Give everyone an equal share, then let them spend it freely — inequality returns

Robert Nozick imagined a society with a perfectly 'just' equal distribution of wealth, then asked what happens when a million fans freely choose to pay basketball star Wilt Chamberlain 25 cents each to watch him play. Chamberlain ends up with $250,000 more than everyone else, through purely voluntary exchanges nobody objects to. Nozick argued this proves any fixed 'fair pattern' is incompatible with real liberty.

— Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia — 1974, pp. 160–164
Go deeper: get the book →