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January 31, 2005
Better Players or Better Games?
I'm loth to pick an argument with Will, especially about political philosophy, but I think he's being unfair to Elizabeth Anderson. I don't think I can fairly summarize his post, but here's the part I have objections to:
What I did prior to t to deserve x (whatever the value of x is) was complete my end of a contract that was entered into voluntarily by the relevant parties within a system of just rules. It just doesn't matter what I did to fix the particular value of x. If S agreed to pay me x for completing my end of a contract, and I complete my end of the contract, then I deserve x from S. THIS IS OBVIOUS and if an argument implies the contrary, then we have a ready reductio of the argument.
Fair enough as far as it goes, but this begs the question Anderson's post was trying to answer, namely: "whether there are sound arguments for the proposition that individuals have such a strong claim to their property that the state cannot justly tax them for the purpose of funding social insurance."
Given that that's the question at issue, it's not reasonable for Will to blithely assume that he's operating in a "system of just rules" that precludes taxation. But that's just what he's doing. If S pays will x for doing some job, it's NOT AT ALL OBVIOUS that the state isn't entitle to a cut. Indeed, the vast majority of people in Ameirca and around the world believe that the opposite is self-evident.
Will seems to be conflating two separate issues that are logically independent. The one that's self-evidently true (indeed, almost tautological) is the argument that within a system of just rules, we deserve whatever the rules say we deserve.
But that observation tells us precisely nothing about what might constitute a system of just rules. Observing that Shaq deserves the basketball MVP tells us nothing about whether basketball is better than baseball. Likewise, the fact that people under laissez faire capitalism deserve the income they earn doesn't prove that laissez faire capitalism is better than a welfare state.
Posted by Tim Lee at January 31, 2005 11:44 PM
Comments
Tim, I think there is some confusion here about what the issue is. The issue I was addressing was not whether the state is entitled to take a cut, but whether one can deserve one's income. It may be the case that I can deserve something, and the state can also take a cut. In fact, I do think that. But I wasn't arguing about the second part. Anderson was saying that because you don't deserve your income, because of the way prices for labor are fixed, desert is no objection to taxes. I'm saying that you can deserve your income, and that the way prices for labor are fixed has nothing to do with it, an so if desert is an objection to taxes, Anderson's argument has done nothing to rebut it.
Posted by: Will Wilkinson at February 3, 2005 12:34 AM