We have discussed at length the differences between bleeding-heart libertarians and liberal egalitarians. Let us assume that both camps agree that political institutions must take centrally into account the plight of the poor and vulnerable. The difference between the two camps is sometimes cast in empirical terms: libertarians think that free markets will help the poor more than any alternatives; liberal egalitarian, in contrast, believe that strong regulation of markets and extensive transfer payments will help the poor more than any alternatives.

However, I wish to suggest another way of identifying the disagreement between both camps. To the libertarian who claims that free markets will help the poor, the liberal egalitarian responds that, even if this is true, the rules that govern the market do not guarantee to the poor what is justly due them.  Free markets happen to benefit the poor, and in this sense the market rules fail to fulfill an essential function of the state: to guarantee justice. This may be what Rawls has in mind when he criticizes laissez faire (Justice as Fairness, A Restatement, p. 137), and is certainly a centerpiece of Kant’s conception of the state. For Kant, the state’s job is to secure the rightful condition. If the rightful condition includes, say, a minimal income that lifts people from poverty (or secures meaningful positive liberty, or whatever), then the state must provide that minimal income.

We can see the point clearly when we think about a less controversial function of the state: to promulgate and enforce the criminal law. Here the state cannot allow the “market” (meaning self-help and private enforcement characteristic of the state of nature) to protect the rights of persons, because, as Hobbes, Locke, and Kant say, in that situation we are hostage to the contingent alignment of social forces and differential strength. Our rights are insecure. The state emerges precisely to guarantee our rights, to make them secure, determinate, and impartially enforceable.

The liberal egalitarian, following a similar line of reasoning, may argue that the claims of justice that the poor and vulnerable have cannot be left to the vagaries of the market. Just as our rights against aggression must be secured, so our claims to distributive justice must be secured. The market may well realize just outcomes, but does not guarantee them.

There are several ways in which the libertarian can respond. One is to say that there are no redistributive claims founded on justice, á la Lomasky. Another is to say that guarantees have costs that often make them counterproductive, á la Schmidtz. But these are matters for another post.