So if it was thought morally imperative that the ordinary operation of a market economy should proportion rewards to desert, we would have to entirely redesign and remake economic institutions with this end in view. But if one asks, why markets should be reformed so they reward the deserving, the notion of desert in play here looks under scrutiny to be too insubstantial to justify the demanded changes. The thought that people deserve in proportion to their meritorious doings runs up against the fact that all such accomplishments depend to an indeterminate extent on native talent and favorable early socialization, sources of meritorious agency that are entirely beyond the individual's power to control. This is not to say there is nothing in one's conscientious strivings for which one can take credit, but what one can take credit for is so intermingled with what simply falls on one's plate as good or bad luck that the idea of rewarding desert in any fine-grained way is impractical. The idea that people become economically deserving by being economically productive and should be remunerated according to their productivity is at odds with the effective functioning of actual markets. To try to revamp the economy so it rewards the truly deserving would be a fool's errand. (Rawls 1999: sections 47 and 48; but see Miller 1999: chapters 7–9).