Just deserts: beyond the free market

WE CANNOT ASSUME that the free market will provide basic sustenance for all. The problem with the free market is that it distributes goods on only one basis--desert. You get what you earn, or you get what you can pay for. The free market does not address claims based on need. In the market, a person's marginal contribution to market productivity is the sole reason she or he has an effective claim to goods and services. A hungry child, however, can claim nothing from the market. She must come up with the effective demand--money--to pay for any item of food.

Given this critique, one might assume that I oppose distribution of goods via free-market exchange. I do not. In fact, I believe that most goods should be exchanged via the free market, because it is an extraordinarily effective means of distribution, and it promotes commutative justice within the economic sphere. It rewards those who contribute economically, and sometimes it punishes those who will not contribute. It provides tremendous freedoms within which individuals can choose how they use their resources. It does not compel anyone to make evil purchases; it permits everyone to make good purchases.

What's more, there is simply no better system available for distributing goods. Peoples and societies have tried various forms of socialism, communism and egalitarianism, and they have failed. Replacing an effective market with an ineffective command system has been historically shown to cause greater harm than good. Therefore, I acknowledge--and even celebrate--the good and the justice that the market provides at this point.

While I agree that the market standard of desert based on economic contribution is appropriate in instrumental spheres such as business, that is not to say that the justice of the marketplace is sufficient. It does not provide basic sustenance for all God's children. As a result, a system of distributive justice that uses only the free market is necessarily less comprehensive and less just than one that also recognizes the validity of claims based on need.

At least three schools of economics explicitly endorse claims based on need as well as on equality and desert: the school that follows Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate in economics who has developed the concept of "basic capabilities"; the tradition of Dutch theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper; and the school of social economics associated with the International Journal of Social Economics. Although the formulations and underlying philosophical assumptions of these schools may differ, all three recognize that 1) the "rational choice" theory of mainstream economics is not sufficient to explain all of human behavior; 2) there is an important and legitimate role for free exchange and entrepreneurial development; 3) a just distribution of material goods will require that we prioritize the basic human need for sustenance; 4) society and society's well-being is not merely an aggregate of each individual's satisfactions--rather, individuals are part of an organic whole; and (5) the optimal allocation of resources as defined by economic efficiency ("Pareto optimality," following the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto) is inadequate to describe true human well-being.

Some may object that redistribution is, of necessity, wrong. Evangelical theologian Calvin Beisner, for example, argues that any system of justice that shows partiality to some individuals, even the poor, is incompatible with the true standard of justice, which of necessity is impartial. For Beisner, "all other regulations of economic activity other than those necessary to prohibit, prevent, and punish fraud, theft and violence are therefore unjust" (Prosperity and Poverty). Beisner and other libertarians have a very firm notion of the inherent justice of the status quo: initial endowments are sacred, as are the property rights that protect them. In fact, these rights take priority over human claims based on need.

I see at least three flaws here. First, from a Christian viewpoint, the Bible does in fact show partiality for the widow, the orphan and the alien, and the grounds for this "preferential option" is, very simply, their neediness. The Bible also clearly shows that property is held in trust. In Leviticus 25:23, God says, "The land is mine and you are but aliens and tenants." God holds the mortgage on all our property and requires that it be used in service of the community--especially the needy within the community. In Deuteronomy 10:17, God declares himself to be impartial in judgment and the defender of the widow and the orphan: "For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty and terrible God. He is no respecter of persons; he is not to be bribed; he secures justice for the fatherless and the widow, and he shows love towards the alien who lives among you, giving him food and clothing."

Second, the notion of distribution versus redistribution is a fiction. There is no pristine state of distribution from which all other arrangements are unjust redistributions. Goods are always flowing. Where would our original state of distribution begin? Would it begin before our European ancestors took the land from the North American Indians? Would it begin before the egregious accounting scandals at Enron that left thousands without pensions? Would it begin before or after various corporations were chartered and patents were issued? Would it begin before we were born in the United States and before others were born in Central America?