Nozick presents this thought experiment in âAnarchy, State, and Utopiaâ to explain his entitlement theory of justice:
Picture a society where wealth is distributed in a way everyone agrees is perfectly just. We call it D1.
Now Wilt Chamberlain (famous NBA player for the zoomers) makes a simple offer:
Drop 25¢ in the box if you want to watch me play.
Fans love it and happily pay. By seasonâs end, Wilt has $250,000.
Welcome to D2:
Wilt is now far richer and the original âjustâ pattern is gone.
Nozick asks:
If D1 was fair and D2 resulted from purely voluntary choices with zero force or fraud, why would D2 be unjust?
Evidently, liberty inevitably disrupts any fixed pattern of wealth.
To preserve perfect equality (or any rigid distribution), the government would have to keep intervening, blocking voluntary trades, taxing, and redistributing.
So true justice isnât about the final snapshot. Justice is not equal outcomes or any version of âequalityâ in the sense proposed by egalitarians (leftists).
Justice in a free society is about whether people acquired and transferred their holdings legitimately through voluntary means.
Every âequal societyâ in history ended the same way: with force.
You cannot redistribute productivity without coercion.
Thatâs the part radical socialism never admits.
The more 'equality' you want, the more authoritarian it must become to enforce it.