Title:	Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income
Authors:	Karl Widerquist
Keywords:	Property
Issue Date:	2013
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Description:	Suppose you’re driving down a desolate highway through the semiarid plateau of eastern Oregon on the way home to your birthplace in Winnemucca, Nevada, at the end of your first year studying political philosophy at the University of Northern British Columbia. You daydream about the time when you will finish your studies, homestead some land near your hometown, raise sheep, eat mutton, and write papers that no one will ever read. Just over the Nevada Stateline, you see a sign on the side of the road reading “Welcome to the Small Casino.” The casino stands alone in the middle of an otherwise empty landscape. While you were gone, your home state legalized gambling, and someone built the Small Casino here to serve gamblers who drive down from population centers such as Bend, Oregon and Walla Walla, Washington. You stop in for a free shrimp cocktail. You observe the people at the casino. Except for the fact that everyone chose to be here, nearly every principle of distributive justice you learned in your studies is violated inside the Small Casino. At every table the odds are stacked in favor of the house, and otherwise, the games do a poor job of rewarding desert, merit, productivity, hard work, diligence, skill, welfare, or need. Some of the games, to some extent, reward some desirable characteristics, but all of the games incorporate a large element of luck and reward for undesirable characteristics, and on average, at every table, the house always wins. Although people choose to be here, not everything can be dismissed as “option luck,” because they make their decisions against a background of brute luck inequalities. Gamblers with advantaged backgrounds tend to do better than others, and deep pockets have a perpetual advantage. Disadvantaged people don’t have the option to gamble in places that compensate for their disadvantages—but that is not the responsibility of the house. People choose to come to this place that accentuates their disadvantages, when they could easily have stayed home.
URI:	http://10.6.20.12:80/handle/123456789/52500
ISBN:	978-1-137-31309-6
Appears in Collections:	Population Studies

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