If people have the right to do as they choose with their property, then liberty upsets patterns, as the Messi example shows. So all patterned theories of distributive justice , including Rawls', restrict people's free actions. Either we will constantly have to intervene with the distribution of property to bring it back into line with our patterned principle of justice or we will 'have to have to forbid capitalist acts between consenting adults'. (p. 162)

5. Discussion Nozick's theory is very controversial, because it could justify very unequal distributions of property that may not give any kind of priority to people who are worse off. Indeed, people may not even get what they need. If he is right, redistribution cannot be justified except to rectify a previous injustice.

Rawls challenges Nozick's defence of property rights. First, much of what people own and the ability to earn more, he argues, is the result of people's social position and their natural talents, both of which are morally arbitrary. Therefore, any inequalities in ownership are unjust (unless they are benefit the worst off). Second , what rights people have to property can't be decided before deciding on the principles of justice. People don't have a right to the earnings their talents bring them, only to that share which they keep according to the principles of justice.

Nozick responds that each person's talents and abilities belong to them. They therefore have a right to keep (or do whatever they want with) whatever these talents and abilities gain for them. To forcibly redistribute what they earn, e.g. so that any inequalities benefit the worst off, is to fail to respect their autonomy.

But even if people own themselves, Rawls can argue that this doesn't entail that we have the right to do whatever we want with all of our property. A reinterpretation of 'justice in transfer' could place restrictions on property rights. Nozick supposes that any transfer, if it is freely consented to, is just. We can argue that the rules governing transfer should be sensitive to many political values, not just liberty. The rules we currently have (regarding tax, inheritance, transfer between married couples, gifts and so on) are a product of balancing many considerations relating to patterns of production and work, family life, and political institutions.

A different objection to Nozick is that his theory is irrelevant to our society. History shows that a great deal of initial acquisition of property was unjust, based on theft, exploitation, slavery and colonization. This is so widespread that most of the property in society is probably unjustly held. All property that derives from unjust acquisition is unjustly held, Nozick claims. You do not have a right to transfer property you stole, nor does the new owner have a right to what they receive. Before we can have justice in transfer, we must rectify injustice. But we cannot now rectify the injustice of the past, because we have no practical way of establishing what belongs to whom. So Nozick's theory has no application if we do not start from a just beginning. We must therefore work out a different theory of justice that is not so sensitive to past injustices that we cannot correct. And this means that we cannot concern ourselves only with unjust acts, but also unjust states of affairs.