We Need More Than Rules

Damon W. Root quotes Richard Epstein on Reason:

"Believers in patterned principles hold that there is some preordained social order that is more just than others. Accordingly, the function of the state is to use the levers of powers to manipulate behavior to achieve the desired outcomes. These patterned principles stand in opposition to historical principles of justice, which are content to establish the rules of the game and then let the legal moves by individual players determine the social outcomes. For Nozick, the key rules were rules of justice in acquisition (to set up the initial property rights) and justice in transfer, whereby those rights (and others derived from them) could be exchanged or combined through voluntary transactions."

Here's my response:

Don the libertarian Democrat | October 8, 2008, 4:05pm | #

"For Nozick, the key rules were rules of justice in acquisition (to set up the initial property rights) and justice in transfer, whereby those rights (and others derived from them) could be exchanged or combined through voluntary transactions."

Actually, if such rules led to a dystopia, no one would accept it. All societies are measured by goals like wealth, justice, liberty, etc., so it is not correct that one merely sets up rules without having some idea or plan of whether the society that results is acceptable.