"Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
To illustrate the basic principles of their discipline, economists sometimes conduct intuitive thought-experiments, designed to pare issues down to their essentials. These thought-experients often take place on an idealized desert island, where a small number of stranded individuals engage in simplified forms of production, consumption, and exchange. Hence, the name applied to this form of imaginative illustration: Crusoe economics. As a contemporary example, extended to book length, I warmly recommend Peter Schiff's "How an economy grows and why it crashes". Gently humorous, as well as painlessly instructive, it contains such characters as Ben Barnacle, who in a dastardly scheme contrives to circulate more and more fish as a medium of exchange, with predictable results.
Now, I have recently been reflecting upon the ethics of property rights and wealth redistribution. It struck me that one might equally conduct thought-experiments under the heading of Crusoe ethics. Such thought-experiments would illustrate the basic principles of right and wrong applying in these elementary island communities, as their members strive to turn the hostile natural world to their advantage.
Accordingly, here is a simple scenario. And to make things interesting, it doesn't just illustrate an ethical principle: instead, it arouses conflicting moral intuitions. One intuition is more typical of the left-wing thought, the other mere typical of right-wing thought. I'd be interested to hear your feedback.
In this scenario, the desert island dwellers currently survive only by eating fish. Alas, these fish, being hard to catch, are in short supply. Then one day, an entrepreneur, who adores fish, saves up his meager rations, and still goes hungry for days, in order to fashion a technical innovation: a net. This net enables him to catch more fish more efficiently in future. As a result, he can now dine heartily.
In addition, he loves fish so much that he is unwilling share any of them with his fellow island dwellers, who are currently starving. These other islanders offer him what they can in exchange. But as I said, he loves his fish. So he refuses all their offers, and keeps all he catches for himself.
The other islanders are understandably aggrieved. They claim that it is intolerably unfair that he should have many more fish than they do. They also argue that the fish will benefit them more than they will benefit him. After all, whereas they need to fish simply to survive, he only wants them to pleasure his palate. Accordingly, he should share at last some of his fish with them.
In response, while munching on a mullet, he argues that they have no right to the fish. By dint of his own industry and intelligence, he has designed and created the net. He now uses that same net to catch all the fish. No one else was involved, or is involved. So the fish he catches are indisputably his: only his labour is here getting mixed with the natural world, no one else's. Hence, no one else but him is entitled to the fish. This means that, no matter how much other people want the fish, or need the fish, they cannot have the fish, unless he voluntarily decides to share them, which, sadly for them, he will not currently do. Nonetheless, no one has the right to take any fish from him by force: that would be a violation of his inalienable right to the specific fruit of his prsonal labour. Even God has decreed as much, some say.
You--on behalf of your starving self, family, or clan--now have the possibility of stealing fish from his bountiful private stash. Is it right or wrong to steal his fish? And if it is right to steal them, what is wrong in principle with a welfare state supported via taxation? Where and now do you draw the line for when it is right to steal what is indisputably the property of others for the greater benefit of the many?
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Comments:
Jul '10
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
I think Yer argument is flawed. You assume only a certain amount of fish. You assume there's only one source of food.
Nov '10
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
Yes, these are givens. Given these givens, what would be the appropriate course of action, in this intentionally idealized situation?
Jan '11
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
I would take the fish if I were on that island. If I'm starving, I obviously can't fish and will have to steal if I am to avoid dying, so it's the only viable choice here. Would it be wrong? To him it would. But he's a jerk, and I'm hungry and incompetent. So it's all good as far as I'm concerned.
To link this situation to taxation is kind of a stretch. I think we have a lot of options in life. We can all make our nets and catch our fish, but a lot of us would rather not, and hope that someone is nice enough to give their fish (or someone else's fish) away. I think for a civilized society, especially in a wealthy nation, we should put together some sort of safety net, but it should be reserved to those who really can't fish. And it will be up to someone smarter than me to figure out who they are.
Dec '10
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
With all due respect, and I assume this is not your intent, you are engaging in a bait (no pun intended) and switch argument. What you describe is not a "greater benefit of the many" situation. It sounds like a "steal or starve to death" situation.
