Thesis: All principles of justice must answer to social prerequisites of our being able to live good lives together. Among these prerequisites are rules of first possession.

LIBERALISM IS ABOUT FREE ASSOCIATION, NOT ATOMIC ISOLATION

I have been talking about conflicts within liberal egalitarianism, considering how egalitarians can connect equality to meritocratic, humanitarian, and utilitarian considerations. Here I want to step outside that framework to look at the uneasy relationship between egalitarianism and pragmatic considerations underlying customs of ownership by first possession.

In the real world, almost nothing we do is purely distributive. To take from one person and give to another does not only alter a distribution. It also alters the degree to which products are controlled by their producers. To redistribute under real-world conditions, we must alienate producers from their products. The alienation of producers from their products was identified as a problem by Karl Marx, and rightly so; it ought to be regarded as a problem from any perspective.

In a world bound to depart systematically from egalitarian ideals, egalitarian philosophy can encourage these alienated and alienating attitudes. Thus, academic egalitarians, as noted, sometimes see luck as a moral problem, something to resent. On this point, a purist meritocrat agrees, saying success should not be mere luck; it ought to be earned. When meritocratic ideals leave us feeling alienated from a world bound to depart systematically from such ideals, that is regrettable.