Abstract
In this chapter, we will be exploring consequentialism as a means to defend BIG. Consequentialism says that the correct scheme for property distribution is the one that maximizes the social good. Since taxes tend to promote the social good, taxes are justified. Individual ownership of property must be tempered in service of the overall good of society. Some proponents of rights-based political theory reject the idea that property rights might be limited to the service of overall social good. That is, they reject consequentialism as a basis for forming sound public policy. We will examine the rejection of consequentialism in this chapter. In particular, our concern is whether the idea of property rights can be used to defend the claim of capitalists that taxes are theft. We will look first at the rallying cry that taxes are theft.
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Notes
Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).
I borrow the camping analogy from Gerald Cohen (Cohen, Why Not Socialism? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009)).
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1975).
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (A. and C. Black, 1863).
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot and Peter Diderik Groenewegen, The Economics of ARJ Turgot (The Hague, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977).
Interestingly, Nozick justifies this in terms of the benefits that capitalism brings: those born later without any land, for example, are better off financially working for a property owner than they would have been otherwise. The irony (or inconsistency) here is that now the justification turns to the net benefits of capitalism. That is, con-sequentialist reasoning (appeal to the social good) seems to be perfectly acceptable to Nozick at th is point i n his argument, even t houg h such appeal is not acceptable when it comes to taxes. For more on Nozick’s difficulties at this stage of his argument see, Widerquist, Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A Theory of Freedom as the Power to Say No (New York: Palgrave, 2013).
Massimo Motta, Competition Policy: Theory and Practice (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
Patrick Bolton, Joseph F. Brodley, and Michael H. Riordan, “Predatory Pricing: Strategic Theory and Legal Policy,” Georgetown Law Journal 88 (2000): 22–39.
Paul Milgrom, “Predatory Pricing,” The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics 3 (1987): 938.
Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1990), 53.
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© 2016 Mark Walker
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Walker, M. (2016). Capitalism: Consequentialism versus Rights. In: Free Money for All. Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137471338_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137471338_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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