If an omnipotent authority has the power to assign to every individual the tasks he has to perform, nothing that can be called freedom and autonomy is left to him. He has only the choice between strict obedience and death by starvation.
"Nagel thinks that people in society are morally bound to each other in ways that generate egalitarian obligations."
Posner is — to the best of my knowledge — a magnanimous person with a genuine concern for the lives of millions of Americans, but his book, if heeded, will only exacerbate current conditions.
Now, under the influence of the antidiscrimination paradigm and "human rights" law, men are being told that their human dignity requires the enslavement of a woman who does not wish to provide them with a holiday tour.
The greatest economic charity is that which enables persons to become independent of alms and therefore most self-reliant and secure under freedom.
Although Aristotle, in the Greek tradition, scorned moneymaking and was scarcely a partisan of laissez-faire, he set forth a trenchant argument in
Being ill is not a phenomenon independent of conscious will and of psychic forces working in the subconscious.
Now, bread is baked by government.
And as might be expected,
Everything is well controlled;
The public well protected.
True, loaves cost a dollar each.
But our leaders do their best.
The selling price is half a cent.
(Taxes pay the rest!)
Liberty is an end unto itself, with prosperity as its positive externality.
