Essay/Term paper: Philosophical foundations of poverty and distribution

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Philosophy

Any Lockeian scholar would be lying if they told you that any topic in
the secondary literature on the Two Treatises of Government was more famous (or
infamousÉdepending on who you talk to), widely debated, or caused more
controversy than the old Oxford gradÕs theory of property. Some are shouting
from the left that Locke argues a rights claim for subsistence for all
individuals, that it may even support MarxÕs theory of exploitation. Yelling
back are those from the right who claim that he formulates a moral
justification for capitalist appropriation of property. Then of course there
are those somewhere in between who are telling everyone to shut up because
Locke wrote the damn thing over three hundred years ago in the political
context of 17th century England and to derive these kinds of modern political
presumptions is ludicrous. They all make fine cases for their respective
theories. This humble treatise, however, will merely essay to provide a fairly
objective explanation of John LockeÕs disputed offering to the political and
economic understanding of property and how it relates to poverty and the
distribution of wealth. It will then continue to examine the two most
preeminent, contemporary champions of welfarist and entitlement theories in
that of John Rawls and Robert Nozick respectively, focusing specifically on
what they, standing on LockeÕs shoulders, offer as an acceptable system of
economic justice.
Locke begins by stating that each person has a natural right to preserve his or
her life. "God has given the Earth to all people in common for their
sustenance." (Locke 310). In the state of nature, each person owns everything
in nature equally with everyone else. However, some things in nature must be
"appropriated" in order for one to derive any sustaining benefit from them. As
an example, Locke says one must take possession of acorns or apples in order to
eat them and, so, derive sustenance from them. But one must do something
positive in order to appropriate the acorns or apples and, thus, make them
one's own. A person possesses his or her own body and the actions of that body.
One owns oneself. By virtue of exercising the labor of one's body in
conjunction with the machinations of nature on land held in common by mankind,
one removes a thing from the state of nature and makes it one's own. Locke says
that one's labors puts a "distinction" between oneself and the rest of mankind
in relation to the object of one's labors. The rights of the individual as
expressed in one's labors creates private rights.
Ownership comes out of the appropriation of land and the mixing of labor into
the appropriated land. This originates in the state of nature where there is no
government above the individual to impede their efforts to use and hold onto
their property nor regulate trade between buyers and sellers. Natural freedom,
according to Locke, is to live within the bounds of natural law (reason) which
are respected in the state of nature as the right to enjoy the product of one's
labor and protect its use.
This does not mean, however, that every person has a right to remove from
nature everything that he or she wills. There are limits to what may be
appropriated from nature. First, something may be appropriated from nature so
long as it is enjoyed. Next, one may appropriate to the point of spoilage or
destruction. It is a limit because the properties that were spoiled or
destroyed should have remained common property. As common property, another
person could have mixed his or her labors with nature, thus taking it his or
her property.
In terms of land, one takes possession of land by improving it. It is owned to
the extent that one can manage the land and use its products, and is subject to
the same limitations as the other things one can appropriate from nature
through his labors. God has commanded that it be so to the extent that He
commanded mankind to labor over the earth. And regardless of one's
appropriation of land, there is so much land left in common that the affect of
appropriating the land is negligible. Indeed, when one cultivates his land, one
increases the "common stock" of mankind by creating an abundance of product,
when compared to leaving the same land to nature. Thus any amount that is
cultivated beyond one's needs can be used to supply the needs of others. That
portion of one's lands which produces the surplus remains somewhat in the
possession of the rest of mankind. The rest of mankind benefit's from the
abundance produced through labor.
Civic freedom in the political society transfers only the right of property
protection to the government, the executive power of individuals becomes the
government's duty to punish transgressions of natural law. Civil rights, argues
Locke, are not the restriction of the liberties of private property but the
consent of individuals to this duty of government to be the judge and executor
of civil law founded upon principles of reason. Property rights are passed on
from the state of nature to the political state. John Locke demands that the
government which is instituted by the political society is assigned with the
power and purpose to regulate and protect the use of property. He argues that
people are not "naturally subject" to any human government but introduces the
consent of the governed concept.
The people, however, have the natural liberty at all time to revoke their
trust in the government, should it unjustly intrude on their property rights,
equality, or other freedoms. But Locke clearly articulates this breaking of
trust in a government is not a return to the state of nature but to the
political society (which then creates a new government). During this upheaval
the natural right of individuals to own and use private property is maintained;
the "artificial" government is what changes.
Locke does believe that this human government will be uncorrupted as it was
mentioned earlier that "perfect freedom" is an ideal for imperfect beings. The
social contract, in the form of Locke's political society, is primarily meant
to secure individual freedom. Whether it binds together a group of people with
a national myth or social identity seems to be a secondary benefit of the
political society. Locke intends for the distinct members of the newly formed
civil state to be served by their government, not serve the personal interests
of the leaders. It is interesting that the method Locke prescribes for choosing
the form of government is a majority vote among the political society's members
but that form of government is not necessarily representative democracy. Once
the form of government is decided then the people place their trust in whatever
it is, revocable by the citizens should it interfere in their civic liberties
and private property. The political society formed out of the individuals and
not the government would be the social identity of Locke's state. The
government can be replaced by the permanent political society.

