I agree more with Rawls than Nozick on issues of distributive justice. It seems to me that Nozick's ideas of what it means for a person to truly own something is flawed and incredibly messy. First, I completely disagree with Locke's principles on ownership. Adding labor to land, in my opinion, is not a fair way of owning that land. This would mean that people who don't already have the resources to travel to new land, or who are handicapped, or who have any other number of barriers to accessing unowned land, have a distinct disadvantage. This principle gives even more of an advantage to the people who already have advantages. I also have a hard time figuring out where to draw the line when it comes to ownership. Companies such as Monsanto have patented seeds and sued farmers when this patented seeds accidentally blows into their crops from neighboring land. Nozick and Locke, it seems, would argue that because Monsanto has added labor (and genetic modification) to seeds, they morally have the right to do this. This seems completely unfair to me in every sense. I think this is an example that shows that Nozick's idea of property ownership has problems, if this sort of situation is under his definition, moral. I understand that the whole idea of property ownership is not undermined by this example, and that more ethical ways of owning property can exist. I am not saying that we should outlaw property ownership. However, I don't believe it is ethical for certain persons or groups to have such an advantage that they hold power over another group of people and their rights to food, a job, an education, health care, and other basic rights.
I think that Nozick's arguments fail to address or recognize the issues that come with corporations. I understand the ideas of working for ones own money, and I know the feeling that I deserve to keep the money that I work for. I've been known to be stingy and frugal with my money, and to complain about where my tax money is going. As an individual, though, I believe that this right is different than the rights that a corporation should have. Transnational Corporations are able to influence policies because of the gratuitous amounts of money they can throw towards different campaigns. They can essentially control what different nations import and export, force people to work in unsafe conditions, and squelch labor unions. These corporations will not stop at anything to make profit, and end up destroying human lives to do so. It seems impossible to say that this is a just distribution of wealth, when TNCs have such control over the lives of millions. However, when it comes down to placing the blame or redistributing the wealth, it becomes impossible because of the disjointed nature of corporations. Who is responsible for the people who are being exploited in the name of profit? As far as policies go, I'm not sure how to address these issues. People have rights to the money they earn, but at what point is this at the expense of worker's basic rights?
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Christina, I was thinking similar things when reading the Grey article and discussing it in class. What I don't understand I guess is what a libertarian would consider fair acquisition of property. I mean how would slavery play into this. It really is the slaves that put the hard labor into the land, yet they don't get the property. Shouldn't we then be obligated to make sure that they get to keep that property that their family members generations back worked on? I also think that it is unfair that men that had the right timing and right conditions can benefit from from that luck and for generations on! Property rights in general based on doing work on something scare me. We shouldn't be able to own everything. Isn't one of locke's conditions for acquisition that there is still plenty left for others? How does that play into seed and genetic copyrights?
ReplyDeleteI think a distinction between individual rights and corporate rights is also necessary. Corporations hold so much power and it is so easy to exploit the individual. There needs to be more protection from corporations for the individual. The corporation should not have the same rights as an individual. I'm just not exactly sure what the difference should be. Have you seen the movie "The Corporation"?
You make very important connections christina.