DISQUS

monkyboy · 4 years ago

Consider the programmers of PeopleSoft. They entered into an agreement and then performed so admirably at their tasks that Oracle paid a huge amount of money to acquire their company.

What was their reward? They got fired, 5000 of them.

The reward of a fixed amount of money for a job done in a short amount of time is fairly obvious point to make. What needs to be taken into consideration in the context of SS and taxes is people's earnings over a lifetime.

Micha Ghertner · 4 years ago

Did they enter into an agreement to not get fired? That is, did their dismissal violate the terms of their labor contracts? If so, and if their employer did not compensate them according to the terms of the contract, then indeed, they did not get what they deserved. Someone didn't follow the rules of the process, and that is an injustice, according to Will's argument.

Why are such simple concepts so difficult for some people to understand?

GilM · 4 years ago

Micha,

I think it's because many people don't think that what's fair means people getting what they can as the result of their (and others') voluntary activity.

I suspect that they think it means getting what they, or angels, think it would be nice to see (often equality of results; independent of talent and success). And if that means forcibly interfering with people's plans, taking what they've earned, expecting them to respond to incentives in a way that people rarely do; then so be it. And when it doesn't work...do it harder.

Perhaps they think something else. I'm not sure because it doesn't make any sense to me.

Bob McGrew · 4 years ago

Hayek's argument here sounds very reminiscent of a Rawls-style veil of ignorance. Is that intentional? Anyone who's better at Hayek than I am want to comment?

It's worth mentioning that Hayek's phrasing of "selected at random" vs. Rawls prior-free approach has huge normative implications. In Rawls' case you get the maximin rule (if you like his logic), and in Hayek's case, you presumably get a straightforward utilitarianism.

Will Wilkinson · 4 years ago

Bob, Yeah it's intentional. Hayek gives props to Rawls at the end of the previous chapter. H

Kenny Easwaran · 4 years ago

This sounds to me actually quite reminiscent of a Humean argument about the is/ought divide. Making judgements about one based on the facts of the other is making a sort of category mistake.

However, unless I'm mistaken, this argument seems to suggest that any morally relevant use of the word "deserve" is unjustified, whether we're talking about deserving money or anything else. Except maybe for talk of "placement on list A".

Kilroy Was Here · 4 years ago

Interesting how all of this talk of desert settles around money and contracts. Will seems to argue as if money and contracts between two parties exist in a vacuum. In fact, "money" and "contracts" exist in a community.

This community has, over time, developed laws to arbitrate contracts, and methods to enforce them.
Furthermore, this community has implemented systems to regulate the value of those pieces of green paper we horde and shuffle around.

Now, to me at least, it is obvious that participants who use money and rely on contracts to motivate and enforce behavior have some sort of obligation to the community as whole; however, other than immigrants, few in US society have chosen to enter into a contract to fulfill those obligations.

Now, if Hayek's notions of 'fairness' and 'desert' are centered around freely entered contracts, how does he deal with the obligations we owe society to provide an infrastructure that makes the practical use of these contracts a reasonable expectation?

Kilroy Was Here · 4 years ago

Whenever people talk of philosophical terms, I head to the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy.

Owen Macleod's article on desert there seems to bring up an interesting distinction between desert and entitlement.

"Clearly, entitlement thus understood is structurally similar to desert. For entitlement, like desert, is a three-place relation among an entitled subject, a basis of entitlement, and an object of entitlement. Also, as noted above, many objects of entitlement -- vacations, punishment, replies to invitations -- are also objects of desert. Furthermore, failure to treat in accordance with entitlement, like failure to treat in accordance with desert, can be an injustice. These considerations might lead some to conclude that there is a profound relationship between entitlement and desert.

Some might want to say that the relationship between desert and entitlement is extremely intimate. Indeed, the "institutional" theories of desert mentioned in Section 3 are precisely those that identify desert with some sort of entitlement. However, this proposed connection (identity) is a bit too intimate, for there are cases in which a person is entitled to something but doesn't deserve it, and also cases in which what's deserved isn't something to which the person is entitled. For instance, the rules that govern the state lottery might entitle the winning ticket holder to one hundred million dollars, even if the lucky winner doesn't deserve so much money. Or, it might be that everyone in the United States deserves free or affordable access to basic health care, even though there are no rules that entitle us to it. These cases suggest that if there is an interesting relationship between desert and entitlement, it isn't identity."

From this, one could make an argument that while we can make good arguments that people are 'entitled' to their income, they do not necessarily 'deserve' it.

Will Wilkinson · 4 years ago

Or we could argue the opposite: that although people governed by predatory regimes deserve a certain income, they are not legally entitled to it.

Entitlement, having title, is clearly a legalistic, institutional notion. Desert is more basically moral. But you can think of morality as a kind of institution as well. In these terms, desert is moral entitlement. And, naturally, a system of legal or political institutions may fail to adequately reflect the institution of morality. In which case legal and political entitlements may fail to track our moral entitlements, i.e., respect what we deserve.

Kilroy Was Here · 4 years ago

Will you say
Or we could argue the opposite: that although people governed by predatory regimes deserve a certain income, they are not legally entitled to it.

We could. Indeed, some have. But in order to do that, you have to have some sort of super-structure to appeal to -- some sort of implicit contract that we all have 'agreed' to at birth. It seems to me that some people here are arguing against the existence of this 'angelic' contract.

Where do you think Hayek stands on this issue? Where do you?