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Theory
that defends unlimited laissez-faire capitalism as the only
morally justified regime. The main assumptions of this doctrine
are twofold: the right of every individual to unlimited utilisation
of his own person (self-ownership); and the right to unrestricted,
or relatively mildly limited, appropriation of external resources.
The first means that an individual has exclusive right to
all the goods that are product of use of his talents and efforts.
The second means that he has either the right to appropriate
all natural resources which he finds and takes before others,
or that such an appropriation is limited only by the fact
that he must not put others in the position which is worse
than the one in which they were before his acquisition of
the resources. Furthermore, everything that an individual
acquires with the help of his abilities, efforts, and use
of thus appropriated resources, he can also freely exchange
for the goods of others. If such a trade was voluntary, its
results are just. This theory is interested only in this that
the above procedures are satisfied and that nobody has used
violence to take some goods from others. If things go that
way, a distribution of resources is just regardless of its
outcome, i.e. it is morally right no matter how much someone
possesses at the end, and even if somebody does not have anything
at all. Forceful intervention of the state for the sake of
helping the poor is not allowed.
The
main representatives of this position are:
F.A. Hayek, Jan Narveson, Robert Nozick
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