11 - Justice and Distribution of Property Flashcards Preview

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Flashcards in 11 - Justice and Distribution of Property Deck (18)
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1
Q

According to Marx, why does money change everything?

A
  • Transforms (perverts) human relations
  • Money is a means - “procurer of peoples and nations”
  • Skills will be commoditized through wages and labour
  • Money is an end (want to gain wealth)
  • Money talk debases our language
2
Q

According to Marx, what is the true foundation of private property?

A

“In actual history, it is a notorious fact that conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, in short, force, play the greatest part”

3
Q

Problems with distributive justice

A
  • Who should get what?
  • What should be distributed?
  • Money? Opportunities? Rights?
4
Q

What are property rights?

A
  • Owners of resources have (limited) rights to determine what to do with them
  • Objects, land, buildings, factories
  • We have the right to resources ourselves
  • Cluster of rights possesses (exclude others), use, sell, give away, destroy
5
Q

What justifies a system of property rights?

A

-Promoting utility
Protecting natural rights
-Securing freedom - property secures the right to vote (need an address to vote in many cases)
-Ensuring equality - ownership of property makes everyone equal (among these owners)

6
Q

What does utilitarianism say about property rights?

A
  • Choose the distribution that maximizes happiness, well-being, or utility
  • Impartiality: equal concern (does not benefit one over another)
  • Diminishing marginal utility suggests that goods should be distributed equally
  • The incentive argument for inequality
7
Q

Robert Nozick’s libertarianism

A
  • Basic rights include the right to private property
  • Entails free-market capitalism with a minimal state
  • Forced redistribution is illegitimate because it breaks the right of private property and is thus theft
8
Q

John Rawls’ libertarian egalitarianism

A
  • Unrestricted free markets generate unacceptable inequalities
  • Commitment to freedom means equal freedom to all
  • Redistribution can equalize freedoms
9
Q

What is the income parade?

A
  • Looks at how income is distributed
  • Income is translated into height
  • Some are negative height while others are huge
10
Q

Rousseau’s view on private property

A
  • The true founder of civil society
  • The fruits of the earth belongs to us all
  • Earth belongs to nobody
11
Q

Nozick’s 3 principles on property rights

A

1) Justice in initial acquisition: how does ownership originate?
2) Justice in transfer: what makes an exchange just or legitimate?
3) Rectification of injustice: what should be done to correct unjust acquisition?

12
Q

Where do property rights come from?

A

Originally everything that is now owned by someone was owned by no one

13
Q

What is property from survival?

A
  • Fundamental law of nature
  • Property in whatever we need to survive
  • First proviso: non-wastage (only what you truly need)
  • Second proviso: leave enough and as good things for others
14
Q

Objections to the survival argument

A

1) Doesn’t generate property rights in land, machinery, and capital – modern age property from survival does not apply (university student complex)
2) Doesn’t explain how we come to have things

15
Q

What is the labour-mixing argument?

A
  • Individuals own themselves and their own labour
  • Property arises through mixing one’s labour with unowned nature
  • Labour + Unowned nature = property (Building a house or another commodity)
16
Q

Objections to the labour-mixing argument?

A

1) Seems unfair for those who are unable to work

2) Mixing doesn’t automatically generate ownership (pouring tomato juice into the ocean)

17
Q

What is the value-added argument?

A
  • Labour adds value to nature
  • Adding value to something generates ownership
  • Objection: Doesn’t justify property in what was already there
18
Q

What is the argument from desert?

A
  • Those who work productively deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labour
  • Objection: Again, this seems unfair to those who cannot work, and (at best) justifies only the value-added