Libertarianism, markets and distributive justice

This paper focuses upon, some major ambiguities, confusions and problems associated with libertarian ideas of equality of reward as a basic principle of distributive justice. Insofar as such ideas have served to legitimate and guide recent radical political moves away from policies significantly informed by social liberal ideas and values to policies driven by an essentially libertarian agenda of deregulation, privatisation and free market forces, such confusions and problems take on profound practical significance. The focus here is upon reward for direct involvement in the provision of goods and services. There is no consideration of the still more problematic libertarian defence of inheritance and return to productive use of privately owned assets.