Wages, Talents, and Egalitarianism

Andrew Lister

doi:10.23941/ejpe.v11i2.332

Abstract

This paper compares Joseph Heath’s critique of the just deserts rationale for markets with an earlier critique due to Frank Knight, Milton Friedman, and Friedrich Hayek. Heath shares their emphasis upon the role of luck in prices based on supply and demand. Yet he avoids their claim that the inheritance of human capital is on a moral par with the inheritance of ordinary capital, as a basis for unequal shares of the social product. Heath prefers to argue that markets do not tend to reward talent as such. The paper raises some doubts about this factual claim, and argues that sweeping the issue of talent under the rug threatens to make our theory of justice less egalitarian than it would otherwise be. The paper also addresses the objection that claims of unfairness based on the arbitrariness of the distribution of innate abilities will undermine self-respect.

Highlights

In a recent article in The Guardian, George Monbiot argues that neoliberalism encourages people to think that those who prosper in a competitive economic system do so on the basis of individual merit, while those who fall behind deserve their misfortune (2015)
Frank Knight (1923), Friedrich Hayek (1960, 85-102), and Milton Friedman (1962, 16176) all recognized the inevitable role luck plays in supply and demand, and so denied that reward according to marginal product was intrinsically fair, apart from the beneficial social consequences of this pattern of distribution
They had a second reason for rejecting the desert-based justification of capitalism, which was that it is a matter of luck whether one is born with a lot of talent or little

Summary

INTRODUCTION

In a recent article in The Guardian, George Monbiot argues that neoliberalism encourages people to think that those who prosper in a competitive economic system do so on the basis of individual merit, while those who fall behind deserve their misfortune (2015). Frank Knight (1923), Friedrich Hayek (1960, 85-102), and Milton Friedman (1962, 16176) all recognized the inevitable role luck plays in supply and demand, and so denied that reward according to marginal product was intrinsically fair, apart from the beneficial social consequences of this pattern of distribution.2 They had a second reason for rejecting the desert-based justification of capitalism, which was that it is a matter of luck whether one is born with a lot of talent or little. The entire question of natural ability or talent is orthogonal to the debate over whether the particular wage rates determined by competitive markets are justifiable (Heath 2018, 21, emphasis in original) It doesn’t matter what philosophical position we take on whether talent is a basis of economic desert, because markets don’t reward talent, to any significant extent.

CLASSICAL LIBERALS AGAINST THE JUST DESERTS JUSTIFICATION OF

THE EQUIVALENCE THESIS AND THE DIFFERENCE PRINCIPLE

QUESTIONING THE EQUIVALENCE THESIS

CONCLUSION