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Advocacy Practice for Social Justice 26 {

In a free society, diverse persons control different resources, and new holdings arise out of the voluntary exchanges and actions of persons. There is no more a distributing or distribution of shares than there is a distributing of mates in a society in which persons choose whom they shall marry. The result is the product of many individual decisions that the different individuals involved are entitled to make (Nozick, 1974, pp. 149– 150). The proposed solution is a procedural approach to distributive justice in which “a distribution is just if everyone is entitled to the holdings he possesses under the distribution” (Nozick, 1974, p. 151). To simplify this theory, “From each as they choose, to each as they are chosen” (p. 160). An example illustrates Nozick’s (1974) approach clearly. An end-state the orist such as Rawls might object to a distribution of income that left many people with little and a few, such as sports stars, with much. But suppose that the many choose to buy tickets to football games where the stars play. The football team makes a large profit and pays the players quite well. Nozick argues that this voluntary transfer of holdings (income) from the many to the few is completely just and that any move to redistribute it through governmental ac tion (coercion) is unjust. He makes this last point very strongly when he states, “Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor” (p. 169). Under Nozick’s (1974) approach, the main principle to ensure social justice, then, is to set up a way for fair, voluntary exchanges to take place. This market should be as unfettered as possible. Once the rules are set and followed, any result, no matter how unequal, is socially just. Government’s major duty is to ensure that everyone follows fair rules because enforcement leads to a just outcome. The idea is similar to political freedom. As long as the rules of one- person, one- vote are followed in an election and everyone has a chance to vote, the result of such a free election is just and fair. It is not just, however, to decide who should win an election ahead of time in order to distribute elected positions fairly— that is, to give those positions to different types of people. Similarly, it is not just to determine if the outcome of an economic distribution is fair by looking at the amount of inequality that ensues. As long as fair rules are followed in the marketplace, the distribution of money that results is just.

COMPARING RAWLS’S AND NOZICK’S VIEWS

The practical implications of Rawls’s an Nozick’s interpretations of the term “distributive justice” are staggering. Nozick’s formulation would elimi- nate many, if not all, government efforts at redistribution and would re- turn the country to a system in which charity giving was the only support for people who could not earn their own living. This harsh state of affairs would mean that social work values would be under great duress. Inequality