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From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: More on justice
Message-ID: <283@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 6-Jan-85 21:17:56 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.283
Posted: Sun Jan  6 21:17:56 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Jan-85 03:17:35 EST
Organization: U. Chicago - Computer Science
Lines: 55

From a recent posting by a libertarian:

> Taxation is theft....

Please give us a break from this type of rhetoric.  If you simply mean that
taxation is the transfer of wealth by (the implied threat of) force, no one
can disagree.  If you mean that taxation is UNJUST, you must present
arguments in support of a theory of distributive justice on which such an
assertion must be based.  And thereby hangs another tale....

In Libertaria, a future libertarian society, Jack inherits $1 zillion.  He
spends his days playing tennis and polo, driving his Rolls, and sipping
Courvoisier by the poolside with the many women who wish to share his
wealth.  Whenever he gets into legal trouble (e.g., for paternity), he
engages the top legal talents of Gouge & Swindle to get him off the hook.
He attends church regularly to give thanks that he lives in a society where
freedom prevails and he is not forced to sacrifice his values for the
benefit of others, whether through paying taxes or compulsory military
service (Libertaria has been fighting a war against totalitarian
aggressors).  

Across town lives Jill.  She works 12 hours a day, except when she's been
laid off, in the Acme Asbestos plant which Jack owns.  She never gets very
far ahead of poverty; her sons were killed in the war.  Since there is no
OSHA or EPA, she must rely on the cheapest lawyers in town, Torts-R-Us, to
represent her in her suit against Jack when she contracts cancer from
working in the plant (their record against G&S is zip-500)....

We see here how Jack's possession of property gives him dominance over Jill,
a situation that a socialist society would be designed to prevent (at least
in my concept of socialism).  Libertarians say that if Jack's heart bleeds
for Jill, he is free to donate some of his wealth to her or perhaps marry
her.  This is true, but entirely beside the point:  libertarians believe
that the distribution of wealth is just, WHETHER OR NOT Jack gives away any
of his bucks.  The ONLY criterion for justice, say they, is whether the
distribution of wealth is the result of free-market transactions in the
absence of force or fraud.  

Such a view seems hard to beat for sheer moral turpitude.  Is this truly
your idea of a decent society, libertarians?  The common moral sense of
mankind holds that, in some sense, people should get what they deserve and
deserve what they get.  Not so, say (all, most, some) libertarians:
considerations of desert are irrelevant to justice.  Well, perhaps the
common moral belief of mankind is wrong.  I am increasingly intrigued by the
libertarian concept of distributive justice (and so should you be, as
libertarianism is a growing political force in the US).  I await with great
interest a libertarian explanation as to why we should accept Nozick's
theory of DJ in preference to any alternative theory.  

P.S.  Will the socialists on the net PLEASE STAND UP AND IDENTIFY
THEMSELVES?  I am beginning to feel as lonely as a moderate
Republican....Perhaps they have gone underground, plotting the overthrow of
the American Way of Life....

From the foxhole of
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes