Introduction to Political Theory

to maximise total or, alternatively, average, utility. Who gets what under this

arrangement is irrelevant: person A may get 25 units and person B 10, and the

total is 35 (and average 17.5), but if A got 10 and B 25 the end result would be

the same.

• Historical theoriesWhat people have done (note the past tense) is relevant to
  the distribution of resources. For example, distribution according to desert, that
  is, hard work, is a historical principle (actually, ‘historical’ is a bad label – it
  would have been better, though less elegant, to talk of person-regardingtheories,
  because it is not necessarily what a person has donethat is relevant – need would
  be person-regarding). Historical theories are further divided into:
  oPatterned Any principle that involves the phrase ‘to each according to
  _____’ (fill in the blank: desert, need, labour and so on) is going to create
  a pattern (Nozick, 1974: 159–60). Nozick includes Rawls’s theory as
  patterned: priority to the worst-off (maximin) generates a pattern.
  oUnpatterned Nozick calls his own theory unpatterned, because whatever
  distribution exists should be the result of choice. You could argue that this is
  patterned with the blank filled in as ‘choice’, but ‘choice’ is not really the same
  as desert or need – the latter two provide objective criteria that can be used
  by a redistributive agency (the state) whereas you choose to do whatever you
  like.
  Individuals may, under Nozick’s utopian framework, aim to bring about an end-
  state or patterned distribution, but what may not happen is that the state coerces
  people into creating that end-state or pattern. To appropriate some of Chamberlain’s
  $24,000 is tantamount to forcing him to labour (Nozick, 1974: 172).

Rectification

Nozick’s comments on the third part of his theory are brief and underdeveloped.

If something was acquired or transferred as the result of fraud, theft or force then

some mechanism is required to rectify the situation (Nozick, 1974: 152–3). All that

Nozick offers in the way of a theory is the suggestion that counterfactual reasoning

be applied: what would be the pattern of holdings if the unjust acquisition/transfer

had not taken place? This raises the problem of increased value: if you steal a dollar

and make a million dollars as a result, what should you pay back – the dollar or

the million dollars? This is a live issue, for unlike Locke, who argued that the United

States was ‘unowned’ prior to European colonisation (Locke, 1988: 299–301),

Nozick argues that native Americans had rights to their land and these were violated

and thus rectification is required. But Manhattan – whose only trace of native

ownership is its name – has increased vastly in value since it was ‘acquired’ by

Europeans: how do we rectify that injustice? Nozick provides no answer.

Left libertarianism

A distinction is made between right libertarianism and left libertarianism. Self-

ownership is the starting point for all libertarians, but right and left libertarians

88 Part 1 Classical ideas