The ethics of selling shares in your future income

Could private markets in shares in people’s future earnings be morally permissible, or even desirable? While markets for personal debt are widespread, markets for shares in the future earnings of individuals are not. In this article, we argue that from a normative point of view, these markets are worth taking seriously. We begin by surveying their potential upsides and set out a baseline model of such a market that is moderately regulated, but has a plausible claim to being economically viable. We then critically examine its moral permissibility by identifying what (i) moral limits to markets and what (ii) distributive and (iii) relational egalitarian concerns it could give rise to. We advance two claims. First, that in sufficiently idealised circumstances, markets in shares in people’s future earnings are not only morally permissible but are desirable and in several ways superior to markets in personal debt. Second, that in non-ideal circumstances, these markets can give rise to serious distributive and relational concerns that make them morally objectionable, but this does not imply that they should always be prohibited. We conclude that markets in shares in people’s future earnings have potential as a complement to existing markets and modes of public provisioning.