dollar a day. However, the West grew richRead more at location 2223
good mix of open markets, the rule of law, respect for private property, cultures of tolerance,Read more at location 2225
Even today, people around the world (such as in China) lift themselves out of poverty not through redistribution, but because of economic growth.Read more at location 2226
One way to understand the value of growth is to imagine what would have happened in its absence. Using data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA),Read more at location 2227
Redistribution can sometimes help the poor. But redistribution is a short-term solution to poverty at best. Suppose we liquidated all of the wealth (income, stock, land holdings, and all other assets) of the 400 richest people in America. Suppose we then distributed that money equally among the bottom 30% of Americans.Read more at location 2233
Creating subsidies in order to help agribusiness, when such subsidies drive up the cost of food and basic goodsRead more at location 2245
Waging the drug war, which is disproportionately fought against poor minorities (though minorities do not use drugs more than whites),Read more at location 2246
Overregulating, when the costs of compliance with regulation fall disproportionately on small businesses,Read more at location 2253
Providing the poor with terrible schools, forcing good students to be stuck with terrible teachers and with peers who teach them dysfunctional social norms,Read more at location 2255
unwilling to provide vouchers for students to attend well-functioning and disciplined privateRead more at location 2257
Creating welfare programs that create “moral hazard,” that is, in which people cannot risk getting a job and supporting themselvesRead more at location 2258
So, for instance, the progressive Left might agree that inner-city public schools produce poor results. However, they claim there is no better alternative.Read more at location 2264
An African American woman might lift herself out of poverty by offering eyebrow threading or hair weave services. However, she faces zoning restrictions plus rules requiring her to attend expensiveRead more at location 2267
Another poor inner-city African American might want to provide a service shuttling customers around his part of town, a great opportunity given that the taxis stay away.Read more at location 2270
Or, a group of poor Jewish immigrants might band together to create a tontine—a communal annuity and social insurance scheme in which all members pay in and receive death and old-age benefits. However, private insurance companies have, in the past, lobbied the government to outlaw such practices,Read more at location 2273
Or, a group of factory workers might band together to hire a doctor to provide health services at a reduced cost to all members. In fact, this was common practice in the past. However, in the past, the American Medical Association faced competition from theseRead more at location 2276
Imagine the government passed a law saying that no one could hire a janitor at less than $1 million/year. This law would not turn any janitors into millionaires. It would put janitors out of work.Read more at location 2290
The economists William Evan and David Macpherson argue that minimum wage laws hurt poor African Americans more than they hurt poor whites.Read more at location 2294
Suppose Wal-Mart decided to pay all of its employees at least $20/hour, nationwide. In the short term, that might help the people who currently work at Wal-Mart. But in the long term, this policy is unlikely to make the least skilled workers rich. If Wal-Mart started to pay high wages, Wal-Mart jobs would become attractive to skilled workers. People who currently work as medical assistants or car mechanics would want Wal-Mart jobs. Since they are more productive and have more skills—since their labor is worth more—they will outcompete the kind of people who currently work at Wal-Mart.Read more at location 2298
They say, if minimum wage laws put the least productive workers out of work, so be it. We could just give them welfare checks as compensation.Read more at location 2305
Even with welfare benefits, unemployment undercuts people’s sense of self-worth.Read more at location 2307
Many economists argue that minimum wage laws at least do not cause huge losses in efficiency. For instance, France has high minimum wage laws, while the United States has low minimum wage laws. French worker productivity is still about 85% of American worker productivity.Read more at location 2309
However, this is not surprising. When minimum wage laws are high, this excludes the least productive members of society from the market.Read more at location 2311
Libertarians respond that this is the wrong question. If we really want to help the rest of the world, we shouldn’t open our wallets to provide foreign aid. We should instead open our borders to allow free immigration.Read more at location 2319
When economists estimate the welfare losses from immigration restrictions, they tend to conclude that eliminating immigration restrictions would double world GDP. The poorest immigrants would benefit the most.Read more at location 2322
First world governments send money to third world governments. Third world leaders tend to take the money to support their own and their supporters’ interests, rather than their people’s interests.Read more at location 2326
Foreign aid to the third world has no history of success. Since World War II, the first world has given Africa about $1 trillion, and yet incomes in Sub-Saharan Africa are lowerRead more at location 2329
