Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ccice2.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!teddy!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!rochester!ritcv!ccice5!ccice2!bwm From: bwm@ccice2.UUCP (Brad Miller) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Libertarianism & basketball Message-ID: <547@ccice2.UUCP> Date: Wed, 9-Jan-85 12:18:02 EST Article-I.D.: ccice2.547 Posted: Wed Jan 9 12:18:02 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 12-Jan-85 06:46:06 EST References: <272@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> Reply-To: bwm@ccice2.UUCP (Bradford W. Miller) Organization: CCI Central Engineering, Rochester, NY Lines: 86 Summary: In article <272@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >Laura Creighton has related Robert Nozick's fable about Wilt Chamberlain. > >First, let me tell a slightly different fable. A sports trainer spots a >youth from a very poor family who has great talent for basketball. The >trainer offers the youth a decent subsistence in return for selling himself >into slavery for life. The youth agrees, considering this to be his best >chance in life, and thenceforth the trainer makes $240,000 a year from his >slave. There is nothing in Nozick, so far as I am aware, which implies that >there is anything wrong with this arrangement. Here is what Nozick says >about enslavement contracts: "The comparable question about an individual >is whether a free system will allow him to sell himself into slavery. I >believe that it would." [AS&U, p. 331] I don't think libertarians have any problem with individuals who sell themselves into slavery. They would have a problem with individuals being FORCED into slavery, however. >[Let me throw in another libertarian fable here, although it is not directly >relevant: The Mayflower lands, and most of the Pilgrims remain on board to >settle on a political constitution. One Pilgrim, however, sneaks ashore and >claims Massachusetts. According to libertarian principles, the other >Pilgrims will have to rent or buy land from the one who owns Massachusetts, >or else move on to New Hampshire. Anything wrong with this scenario, >libertarians?] Lets be serious. Even in a libertarian society, there are certain actions that must be perfomed in order to have a valid claim to property. Being the first one to step on it probably won't be sufficient. >... consider a >young lady, Brooke, whose chief achievement in life thus far is to be >beautiful (this she has accomplished by a clever choice of genes). A >million people a year pay her 25 cents each to see her face in magazines, so >she makes $250,000 a year. Another young lady, Carol, studies modern dance >and works at it six hours a day (while holding a job to support herself). >Eventually she turns professional and makes $6,000 a year as a dancer. >There is now a new distribution of wealth, E. Nozick asks, Is not this new >distribution just? Each person who paid to see Brooke or Carol parted with >his money voluntarily. If the people were entitled to dispose of the >resources to which they were entitled under D, didn't this include their >being entitled to give it to Brooke rather than to Carol? Can anyone >complain on grounds of justice? No. >Well, yes, I think Carol can, who is not only talented but works far harder >than Brooke, whose hardest work is applying her makeup. Nozick is asking us >to believe that distributive justice has nothing to do with what individuals >DESERVE. Individuals need not make money the old-fashioned way in Nozick's >society, EARNING it by merit, in order for the outcome to be just. It is >sufficient that the transfers have not involved coercion or fraud. Is this >the position of (all, most, some) libertarians, or am I misstating it in >some way? This is similar to the 'equal pay for equal work' advocates, where all poets will become rich and no Industrial Relations person will want a job.. :-) Market forces HAVE to set the prices of all commodities, including labor. Otherwise a large variety of jobs YOU may claim are 'overpaid' in relation to 'work done' will go undone. In all likelyhood a black market in the commodity would ensue, and the price would rise to the level (or higher) it would have been at in the open market anyway. In your above example, Brooke is SELLING PRODUCT. There is a demonstrable connection between adverts with Brooke appearing and an incerase in sales of the product. Carol can make no such claim. If she wants more money, she will have to commercialize herself. That is, she will have to LEVERAGE her talents, so she is benefiting others either directly or indirectly, and benefiting enough people to garner larger royalties. >At any rate, it is evident why Nozick is concerned to demonstrate that >market outcomes are just: Nozick's minimal state is not allowed to >"correct" market outcomes by redistribution of wealth, even though, as Hayek >admits, market outcomes depend to a great extent on luck. We thus see, not >for the last time, how the defense of the minimal state is linked to the >defense of capitalism. Ok, I have no problem with that statement. So what? Life is a bitch, and then you die -- and that's the good news. You aren't going to eliminate luck in peoples lives by any statist approach, the luck will just be who controls the state, and who dies under it. Brad Miller -- ...[rochester, cbrma, rlgvax, ritcv]!ccice5!ccice2!bwm