(no subject)
Below is an excerpt from a paper on an idea that's been bothering me for a while. Comments, criticism, and "shut-the-hell-up-you-nerd" are all welcome.
All you need to know about the following, really, is that I'm responding to Nozick, a radical libertarian theorist, who believes that government should only keep people from killing/stealing from each other, and nothing else. Think totally free market capitalism, no public services, no welfare, etc, essentially nothing but a police force and army.
Nozick’s position is inconsistent because it randomly excepts property rights from the realm of things that are distributed on the basis of freedom of action and choice. If he believes that food, shelter, and education should be naturally distributed on the basis of abilities and free actions, why shouldn’t property rights be based on the ability to defend one’s property from others? If someone is naturally strong or smart or cunning enough to hold onto property, then she deserves to keep it; if not, others who have greater natural abilities will take it from her.
One could argue that Nozick would disagree with this because forcible seizure of goods is not a freely chosen transaction; it is instead expressly against the wishes of at least one person, and therefore infringes on someone’s rights. This argument is easy to make when comparing robbery to a trade in the marketplace, but the distinction becomes less clear if one works from a robust definition of free choice. A Hobbesian concept of freedom would say that any decision a person makes is free because he chose to do it. Suppose someone holds a gun to your head and tells you that he will shoot you unless you give him your wallet. If you give him your wallet, then according to Hobbes you would have freely chosen to do so. You were presented with two options - death or losing your wallet - and you chose the more desirable of the two. To make the situation less extreme, suppose someone threatens to beat you up unless you give them your wallet.
Intuitively this seems unfair, but it is actually the definition of freedom that is at work in capitalism, albeit acted out in a less extreme manner. The entire concept of free market capitalism is based on the assumption of rational individuals choosing between better and worse options. No one would argue that if you are buying or selling something you are entitled to a set of options that are necessarily desirable. If you have a limited amount of money, and you are trying to decide between buying a car or paying your child’s tuition, no one would be very sympathetic to the argument that your choice is unfair because you can’t have both. Why, then, should you get to keep your wallet and avoid a beating? This extensive definition of freedom is essential to [Nozick's] theory, because otherwise [he] must admit that there are some situations which are unjust even if they are arrived at by a just process of natural merit and choice.
[...] We are left with a situation in which each person takes what he can get. Entitlement theory [Nozick's position] then becomes not a system of justice, but a lack thereof.
All you need to know about the following, really, is that I'm responding to Nozick, a radical libertarian theorist, who believes that government should only keep people from killing/stealing from each other, and nothing else. Think totally free market capitalism, no public services, no welfare, etc, essentially nothing but a police force and army.
Nozick’s position is inconsistent because it randomly excepts property rights from the realm of things that are distributed on the basis of freedom of action and choice. If he believes that food, shelter, and education should be naturally distributed on the basis of abilities and free actions, why shouldn’t property rights be based on the ability to defend one’s property from others? If someone is naturally strong or smart or cunning enough to hold onto property, then she deserves to keep it; if not, others who have greater natural abilities will take it from her.
One could argue that Nozick would disagree with this because forcible seizure of goods is not a freely chosen transaction; it is instead expressly against the wishes of at least one person, and therefore infringes on someone’s rights. This argument is easy to make when comparing robbery to a trade in the marketplace, but the distinction becomes less clear if one works from a robust definition of free choice. A Hobbesian concept of freedom would say that any decision a person makes is free because he chose to do it. Suppose someone holds a gun to your head and tells you that he will shoot you unless you give him your wallet. If you give him your wallet, then according to Hobbes you would have freely chosen to do so. You were presented with two options - death or losing your wallet - and you chose the more desirable of the two. To make the situation less extreme, suppose someone threatens to beat you up unless you give them your wallet.
Intuitively this seems unfair, but it is actually the definition of freedom that is at work in capitalism, albeit acted out in a less extreme manner. The entire concept of free market capitalism is based on the assumption of rational individuals choosing between better and worse options. No one would argue that if you are buying or selling something you are entitled to a set of options that are necessarily desirable. If you have a limited amount of money, and you are trying to decide between buying a car or paying your child’s tuition, no one would be very sympathetic to the argument that your choice is unfair because you can’t have both. Why, then, should you get to keep your wallet and avoid a beating? This extensive definition of freedom is essential to [Nozick's] theory, because otherwise [he] must admit that there are some situations which are unjust even if they are arrived at by a just process of natural merit and choice.
[...] We are left with a situation in which each person takes what he can get. Entitlement theory [Nozick's position] then becomes not a system of justice, but a lack thereof.