Global equality of resources and the problem of valuation

Abstract

The principle that every individual on the planet has a claim to an equal share of Earth’s natural resources has an intuitive attraction. Yet the Principle of Natural Resource Equality is not without its problems. This article focuses on the problem of valuation. Unless and until its adherents are able to develop an adequate theoretical mechanism for determining the comparative value of two or more bundles of natural resources the principle lacks applicability and persuasive force. Three adequacy constraints on such a mechanism are presented and then applied to a theorisation of the Principle of Natural Resource Equality that I have already expounded elsewhere: Global Equality of Resources. In each case I try to argue that Global Equality of Resources could satisfy the adequacy constraint, provided that both this theory and the relevant constraint are properly understood.

Keywords:

• global justice
• natural resources
• equality
• Ronald Dworkin

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Richard Arneson, Simon Caney, Tim Hayward, Ross Hetherington, Cara Nine, Andrea Sangiovanni, and Zofia Stemplowska for their insights on my presentation at the global justice workshop organised by Carl Knight. I am also indebted to Carl as well as to Hillel Steiner and Chris Armstrong for providing detailed notes on drafts during the publishing phase.

Notes

1. I do not claim, however, that this is how Steiner sees it.

2. How far the resources are located from human settlements and production sites, how much taxation must be paid to possess, transport, and use the resources, levels of human knowledge, ingenuity and technology that can be brought to bear on natural resources − these and many other facts influence the usefulness of natural resources to the pursuit of desired human ends.

3. Of course, this proposal also attracts the generic objection to Dworkinean insurance schemes that they fail to fully compensate the victims of bad brute luck. See Otsuka (2002) and Knight (2009), ch. 1. I do not have space to respond to that objection here.

4. For Risse’s substantive interpretations, see his (2012), pp. 122–123, 381–382, n. 22.

5. I do not assume that my own interpretation matches one or more of Risse’s interpretations, but I also do not rule out that possibility.

6. This constraint builds upon Miller’s critique of liberal, free market mechanisms for the valuation of bundles of natural resources. See Miller (1999b), pp. 192–193 and (2007), pp. 61–62.

7. In my book I also presented Global Equality of Resources as enjoined by interpretive global luck egalitarianism, which itself is designed to offer a constructive interpretation of various international institutions, rules and practices. See Brown (2009), chs. 6 and 7. In addition to this, I emphasised the fact that this remodelling of Dworkin’s original theory was undertaken in spite of Dworkin’s own scepticism about the appropriateness of formulating principles of distributive equality at the global level. Brown (2009), ch. 5. For the purposes of the present article, however, my theory of Global Equality of Resources need not be conceived in all of the aforesaid ways. But where I do rely upon these other aspects I shall make this clear.

8. It is worth noting that Steiner initially claimed − and then later recanted the claim − that the problem of arbitrariness afflicts the Principle of Value Equality when interpreted by and through the mechanism of market prices. See Steiner (1981), p. 563; cf. his (1994), ch. 5, s. (D). His rationale for recanting that claim was essentially that on closer inspection there is nothing arbitrary in the sense of morally unjustified per se in the fact that market prices are sensitive to the preferences, desires and buying decisions that people develop in response to actual or anticipated bundles of natural resources. Steiner (1994), pp. 271–272, n.11. In his (2011) Steiner explained his recantation thusly: ‘In order to keep things simple, we’ll consider a world with only two kinds of natural resources: arable fields and coastal beaches, in equal numbers of acres. To this world we bring two successive generations: an earlier one which is predominantly industrious (EI), and the later one, their offspring, who are predominantly lazy (LL). So it’s reasonable to assume that, before the arrival of LL, the value of a field acre was greater than that of a beach acre. Let’s suppose that their exchange ratio (market price) was 1f:4b: that is, one field acre exchanged for four beach acres. Had LL, with its stronger preference for leisure, arrived earlier than EI, the market price that would have been formed by exchanges among its members is, say, 3f:4b. But since LL did not arrive earlier than EI, its members’ initial natural resource shares are calculated on the basis of the prevailing (EI-formed) 1f:4b price. What this means is that their equal shares each contain more beach acres and less field acres than if they had been calculated on the basis of the 3f:4b price. That is, LL members’ equal shares contain more of what they value more and less of what they value less. Hence it’s difficult to see how the use of EI prices − market prices − adversely affects later arrivals’ initial shares and is consequently tainted by partiality.’ Steiner (2011), pp. 121–122.

9. One possibility is to pull apart and separately auction each of the various claims, powers, immunities and liberties that bear on the disposition of particular natural resources. However, Dworkin rejects that proposal on the grounds that ‘no one can intelligently, or even intelligibly, decide what to bid for in an action, or what price to bid for it, unless he makes assumptions about how he will be able to use what he acquires.’ Dworkin (1987), p. 20.

10. This example is inspired by Michael Walzer’s discussion of the Kula ring practice of the Trobriand Islanders in his (1983), pp. 123–125. Note, however, I would rule out a potential solution to this problem in which the auctioneer simply gives the Mini-Earth clamshells to the traditionalists once the auction is completed, so that they can use these clamshells for their practices of gift-giving and funeral rites. It is unlikely that the divider could both let the traditionalists have all the clamshells and satisfy the envy test. If the clamshells are, in effect, added to the traditionalists’ bundles of natural resources after the auction, then some non-traditionalists may have cause to envy the traditionalists’ bundles, especially if they can think of some practical uses to which the clamshells might be put, like digging sand, carving wood, holding food, and so on. Consequently, we might simply assume for the sake of argument that everything goes into the auction and the auctioneer and bidders simply keep in mind a running total of how many virtual bidding counters everybody has.

11. For other pluralistic approaches to the grounds of global distributive justice, see Risse (2012), ch. 1 and Wolff (2009). Note, however, that Risse finds the Principle of Natural Resource Equality problematic regardless of adopting a pluralistic approach to the grounds of justice, and Wolff does not discuss the principle.

12. Interestingly, this kind of justification has also been used to support the Principle of Equal Value. See Steiner (1994), ch. 8 and (1999), pp. 174–175. And to support the Principle of Collective Ownership: that Earth’s natural resources originally belong to humankind collectively. See Blake and Risse (2009), p. 134.

13. For a range of different criticisms of this argument, see Schemmel (2007) and Brown (2009), pp. 151–153.

14. Some versions of this approach point to domestic institutions as the source of the injustice. See Fabre (2007), p. 149. Other versions instead point to international institutions. See Tan (2012), p. 153. For an account of some potential weaknesses in institutional approaches, see Brown (2009), pp. 154–156.

15. For a full statement of this view and comparisons and contrasts with a priori global luck egalitarianism and institutional global luck egalitarianism, see Brown (2009), pp. 151–156, 184–186, 198–203.