ABSTRACT
In arguing with John Rawls, or with anyone else sharing his socialist starting-place, the obvious prescriptive premise from which to work is their claim that all wealth, whether already produced or in the future to be produced, is or will be available for (re)distribution, free of any legitimate individual prior claims, at the absolute discretion of the collective. Two things need to be noted more often than they are. First, that the extension of the expression 'all wealth' must embrace not only all material goods but also all tradable services. Second, that in the most advanced economies the latter constitute an ever increasing proportion of the total. But such economically valued services either are or otherwise involve human actions. So to insist that these too should be regarded as collective property is to take a giant step towards an annihilation of the intractably individual, autonomous agent.
