ABSTRACT
Left libertarianism identifies and tracks the implications of the two basic rights needed to render a distribution of individual property rights responsibility-sensitive and thereby just. Like the rights required for a responsibility-sensitive distribution of finishing positions in a running race, these basic rights are ones to self-ownership and to an equal start. The latter, understood as a right to equal negative liberty or equal opportunity, is realized through an entitlement to an equalizing share of the value of natural resources – resources for whose existence no one is responsible. Any distribution of property rights derived from exercises of these basic rights, and of the rights serially derived from them, is just. And any violation of individuals’ rights is unjust, warrants compensation and, if uncompensated, can generate unjust exploitations even in free markets. The sole function of the state is to prevent or rectify injustices thus understood.
