1. We have seen that the axial distinction between self-ownership and world-ownership generates three views about the powers of nature and the powers of people. The views differ according as they do or do not encourage an egalitarian approach to the substances and capacities of nature on the one hand, and to the powers of people to modify nature on the other.

There are, first, those who defend an egalitarian approach to both natural resources and human labour. They argue that talented people are merely lucky to be so, and that, to counter the unjustly unequalizing influence of that luck, not only what nature produces but also the product of the powers of people should be distributed according to principles of equality (of, perhaps, in the two cases, appropriately different kinds). John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin are leading exponents of this position.

Others, however, such as Robert Nozick, oppose egalitarianism with respect to both human and non-human productive capacity.