Friedrich Hayek argued that only action can be right or wrong. So, when the famous Austrian playwright Ödön von Horváth walks down the Champs-Élysées during a thunderstorm and is struck—and ultimately killed—by a tree branch, we cannot speak of injustice. The medicine did not intend to kill him; it just happened.
But Hayek’s view that justice applies only to actions has other (and perhaps more important) implications. It is also the case that the patterns of income and wealth in a pure market economy are neither fair nor fair. While it can certainly be fair or unfair how two people in a market economy interact, the exact order that emerges from the interaction of millions of people is neither right nor wrong. Since no one organizes the perfect order (no action, no guiding will behind it), it is beyond justice.
Today’s economies are mixed systems. In these systems, there is usually a free market process. Therefore, in general, the exact order that appears is more than fair. However, governments intervene, that is, they, relying on coercion, interfere with the free actions of the people. Although not all, some interventions are aimed at shaping patterns of income and wealth in society. And to the extent that these interventions affect the overall pattern of wealth in society, justice is at work: how the government shapes these patterns is either right or wrong. For example, governments levy inheritance taxes with the aim of preventing growing inequality, or bailing out ailing banks (as happened after the 2008 crisis).
You should not find this a problem by myself. Perhaps there are good reasons to intervene. However, even if it is right, it is only a problem if all government interventions are genuine.
As soon as the government’s intervention is unjust, however, a critical situation arises, because we have a pattern of income and wealth that is partly the result of actions that are unjust and may be called right or wrong. To make this clear, if in a pure market economy you are poor or lose your job, you are exactly 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 (in part) be the result of government action, that is, government action based on coercion. However, it may have justified claims in a government action to redress past injustices. And maybe more. In Words by Sanford Ikeda“once a redistributive intervention has taken place, those who lose as a result now have a legitimate and identifiable target, that is, the central authority and its supporters, to blame.”
If this assumption is true, our assessment of many citizen actions in a mixed economy becomes very difficult, if not impossible. It’s chaos! For example, if the corner bakery evades taxes, is this wrong? (Illegal of course, but illegal is not moral.) Once you accept that the government has set up a complex regulatory system that favors the big corporations who, with their lawyers and consultants, are better able to control the mixed economy. , it is no longer possible to state a clear decision. But also when we examine the actions of major players like Apple it quickly becomes clear that it is really difficult to find a good place to judge their actions, including attempts to catch the law. Because they may also be victims of unjust government intervention—a point that may be wrong Decision of the EU Commission to punish Apple for allegedly using its power in the music streaming business.
Therefore, in an imperfect mixed economy, people and companies that evade taxes, break the law, and use strategies to avoid government intervention, may have higher moral standards. They may be excused from doing illegal things. And they may have reason to adopt regulations or fight for new regulations that favor their industry. I am not saying they are justified. These are ethical questions and these, if they are to have definitive answers, require a detailed and complex analysis of each case.
But what is clear is that in an interventionist society, things are messy and messy. It is not clear that those who commit acts that may be criminal in a pure market economy, act in a reprehensible manner in a mixed economy.
Max Molden is a PhD student at the University of Hamburg. He worked with the European Students for Liberty and Prometheus – Das Freiheitsinstitut. He publishes regularly in Der Freydenker.
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