What moral
right to exclude others is gained from being the first?
Nozick advanced Locke's Proviso. An exclusive ownership of property is
just only if "enough and as good is left in common for others". If it
does not worsen other people's lot, exclusivity is morally permissible.
It can be argued, though, that all modes of exclusive ownership
aggravate other people's situation. As far as everyone, bar the
entrepreneur, are concerned, exclusivity also prevents a more
advantageous distribution of income and wealth.
Exclusive ownership reflects real-life irreversibility. A first mover
has the advantage of excess information and of irreversibly invested
work, time, and effort.
Economic enterprise is subject to information asymmetry: we know
nothing about the future and everything about the past. This asymmetry
is known as "investment risk". Society compensates the entrepreneur
with one type of asymmetry - exclusive ownership - for assuming
another, the investment risk.
One way of looking at it is that all others are worse off by the amount
of profits and rents accruing to owner-entrepreneurs. Profits and rents
reflect an intrinsic inefficiency. Another is to recall that ownership
is the result of adding value to the world.
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