To make sense of interpersonal compensation it is not necessary to invoke the silly idea of a social entity, thus establishing an analogy with intrapersonal compensation. All one needs is the belief, shared by most people, that it is better for each of 10 people to receive a benefit than for one person to receive it, worse for 10 people to be harmed than for one person to be similarly harmed, better for one person to benefit greatly than for another to benefit slightly, and so forth.

Thomas Nagel, ‘Libertarianism Without Foundations’, in Jeffrey Paul (ed.), Reading Nozick, New Jersey, 1981, p. 197