A defence of Hayek’s Meaningless argument against social justice

A partial defence of a decent argument by the Austrian economist

Hayek looking very cool in shades, turtle neck and jacket

F. A. Hayek is famous for calling the idea of social justice a mirage, and, recently, I have enjoyed putting forward his signal argument that enforcing a desert-based conception of social justice would objectionably lead to destitution due to fixed prices on labour stopping equilibration in such markets. However, I recently read Eric Mack’s summary of Hayek’s meaningless argument concluding it does not make conceptual sense to label distributions as just or unjust and was taken aback by the force of it. Mack, however, raised two examples against his argument claiming distributions themselves can be just or unjust; siding with Nozick’s framework. I think Hayek might be onto something.

The first premise to Hayek’s meaningless argument is no outcome can be unjust unless there is someone who is blameworthy for it. Hayek writes in Law, Legislation and Liberty: ‘Strictly speaking, only human conduct can be called just or unjust’ he goes onto say, ‘To apply the term ‘just’ to circumstances other than human action or the rules governing them is a category mistake’, i.e., labelling something a thing it cannot possibly be, to use Mack’s example, a green quadradic equation. In support of this contention Hayek points to the fact we do not call the condition of people with birth defects, those with disease, or, those who have lost loved ones, unjust, because, we admit nature cannot be said to be blameworthy: ‘Nature can be neither just nor unjust’.

The second premise of Hayek’s argument is: ‘In a spontaneous order [e.g. free market economy] the position of each individual is the result of the actions of many other individuals, and nobody has the responsibility or the power to assure that these separate actions of many will produce a particular result for a certain person’. Together the two premises create the conclusion the distribution of wealth in a free market society cannot be properly described as unjust because no one is blameworthy for it. To call it unjust would presuppose someone is to blame for it, but no one is to blame because no one has intended or foreseen the resulting distribution (Who does when doing their shopping?). The free market here is analogous to the wind blowing unowned pineapples across the sea to different islands in a big storm; some islanders may end up poor and others rich but the distribution cannot be called unjust either way.

Mack takes the argument to be valid but not sound because he believes the first premise to be false. He gives two examples concerning an errant rolling pin and pickpockets. Let me take each in turn and show the plausibility of Hayek’s position against Mack’s. Following G. A. Cohen, Mack gives the example of a rolling pin rolling out of Jerry’s door and down the hill into the home of Bob’s, where it is picked up by Bob who simply assumes it is one of his identical rolling pins he has misplaced. Mack correctly contends no one can be to blame for this new distribution of rolling pins: ‘Yet Bob’s possession of it is unjust even though Bob does not realize this’. Hence, Mack concludes distributions can be unjust even if there is no blameworthy person, contrary Hayek.

This leads to the very implausible conclusion the natural world is full of injustice, because, innocent aggressor animals can create it. Consider the zebra and let us assume the zebra has the right to a body which cannot be subject to lots of pain. Should a human torture a zebra it does an injustice to it, because, the possession of a pain free body is taken away from the zebra. I think Hayek and Mack can agree here. Now consider the lion which eats a chunk of the zebra causing it lots of pain. The zebra has lost its possession of a pain free body to the lion. According to Mack’s reasoning, though the lion is not to blame at all, he has created an unjust state of affairs, where he has a chunk of the zebra and the zebra a body full of pain less a chunk of himself.

Now Mack will actually want to say the zebra has not had its rights violated creating injustice, or, an unjust state of affairs has come about, because, the lion is not a moral agent and thus cannot be blamed for it. In which case, analogously, he must reject the judgment the rolling pin without any moral agency too can create an unjust state of affairs either. Therefore: The rolling pin example does not show a genuine instance where an unjust situation arises. This means Hayek can maintain his judgement states of affairs, or, distributions, resulting from unintended and unforeseen actions, e.g., a free market, are not subject to the classificatory class of just or unjust, because, no one is blameworthy for them.

Now I should note this does not commit Hayek to counterintuitively saying Bob can simply keep Jerry’s rolling pin. No. When Bob finds out it is Jerry’s rolling pin, he has an obligation to return it, inform him, or, at least, not stop Jerry when he comes to get it back. Were Jerry to keep hold of the pin in any of the related ways to the prior instances of what is possibly required of him, then, his action would constitute theft. It is to avoid this unjust action he must return it etc. not, contrary Mack, to restore the just state of affairs per se.

Mack’s second example concerns K and L, who, with no knowledge of each other, take up the roles of pickpockets and via their thieving take the distribution of wealth from Distribution 8 to Distribution 9. According to Mack: ‘No one agent or set of coordinated agents is blameworthy for Distribution 9 (although K and L are blameworthy for certain of the losses of H, I and J). And no one agent or set of coordinated agents brings about Distribution 9 with intention or even with foresight.’ This is because of all the effects of the thefts and the responses to them. From this example, Mack claims the distribution itself is ‘entirely reasonably’ an ‘unjust distribution’. I don’t think so.

Funeral directors and insurers regularly benefit from murder and theft because their victims or the families of the victims purchase their services to deal with the misfortunes. The holdings of the funeral directors and insurers only arise because of injustice (ignore other sources of income). Some would say their holdings are part of an unjust distribution, maybe Mack and Nozick. Yet Mack would not want to strip the funeral directors or insurers of their holdings even though in a causal sense they are due to injustice.

According to Mack’s thinking, I suspect, there is call by justice to take the holdings of the murderers and thieves because of their crimes, i.e., actions, but no call by justice to take the holdings of the funeral directors and insurers simply because they constitute a part of an unjust distribution, i.e., state of affairs. Now imagine all the murderers and thieves die in house fires and all of their holdings go with them, meaning, we’re still left with an unjust state of affairs, but no prospect for restitutive and retributive justice for the criminal actions. Here’s the kicker: If an unjust state of affairs per se necessarily calls for correction; and, here, clearly, it does not, the state of affairs per se cannot be unjust. What this shows is it is the crime itself which is calling for correction, i.e., injustice in action; states of affairs in themselves don’t call for correction, hence, they cannot be unjust. Hayek’s contention that only human actions can be labelled just or unjust comes out unscathed from Mack’s critique.

As I finish, I should note I don’t know whether Hayek’s contention ‘social justice is a mirage’, or, ‘a category mistake’ is actually true. This article is a limited defence because I simply don’t think Mack’s attack on Hayek works. Nevertheless, I am still very much drawn to Nozick’s idea stated in Anarchy, State and Utopia that: ‘Whatever arises from a just situation by just steps is itself just’, and, I’m afraid, I’d have to give that up by accepting Hayek’s meaningless argument.