versus rights that permit others to take an equal share of the product. It
will not suYce to resolve these additional disputes merely by appeal to
comparative convictions that it is unfair for individuals to possess more
ownership rights than any other due to factors beyond their control. In
addition, we need to decide the contours of the rights to be allocated to
individuals.
One way to address these disputes appeals to strategic arguments about
which regime of ownership rights provide incentives that optimally shape
individual decisions. Rawls appears to adopt this approach when claiming
that ‘‘the principles of justice are compatible with quite diVerent types of
regime,’’ and suggesting that the choice between liberal market socialism and
property-owning democracy is contingent on ‘‘the traditions, institutions,
and social forces of each country, and its particular historical circumstances’’
(Rawls 1999 a, 242 , 249 ). Relying only on strategic arguments, however, is not
entirely satisfactory. To require equally capable individuals to share every-
thing they produce, for example, seems objectionable because of the limited
control it gives individuals over their holdings, and that objection
persists even if the requirement does not lead to ineYciency. Nozick’s impact,
I suggest, was to challenge egalitarians to explore these issues in ways that
assumed there were non-instrumental reasons why individuals could demand
substantial decision-making powers over material resources.
6Dworkin
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Ronald Dworkin was the most inXuential philosopher to take up Nozick’s
challenge. In papers published over more than two decades (Dworkin 1981 a,
1981 b, 1987 , 2002 , 2004 ) and his book Sovereign Virtue( 2000 ), Dworkin
defended a theory of economic justice designed to ensure individuals share
in each other’s fate whilst also enjoying a range of economic liberties.
Dworkin’s description of his theory—equality of resources—is complex, but
begins with a simpliWed illustration.
Suppose a group of shipwrecked survivors have to divide a desert island’s
resources equally amongst themselves. When the survivors do so, Dworkin
suggests that they should attempt to satisfy an appropriate version of what
liberty, equality, and property 495