Misapplying the criteria of distribution of socialism to a capitalist system would have the effect of destroying the incentive structure that impels action under a capitalist system of production. When individuals can no longer tie the level of productivity to reward due to violent intervention, they become disincentivized to produce as they would in the absence of violent intervention. Thus, the ultimate outcome of this would be a fall in productivity.

There is a critical error in discussions about wealth and income distribution and, consequently, justice under a capitalist system. This leads to a tendency to transfer the arbitrary distribution criteria of a centrally-planned economy to the private property criterion of a free-market economy. When people criticize the distributive justice of a capitalist system, all they merely imply is a substitution of the socialist distribution criteria for the existing state of affairs.