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Robert Nozick's theory of distributive justice
Entitlement theory is a theory of distributive justice and private property created by Robert Nozick in chapters 7 and 8 of his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia. The theory is Nozick's attempt to describe "justice in holdings" (Nozick 1974:150)—or what can be said about and done with the property people own when viewed from a principle of justice.

Entitlement theory contrasts sharply with the Principles of Justice in Rawls' A Theory of Justice, which states that each person has an equal claim to basic rights and liberties, and that inequality should only be permitted to the degree that such inequality is "reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage" (Rawls 1999: 53). There is a further provision that such inequalities are only permissible insofar as there is an equality of opportunity to benefit from these inequalities. Nozick instead argues that people who have or produce certain things have rights over them: "on an entitlement view, [production and distribution] are not separate questions things come into the world already attached to people having entitlements over them" (Nozick 1974:160). Nozick believes that unjustly taking someone's holdings violates their rights. "Holdings to which people are entitled may not be seized, even to provide equality of opportunity for others" (Nozick 1974:235). Thus, a system which works to reduce the rightfully earned holdings of some so that they can be equally distributed to others is immoral. "The major objection to speaking of everyone's having a right to various things such as equality of opportunity, life, and so on, and enforcing this right, is that these 'rights' require a substructure of things and materials and actions; and other people may have rights and entitlements over these. No one has a right to something whose realization requires certain uses of things and activities that other people have rights and entitlements over" (Nozick 1974:238).

In his later work The Examined Life, Nozick reflects that entitlement theory's defense of people's holdings may have some problems, in that it could eventually lead to the vast majority of resources being pooled in the hands of the extremely skilled, or, through gifts and inheritance, in the hands of the extremely skilled's friends and children. Nozick says:
"Bequeathing something to others is an expression of caring about them yet bequests [are] sometimes passed on for generations to persons unknown to the original earner, producing continuing inequalities of wealth and position. The resulting inequalities seem unfair. One possible solution would be to restructure an institution of inheritance so that taxes will subtract from the possessions people can bequeath the value of what they themselves have received through bequests. People then could leave to others only the amount they themselves have added. The simple subtraction rule does not perfectly disentangle what the next generation has managed itself to contribute—inheriting wealth may make it easier to amass more—but it is a serviceable rule of thumb" (Nozick 1989:30 31). Furthermore, the notion of taxation being inherently unjust, and market transactions being inherently just, depends on the notion that they actually are as involuntary or voluntary as they appear: in a nation that permits free emigration of its citizens, taxation is not entirely involuntary, while market transactions for necessary goods and services can hardly be said to be entirely voluntary, and if the wealthy, or organized labor, or those in control of de facto industry standards are able to exert undue influence on such a market, they frequently skew those transactions to favor their own interests.