The idea that individuals become economically deserving in so far as they are economically productive (as measured by what people are willing to pay for their goods and services) comes under pressure from two directions. On the one side, a well-functioning competitive market is responsive to supply and demand. The ensemble of circumstances that determine supply and demand and hence what remuneration anyone gets for her market activity varies capriciously in ways that confront economic agents as sheer luck. For example, what equally hard-working and skilled auto workers will earn in Germany and China is affected enormously by different economic conditions in the two countries, including actions by other agents, their level of wealth, and so on. There is no remotely sensible notion of individual desert that varies with the benefits that people gain from their economic production. This is not any defect of markets; there is no reason to expect them to somehow distribute benefits according to any common-sense norms of desert. 