Judges and Redistribution

At the prestigous Oliver Wendell Holmes lectures at Harvard Law School, judge Posner displayed his callous demeanor by attacking legal and moral philosophers and law makers by stating, "academic moralists pick from an a la carte menu the moral principles that coincide with the preferences of their social set." With considerable aplomb, he proceeded by stating " they have the intellectual agility to weave an inconsistent heap of policies into a superficially coherent unity and the psychological agility to honor their chosen principles only to the extent compatible with their personal happiness and professional advancement." As one can see, Posner's ruthless mentality has led him to question the actions of officials who impliment and analyze new legislations.
In regards to deciding novel cases, Posner believes that judges should not think of their task as honoring rights, but as distributing rights and harms as in the same way a free market would. For instance in a property dispute regarding contested goods, the judge ought to determine what party would have aquired the right to the property through bargaining in a free market. Posner believes that when judges distribute rights the way an ideal market would, they are maximizing the total social wealth. In addition, Posner argues that legislators should primarily be concerned with people's ability to bargain freely, as opposed to the redistribution of wealth. The redistribution of wealth, from an economic analysis standpoint, decreases the total social wealth because through that action it places responsibility on those who will not utilize the wealth to the full potential. Thus, the question arises : does redistribution of wealth decrease the total social wealth?