The ethical question you ask gets stickier if there are only enough fish available to enable either your family or the successful fisherman's family to avoid death by starvation.What then?
Edited on February 5, 2011 at 2:05amAug '10
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
The fish he catches are indisputably his. The usual response to such a situation is for others to imitate what he did, create their own nets, and catch more fish of their own. Now, if he patents the idea of a net, and prevents others from using one, then the question gets more complicated.
May '10
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
My reaction was similar to Paul's. Unless someone is in imminent danger of starvation (assuming fish are the only food source), they are bound to honor the inventor's free will and do their own fishing. However, based on this very basic scenario, there's no reason people can't make their own nets. Overfishing could be a concern, though.
This does raise many interesting questions concerning copyrights.
I wouldn't hesitate to build my own sawhorse or patio just because others have designed and constructed such things before me. By producing an item available in a market, I'm excluding myself as a potential consumer of that market. That weakens the potential profits of professional producers of that item. But that's their problem, right? It's not immoral to change my own oil just because mechanics could charge me for it.
Now consider software. What takes a team of a hundred workers years to design, a person could copy in under an hour. That I consider unethical.
Now consider cover bands. If a band can play the song just as well as the band who invented it, what is owed or not owed?
It's definitely complicated.
Jan '11
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
I think we're avoiding the crux of the matter. The number of fish don't matter. What matters is who can get the fish. On the one hand, one person is able to use his tool to catch fish that people want and will not share. On the other, you have a group of people who can only catch enough fish to survive uncomfortably. Aodhan has explicitly added the constraint that the other people cannot improve themselves to get more fish, aside from stealing it (since he will not trade), hence the question of whether or not it is right/moral/ethical to steal the net-maker's fish, leading to the question of the rightness of the welfare state.
Did I get that right?
Dec '10
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
It is always moral to steal food in order to survive. If you have excess you must share it with those who are starving. This is, and has always been, the teaching of the Catholic Church.
However, the requirement is that we feed the poor, not that we fete them. We must clothe the naked, not style them. The homeless must be provided shelter; they need not be housed in fashion.
Jan '11
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
I agree.
Of course, this story was intended to present a different conflict. If it's moral to steal to avoid starvation, why isn't the welfare state equally moral?
Do you lose your property rights when others are starving? No. You may be prudent to help the starving, and ameliorate their anger before they storm your castle, but others' hunger doesn't change your rights. Consider Jesus' method: he advocated charity, which respects both the needs of the poor and your rights. The welfare state presumes to help the poor, but it's at the expense of rights. The state simply takes the money.
If the welfare state was simply organized charity, no problem. But when it tramples property rights (not to mention causing unintended consequences), I object.
Oct '10
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
While stealing his fish would be wrong, I would imagine it is mitigated somewhat by the moral obligation to provide for your family.
The net-maker would be committing a greater moral wrong by not sharing with his suffering neighbors.
This scenario has no purchase on economic arguments in the real world due to the sum-zero condition, of course, but it does point up how an ethical system such as Judeo-Christian values facilitates and humanizes Capitalism (as KCMulville touches on above).
Jan '11
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
How did this thread get bumped?
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
Answers: (1) I think it would be right to take the fish. And (2) I still generally support the free market and desire a reduction. And there's no inconsistency.
Here's why: your thought experiment actually does a good job highlighting the moral silliness of holding up property rights as Platonically, absolutely inviolable. It's wrong to say that an exorbitantly rich man has a "right" to all his riches which he can exert against a starving child who has absolutely no means of independent survival.
But you can still support the free market in the real world on a different basis. Instead of conceiving of property rights as an inviolable Platonic ideal, look to the social scientific data: there's historical and economic evidence to suggest that the only viable economic system is one in which property rights are protected, and that massive welfare states often harm their intended beneficiaries. Property rights aren't inscribed in moral law of the universe; they're simply the most practical way to arrange our affairs in our imperfect world.
