Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!cca!ima!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Libertarianism & basketball Message-ID: <1878@inmet.UUCP> Date: Mon, 14-Jan-85 03:52:11 EST Article-I.D.: inmet.1878 Posted: Mon Jan 14 03:52:11 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 16-Jan-85 15:47:58 EST Lines: 108 Nf-ID: #R:gargoyle:-27200:inmet:7800261:000:6124 Nf-From: inmet!nrh Jan 7 17:16:00 1985 >***** inmet:net.politics / gargoyle!carnes / 11:17 pm Jan 3, 1985 >Laura Creighton has related Robert Nozick's fable about Wilt Chamberlain. >It is interesting and worth a closer look. > >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. Oddly, this can be prevented without recourse to force -- all we who dislike slavery need to do is to make sure that subsistence jobs for free men are available -- this is not difficult to do, and may well be automatic, in a free economy (example: Alexander Dumas used to hire several out-of-work friends to do makework for him: one was charged with finding Dumas once an hour and telling him the temperature of the Seine). Given such alternatives, one needn't contemplate slavery. >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] Indeed. A thorny question, bound up with the concept of inalienable rights. Of course, it would not often arise in practice due to the bidding-down of the slavery term brought on by competition, (The coach next door offers him a 20 year contract, the one down the street offers him ten-years with a one-year cancellation clause), and by the odd fact that if not fraudulently offered "slavery" is not a very attractive choice for anybody with any talent, even if it just the ability to wash dishes. >[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?] Sure! You only own land so long as you have some direct claim to it (for example, you're using it). I cannot plausibly claim to use all of Massachusetts, so I can't claim it all and charge people rent. This leaves aside the question of the original inhabitants (the Indians) who's previous claim would invalidate yours. >Now let me retell Nozick's fable, making a small change which will not >affect Nozick's argument. We start with one's favored distribution of >wealth, D, having been actually realized in the society. Now 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? > >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? You're not quite misstating it, but your example leaves a little to be desired because it focuses, wrongly, on how hard it is to make something as opposed to how much it is worth to others. Just for example, let us insert "Dora" into your example. Dora works 12 hours a day cutting string into aesthetically-pleasing (to her) lengths. Should Dora make less than Brooke, even though she works harder? Should Dora make less than Carol, who is not as talented (only Dora, in all the world, knows just what lengths to cut the string into)? In other words, the fair value of something is determined not just by how hard it is to make or how scarce the talent, but by how much people are willing to pay for it. As for people not making money the "old fashioned way", I think that the "old fashioned way" has always included some element of convincing other people that what you did was worth their while. >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. And "luck" is an unjust way of doing it? I assume that you've never flipped a coin to determine who gets to watch their show on TV? Remember, if you wish to enforce some other means of doing things than what people voluntarily accept, you must be prepared to FORCE them to do things your way, so the question is not quite: is this system absolutely fair, but "is this system, including all its coercive measures, fairer than any other system, including ITS coercive measures." Whether any system can be absolutely just seems to me to depend on whether life itself is just. Do you know the answer to that question?