PROPERTY, AND’EQUALITY

ABSTRACT: G. A. Cohen has produced an influential criticism o f libertarian-isrir that posits joint ownershk o f everydiing in the world other than labov, with each joint owner having a veto r&$t over any potential use of the world. According to Cohen, in that world rationality would require that wealth be di-vided equally, with no d@erential accorded to talent, abilitn or eJort. A closer examination shows flint Colterr’s argument rests on two central errors of rea-soning and does not support his egalhrian conclusions, even granting his as-sumption of joint ownership. That assumption was rejected by Locke, Pufendotf and other writers on property f o r reasons thnt Cohen does not rebut. In a number of articles, G. A. Cohen has set out an intricate set of ar-guments rebutting attempts to derive property claims in alienable ob-jects (“world ownership”) and non-patterned distributions of income (“capitalist inequality”) from property claims in one’s person (“self-ownership”). ’ As Cohen (1995, 14) describes his enterprise in SeE Ownership, Freedom, and Equality, “ I entertained an alternative to Noz-ick’s ‘up for grabs ’ hypothesis about the external world, to wit, that it is jointly owned by everyone, with each having a veto over its prospective use. And I showed that final equality of condition is as