I read a cogent argument the other day. It's called "Property Rights, Coercion, and the Welfare State: The libertarian Case for a Basic Income for All" by Matt Zwolinski. The argument goes as follows:

By recognizing a tension between the libertarian commitment to rights freedom and the libertarian commitment to property rights, the article claims that a necessary link between the libertarian position and a universal basic income exists. It continues by explaining how the Lockean 'proviso' is an answer to that tension.

This 'Lockean proviso' is required in order to make any given system of property rights morally defensible. But just because property rights make for increased general prosperity does not mean everyone receives this benefit. Something else is required as well. Zwolinski suggests "that a state - financed social safety net is necessary to ensure the satisfaction of the Lockean proviso and hence render the system of capitalist property rights morally justified". If the proviso is satisfied by such a safety net, the last step is to determine what the structure of that safety net should look like. The paper suggests that a basic-income guarantee would win that debate on pragmatic grounds.

Now for the tricky part. The beginning of the argument claims a tension between two fundamental tenets of libertarianism: private property and maximum individual freedom. There is no issue as long as the property in question is the ownership of one's own self. However, when resource property (land, etc.) is claimed, there is an issue - not between the owner and the property but between the owner and other people. Ownership restricts the freedom of other people. The Lockean proviso compensates for this restriction.

The Lockean proviso states that when one claims, as property, a part of what is held in common (ie. all land and resources), one must leave "enough, and as good, in common for others" (Locke, 1952). In other words, all other individuals would still have enough to live. This proviso reflects Locke's leanings toward a moral red-line: Land, that is all natural resources, should be used so that All people benefit, not just a few privilaged individuals. Inequality is fine. It's just that no one gets nothing. What the proviso does not do is undermine property rights, in general. There are innumerable benefits accrued to society by implimenting them. The question here is regarding what kind of property rights system is justifiable.

Since the proviso addresses individual benefits, not aggregate benefits, the qustion that determines the justifiability of a property rights system is whether or not every last individual is compensated for their restricted freedom resulting from those property rights. The economist Friedrich Hayak, for example, believed that "the basic moral imperative is to minimize the use of coercion". Government coerces. Employers do too. Employers' coercive power is founded on the limitations brought about by property rights. Poverty, however undesirable it is, is not immoral in itself. But poverty brought about by the limitation of freedom is immoral. It is this poverty, made possible by coercion, that is rectified by the Lockean proviso.

In general, private property does make most people better off. But the rising tde, so to speak, does not make all boats rise enough to satisfy the Lockean proviso. The role of government in libertarian theory is, therefore, to address the dissonance between the tenets of property rights and those of freedom.