It is a virtue of the book that it forces us to consider economic institutions not merely
as mechanisms for the distribution of goods but also, like political institutions, as
placing restrictions and demands on us that raise questions of obligation. When
things are seen in this way it becomes apparent thatquestions of economic liberty must
be considered, along with political and civil liberty and fair distribution, as conditions
for the legitimacy of social institutions. I hope that this will have an impact on
contemporary moral and political philosophy, where economic rights and liberties
have generally been neglected in favor of political and civil liberties and rights of
other sorts. (Scanlon 1976 , 24 ; italics added)
Even if we reject Nozick’s implausibly permissive conclusions about inequal-
ity and destitution, and his assumptions about income tax and extensive
powers of transfer, Scanlon’s observation reminds us that Nozick shows we
still have to decide what forms of control over their holdings individuals can
reasonably demand of social institutions.
One simple way to make this challenge vivid is to imagine a scenario in
which a group of equally capable individuals has to distribute fertile land and
other natural resources amongst its members. Any adequate solution to the
distributive problem facing the group will need to explain not onlyhowto
distribute those assets but alsowhat to distribute, or the content of the
ownership rights that a just distribution should confer on individuals. Sup-
pose that we favor some egalitarian explanation in theWrst case and for the
latter favor resourcist over welfarist explanations. 2 We still need to answer
various additional questions about what individuals owe one another when
allocating rights to control and beneWt from their resources. Individuals
could enjoy more or less extensive rights to make various unilateral decisions
about the transformation, consumption, or productive use of resources, and
the generation of externalities. They might also possess quite diVerent rights
to exclude others from the beneWts generated by their decisions, and, as we
have seen, to produce transfers in the distribution of rights over resources.
Suppose, for example, we need to decide between ownership rights that
enable individuals to use their holdings only as a means of consumption from
rights that enable individuals also to use their holdings as a means of
production and exchange. Moreover, if we allow productive use, and indi-
viduals have equal productive talents, consider the choice between rights
that distribute the proceeds of individuals’ decisions in diVerent ways;
for example, rights that entitle the producer to retain their entire product
2 For arguments relevant to the latter controversial assumption, see Arneson ( 2000 ); Cohen ( 1989 ,
2004 ); Dworkin ( 1981 a, 2000 , 2004 ); Williams ( 2002 ).
494 andrew williams