Without private property rights to be protected it could be possible to
guarantee individual freedom for everyone to appropriate as much as they
please. But Locke points out that property accumulation is limited, not by
intruders, by the factors of spoilage and individual labor strength (not
necessarily intruders). Labor not only defines the individual as owner of
property but also defines how much of the property can be appropriated. The
property is meant to be enjoyed by the owner to the maximum; only as much
property that can be used without surplus spoiling is the other limitation of
accumulation.
Locke's detailed discussion in Chapter V outlines the impact of money in
reducing and eliminating these limitations by exploiting the so-called surplus
value and wage-labor to maximize profits. It is most important for Locke that
this productive activity is free from intrusion by other individuals in the
state of nature and the government in the civil state.
There is no individual freedom unless property rights are established and
property protection is enforced. Modern-day critics label these statements as
justification of uncontrolled, industrialized capitalism and exploitation of
the labor working class. "[Some scholars feel] that LockeÕs theory indirectly
inspired Karl MarxÕs theory of exploitation" (Yolton 90). Some thinkers like
Marx actively participated in organizations with the goal of bringing down
liberal, capitalist states. Yet today documents like the American constitution,
embody principles such as consent of the governed, inalienable rights, and
protection of property. Individual freedom is meaningless without private
property in both the "non-governmental", theoretical state of nature and
political societies such as the United States which are modeled on liberal
ideas espoused by Locke. Finally, though the natural and political states are
founded on reason as revealed by the divine will Locke does not propose
theocracy but the right of members of the civic state to choose whatever form
of government they want.
Locke's view of property accepts and endorses two states of affairs we find
problematic today. Huge differentials in wealth between the rich and the poor.
Locke essentially claims that the advent of money made it possible to
accumulate vast wealth. When wealth was measured in goods that were perishable,
this meant that there was a limit to what could be accumulated and kept. For
Locke, it is unjust to hoard those things which will simply perish uselessly
and since money is something lasting, it can be hoarded without any problem.
But as Locke continues, if a person exchanges his perishables for something
durable, such as money, then if, he invaded not the right of others, he might
heap up as much of these durable things as he pleased; the exceeding of the
bounds of his just Property not lying in the largeness of his possession, but
the perishing of any thing uselessly in it. This view is taken up in
contemporary theories of justice by libertarians such as Robert Nozick which
will be examined later. (Regan Class Notes).
After acquiring goods of a particular kind there must be enough, and as good
left in common for others. We must take only what we can use to prevent
spoiling and waste. Locke makes it clear that there is always a right of
subsistence that can be evoked be the poverty stricken. Furthermore, Locke
insists that those who own property have a duty to the needy. The holding of
property carries certain duties and the central one is that the holder creates
wealth that will benefit the common good. Locke holds a doctrine of communal
rights - often called "use rights" and "claim rights." This is found in the
notion of common or public land which is used by everyone in the society. So he
recognizes the need for both private property and common land.
Locke sees private property as essential for the development of a productive
modern economy, one which will vastly increase the wealth of the society so
that everyone in it benefits. Locke is not celebrating private wealth as a good
in itself but rather as a means to make society wealthier which in turn
improves the lives of everyone in the society. Enclosed land, when it becomes
private property, yields ten times what it would yield as common land. Locke
sees the right to property as grounded in a person's ability to make this land
productive. By property Locke means more than just material goods. He means the
rights we have that others have a duty to recognize.
Locke's thought on political legitimacy and property have had enormous
influence on contemporary political philosophy and his ideas have become part
of the public political culture of democratic societies. Despite his mistakes
and prejudices, he offered an account of how political power ought to be
constrained, making way for the justification of modern democratic societies we
find so ascendant todayÉand their critics. This brings us to the Rawlsian and
Nozickian take on the matter.
There are many theories of distributive justice. A detailed discussion of all
such theories is beyond the scope of this essay. For our purposes, it is
sufficient to explore the differences between entitlement and welfarist
theories of distributive justice. Under entitlement theories, a person deserves
goods because of some action the person has taken or some trait the person
possesses. One entitlement theory is the notion, sometimes associated with John
Locke, that a person has a right to what he produces. A modern variant, offered
by Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State and Utopia, states that a person is entitled
to those goods acquired in uncoerced exchanges with others.