Most defenses of the pure deontological/property-rights/libertarian philosophy are very unconvincing. Nozick should have stayedaway from moral philosophy
Jan '11
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
At what point of poverty do I need to be at for you to lose your property rights?
If we make property rights as a mode of convenience, where we can take it away when someone feels like it, how are we different than China?
Because people can be selfish and cruel is a poor reason to do away with rights. I think the problem isn't the rights, but of the person. What a jerk...
Sep '10
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
So after having his work effort taken from him, the net maker destroys his net and goes John Galt.......now where are they?
Since it is morally imperative to feed starving people, don't these people now have a moral obligation to the person feeding them? Like physical labor or repairing the net?
Otherwise the producer has been reduced to being a slave, which many of us could not tolerate. We human being are a lazy lot. I see it in myself. Taking fish can only be moral if there is some sort of exchange. I don't hear this argument anywhere in the discussion of welfare states. Maybe I missed something somewhere.
Oct '10
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
Otto Maddox, Matthew argues that in the real world, some redistribution must happen--in the case of insurance, is even voluntary--but that property rights over all will maximize the resources in society, reduce poverty, increase democracy, and everything else we've observed in four or five hundred years of experimenting with it.
Feb '11
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
Shouldn't he "give back" to the village it took to raise him as a child?
I've used a simpler thought experiment to test whether liberals believe that "wealth inequality" is an evil in itself. Would you support a change to the tax laws that: increases income taxes on the highest decile of income by 10%, but also increase taxes on the lowest decile by 1% (for real, no exemptions, earned income tax credits or other dodges), increases taxes on the next highest decile of income by 9% and the next lowest by 2%, etc.? In other words, do you think that we would be better off in a world in which everyone is demonstrably poorer but there is less disparity in income.
If you think this would be a better world, then I don't understand it but you must be a true believer. If you don't like this idea, then you're real concern is poverty, and you're confused as to its causes.
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
Fullfrontal, you've answered your own question, in a way. Would you want to live in China? Presumably not. You think it would be very unpleasant there. You doubt you would flourish there.
And that's just the point. China is flawed insofar as it institutes policies that harm human flourishing. You don't need to invoke some Platonic, geometric ideal derived from desert-island thought experiments to oppose that.
And, Otto, I think all of us support some redistribution on some level. Even, for example, a minarchist state that only had a military and public roads would thereby be redistributionist, disproportionately benefiting those inclined to travel more, and those less able to defend themselves.
And here's another thought experiment: if (hypothetically) a government that allowed 100% rights to property would lead to nation-wide poverty, and a government that taxed away .02% of your income would lead to nation-wide prosperity, which would you choose? I don't see a serious case for choosing the former -- which indicates to me that all of us admit other moral criteria, especially human welfare, into our thinking about justice. Property rights are a component of justice, but there are others too.
Sep '10
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
Most defenses of the pure deontological/property-rights/libertarian philosophy are very unconvincing. Nozick should have stayedaway from moral philosophy
Matthew, are you channeling Ed Feser?
Oct '10
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
Situational ethics? Good luck with that.
Oct '10
Re: "Crusoe Ethics": Property Rights vs. Wealth Distribution
ShellGamer: Shouldn't he "give back" to the village it took to raise him as a child?
If you think this would be a better world, then I don't understand it but you must be a true believer. If you don't like this idea, then you're real concern is poverty, and you're confused as to its causes. ยท Feb 5 at 5:25pm
Well, the tax code can level wages in the near term, but long-term you have to solve the underlying causes. It's hiding symptoms while the house burns down.
Market forces are far preferable to sky-high marginal rates. In my opinion, unequal incomes are a consequence of unequal trade, itself caused by global savings disparities--ultimately leading to a currency realignment (and inflation).
Inequality happens when one nation refuses to save. People stop accumulating wealth in the nonsaving country (other then the wealthy), while citizens of a high-savings nation become starved of credit (which is being loaned to foreigners). Thus, low savings punishes both nations.
Edited on February 6, 2011 at 3:59am