Justice and Desert: Do People Deserve Their Income?

Whether market incomes reflect what people deserve, how philosophers have answered, and why the question matters for taxes and redistribution.

When someone earns a high income, do they deserve it? When someone earns little, is that fair? These questions about desert are central to debates over taxation and redistribution.

The market view

One view holds that in competitive markets, people are paid roughly according to their marginal productivity: the value they add. On this view, incomes reflect contribution, and people deserve what they earn from voluntary exchange.

Nozick’s entitlement theory

The philosopher Robert Nozick, in Anarchy, State, and Utopia in 1974, argued that what matters is not the pattern of distribution but how it came about. If people acquire holdings justly and transfer them voluntarily, the result is just, however unequal. He used the example of a famous basketball player, Wilt Chamberlain, whom fans voluntarily paid to watch; the resulting wealth was justly his.

Rawls and luck

John Rawls argued that natural talents and family background are matters of luck, not desert. Since no one deserves their starting point, society should arrange inequalities to benefit the least advantaged.

Luck egalitarians extend this, distinguishing between outcomes from people’s choices, such as working hard, and outcomes from brute luck, such as being born disabled or into poverty. They argue society should compensate for bad brute luck but not for choices.

The role of luck in markets

Economists note that market incomes depend heavily on luck: where you were born, your parents’ income, which industry is booming, and even the timing of your graduation. Research by Raj Chetty and others shows that children’s future incomes depend strongly on neighbourhood and family background.

Two equally hardworking people

Two equally talented and hardworking people graduate in the same year. One enters an industry that booms; the other enters one that collapses due to a technological shift. Twenty years later, their incomes differ enormously. How much of this difference is deserved is exactly the question philosophers debate.

Why it matters

Views on desert shape views on policy. Those who see incomes as largely deserved tend to favour lower taxes; those who emphasise luck tend to favour more redistribution. Most people’s views mix both.

Thinking the question has a purely economic answer

Economics can describe how incomes are determined, including the roles of productivity and luck. Whether the results are deserved is a moral question that economics alone cannot settle.

Key takeaways

Desert asks whether people deserve their market incomes.
The market view links pay to productivity; Nozick focused on just processes.
Rawls and luck egalitarians emphasise that talents and circumstances are matters of luck.
Views on desert strongly shape views on taxation and redistribution.