Friedrich Hayek argued that only action can be just or unjust. So when the famous Austrian playwright and novelist Ödön von Horváth was strolling down the Champs-Élysées during a thunderstorm and was hit – and ultimately killed – by a tree branch, we cannot speak of injustice. The tree had no intention of killing him; it just happened.
But Hayek’s view that justice only meaningfully applies to actions has further (and perhaps more important) implications. It also implies that income and wealth patterns in a pure market economy are neither just nor unjust. While it can certainly be just or unjust how two people interact in the market economy, the specific order that results from the interaction of millions of people is neither just nor unjust. Because no one plans the general order (there is no action, no guiding will behind it), it transcends justice.
Today’s economies are mixed systems. These systems generally involve a free market process. Therefore, the specific order that emerges generally transcends justice. However, governments do intervene, that is to say, subject to coercion, they interfere with people’s free actions. Although perhaps not all, some interventions are intended to shape income and wealth patterns in society. And as these interventions then influence the general pattern of prosperity in society, justice becomes applicable: the way in which the government shapes these patterns can be just or unjust. For example, governments tax inheritances with the aim of preventing rising inequality, or they bail out ailing banks (as happened after the 2008 crisis).
You don’t have to find this problematic per se. Perhaps there are good reasons for the interventions. But even if things generally go well, it is only unproblematic if all government interventions are actually fair.
However, as soon as some government interventions are unjust, a delicate situation arises, because then we are dealing with an income and wealth pattern that is partly the result of unjust actions and that can therefore partly be called just or unjust. To make this clear: in a pure market economy, if you are poor or lose your job, you are like Ödön von Horváth. You may be angry at your fate, but you have not been treated unfairly. But if you are poor or lose your job in a mixed economy, this may be (partly) the result of government action, that is, of unjust, coercive actions by the government. But then you may have legitimate claims for government action to retaliate for the previous injustice. And maybe even more. In The words of Sanford Ikeda“Once the redistributive intervention takes place, those who lose as a result now have a legitimate and identifiable target, namely the central authority and its supporters.”
If this reasoning is correct, our evaluation of numerous citizen actions within the mixed economy becomes very difficult, if not impossible. It’s a mess! For example, if the bakery around the corner evades taxes, is that unjustified? (That it is illegal is certainly the case, but legality is not morality.) Once you recognize that the government has set up an insidiously complex regulatory regime that favors large corporations who, with their lawyers and advisors, are better able to manage the mixed economy to maneuver, it is no longer possible to make a clear judgment. But even when we examine the actions of major players like Apple, it quickly becomes clear that it is very difficult to find a good starting point from which to judge their actions, including attempts to bring regulation under control. Because they can also be victims of unjust government intervention – a point in the case is probably the case The decision of the European Commission to punish Apple for allegedly exploiting its power in the music streaming sector.
In the imperfect mixed economy, people and companies that avoid taxes, break the law, implement schemes to circumvent government interventions, can even enjoy a moral high ground. They may be justified in doing illegal things. And they may be justified in enacting regulations or even fighting for new regulations that favor their sector. I’m not saying they are justified. These are moral questions and, if they have definitive answers, certainly require detailed and complex analysis of each specific case.
But what is clear is that in an interventionist society, things get really messy and murky. It is not clear that those who do things that would certainly be reprehensible in the pure market economy act reprehensibly in the mixed economy.
Max Molden is a PhD student at the University of Hamburg. He has collaborated with European Students for Liberty and Prometheus – Das Freiheitsinstitut. He regularly publishes at Der Freydenker.