In his famous, controversial work Nozick adopts a theory of property rights
under
which a person has a right to property if he acquired it in accordance with the
principle of "justice in acquisition" or in accordance with the principle of
"justice in transfer" from someone else who was entitled to it. Nozick attempts
to distinguish his theory from desert theories that judge the goodness of the
world according to whether the distribution of goods is consistent with a
person's endowment with some quality. Instead, Nozick
evaluates the justice of a person's property holdings solely according to the
method by which such holdings were acquired. Thus Nozick rejects theories of
distribution of the form "To each according to his X" as consequentialist and
ahistorical rather than process-based.
Welfarist theories of distributive justice, on the other hand, judge the
goodness of social states solely by the welfare or utility enjoyed by the
individuals in those states. Perhaps the two best known welfarist theories are
utilitarianism, which judges the welfare of a society according to the
unweighted sum of the utilities of its individual members, and the "leximin,"
based loosely upon the philosophy of John Rawls, which judges the welfare of a
society according to the well-being of its least well off member. Lying between
utilitarianism and the leximin with respect to preference for equality are
weighted utility theories that, like utilitarianism, consider the welfare of
each individual in determining social welfare, but that give greater weight to
the well-being of the less well off members of society.
The leximin is derived from the second of Rawls' two principles of
justice, which maintains that society should be structured so as to maximize
the amount of primary goods held by the least well off class. This principle is
to guide societal structure only after society has implemented Rawls' first
principle of justice, which calls for the maximization of the liberty of each
individual, consistent with the preservation of a like amount of liberty for
others. The welfarist leximin, unlike Rawls' theory, maximizes the welfare, not
the primary goods, enjoyed by the worst off individual and considers the
distribution of liberty only as it affects the level of welfare.
Under a leximin, if the least well off individuals in two societies are equally
well off, the societies are judged by the welfare of the second least well off
individual and so on. If only the welfare of the least well off individuals are
considered, then the term "maximin" is used rather than leximin.
Although concern for incentive and demoralization effects may lead some
welfarist theories to consider how individuals acquired goods in determining
distribution, the fundamental focus of welfarist theories is often thought to
be at odds with that of entitlement theories. Under entitlement theories and
certain other non-welfarist theories, an individual has a right to a good
regardless of whether her ownership of the good is consistent with the welfare
of others or even with her own welfare. For example, according to Nozick, a
person who acquires a good in a just manner would have a right to the good even
if it were of little or no value to her and of enormous value to others.
In contrast, welfarist theories consider the fact that a person has created a
good only to the extent that allocating goods to their creators improves social
welfare by encouraging production or stability. The creator would not, however,
have a claim to the good derived solely from the act of creation. Thus,
welfarist theories of distributive justice permit taxation either to finance
public goods or to redistribute income, if the well-being of individuals in the
society is thereby improved.
An understanding of the implications of welfarist theories of distributive
justice for the tax structure should be understood. We focus on welfarist
rather than entitlement theories, in part because we believe that such ethics,
while not without problems, have more to commend them. It seems plausible, at
least, to judge government policies by the impact those policies have on the
welfare of the individuals in the society.
One particularly attractive feature of a welfarist analysis of taxation is its
responsiveness to the efficiency effects of various tax structures --effects
that nearly everyone finds relevant. Welfarist theories view as desirable any
change that makes some member of society better off without making any other
member worse off. Entitlement theories, on the other hand, may not endorse a
tax that increases the welfare of an "undeserving" individual even if that
change does not reduce the welfare of any other person. While it may be
possible to formulate a coherent ethical theory that rejects the this,
acceptance of this principle is frequently considered a prerequisite of any
acceptable social decision making rule.
A final reason for othe focus on welfarist theories is that entitlement
theories do not clearly justify any rate structure. Any tax imposed on an
unwilling taxpayer may be inconsistent with a system based on the view that a
person has a right to what he produces. Under such an entitlement theory, a
state might be permitted only to levy taxes that lead to making every member of
the society as well off or better off than she was before the tax. For example,
compulsory taxation might be justified to maintain a government strong enough
to protect the rights of the individuals living under it. Even if this notion
is accepted, however, it provides little guidance as to the appropriate rate
structure. The tax implications of welfarist ethics have been explored in the
important economics literature on "optimal taxation."
Welfarist ethics are not without their own difficulties, however. Many reject
such theories because they do not value rights except to the extent that they
improve the welfare of individuals. Others find the interpersonal comparisons
of utility required by welfarist theories to be not only difficult to make, as
most supporters of welfarism would admit, but also meaningless.
The rejection of an exclusively welfarist ethic does not necessarily imply
acceptance of an ethic that is exclusively entitlement-based. Conceivably, a
just society could consider both the welfare of individuals and entitlements in
determining a fair system of distribution. Optimal taxation analysis should be
of interest to those who believe in a mixed ethic, since it provides insight
into the tax structure inspired by any theory of distributive justice that is
at least partly concerned with individual welfare. Ultimately it is the duty of
society to see how the redistributive features of various progressive rate
structures comport with a wide variety of welfarist ethics, ranging from
utilitarianism to the Rawlsian leximin, in order to discover the best structure
for the society in which we live.