Robert Nozick, an American philosopher, published his major work Anarchy, State and Utopia in 1974. In his book, Nozick claims that any distribution of holding is just if and only if everyone is entitled to the holdings they possess under the distribution. A distribution, no matter how unequal, is just as long as it arises through the Entitlement Principles: Justice in original acquisition: we can justly own unowned things by mixing our labors with them if we do not worsen the conditions of others. Justice in transfer: we can justly acquire holdings from others as long as it is through voluntary exchange. Meanwhile, Nozick also recognizes that people do not always follow these principles: people steal properties from others, prevent others from living in their free will, or forcibly exclude others from competing in exchanges. So intervention from the minimal state is required when such injustice occur. Injustice as the violations of the first two principles.
So the third entitlement principle is: Through minimal state intervention, we rectify past injustices and restore something to its rightful owner. One of Nozick’s central claim is that a just distribution, arising by just steps (through the first and second entitlement principles) from an initially just distribution must be just. However, his justification for this claim is flawed in several ways. First, injustice can arise through just means under pure luck, but Nozick’s entitlement view does not account luck into its metric of justice of distribution. This tolerates injustice caused by pure luck under just means. Second, Nozick claims that involuntary taxation is unjust because it is a forced transfer. But he fails to acknowledge taxation as an application of rectification of injustice, thus state intervention is justified under such circumstance.
Finally, although Nozick displays good intention in his endorsement of having a minimal social program to ensure every person in the state of nature can survive with their own abilities. This idea of having a baseline for the poor sounds exactly like a patterned distribution, which is the exact opposite of what he claims the entitlement view to be. Firstly, indirect injustice can arise even under initially just distribution and just steps through pure luck such as economic advantages brought by accidental discoveries or inheritance. This can cause a vast majority of resources being occupied by the children of the hardworking and lucky people. Even though this situation happens frequently, Nozick does nothing to resolve the injustice of entitlement caused by pure luck. Suppose that my grandfather was a farmer along with his friends. They had equal wealth and spent their day working hard in the field. One day, my grandfather found an antique in his field that was worth a fortune. So he sold the antique, quitted farming, and earned more money by making careful investments by learning financial knowledge.
However, since my grandfather contributed a large percentage of the crop harvested in the village, when he quitted farming, the crop price in the village went up. This made all his friends have to pay more for their food, thus become poorer. For now, under Nozick’s view, the first principle of justice in acquisition is qualified because my grandfather and his friend all had a just starting distribution: crop fields. Their acquisition of crop fields did not make others unable to find more. Furthermore, my grandfather’s appropriation of the unowned antique is justified by the first principle of justice: it was discovered through his labor and the appropriation of it did not directly make others worse off. He was simply acting in his self-interest, the fact that his friends ended up worse off was not his fault. My father’s trade of the antique and land was through an entirely voluntary process, thus satisfying the principle of just transfer. In this case, my grandfather’s friends are indirectly made worse off as a consequence of the just transfer of my grandfather’s land. But since the principles of justice in original acquisition and transfer are satisfied, Nozick would agree that this process is just because ‘whatever arises from a just situation by just steps is itself just’ (47).
Suppose a step further that I inherited my grandfather’s money when I was born; my grandfather’s friend’s child K inherited from his parents. I discovered that the money I inherited is much more than K had inherited, and the K’s family is now struggling to survive under financial difficulties. The dilemma is: I did not do any work to acquire the family money, so how can I justify my wealth? Nozick may justify my acquisition of wealth as: my ancestor made effort to give me a financial advantage in society. However, my grandfather is not necessarily more hardworking than others; he did not put more work to appropriate the antique. The unjust distribution of wealth in my generation is not caused by unjust means but pure luck. This phenomenon contradicts Nozick’s central claim of just distribution is resulted from just means. In response to such injustice caused by pure luck, Nozick only suggests that people can voluntarily bequeath their money to the needed; but not in a mandatory way (through taxation), as it would be a violation of personal property. However, it is doubtful that such injustice will be offset by voluntary donation of the wealthy people.
As time goes, the majority of the resources will be owned by children of those who were hardworking and lucky. This can cause a serious and irreversible injustice in our society. Nozick’s principles cannot guarantee such circumstance does not occur; furthermore, it seems unsatisfactory in that the only mean to offset such unjust distribution of wealth caused by luck is the consciousness of the wealthy people. Secondly, Nozick’s total rejection of taxation fails to acknowledge it as a mean to rectify past injustice. His failure to acknowledge this can leave injustice arising through just steps unresolved even though it could be corrected through the principle of rectification of injustice. Nozick thinks mandatory taxation of income is equivalent to forced labor because it redistributes one’s labor to benefit others. Nozick thinks a minimal state is ‘the most extensive state that can be justified’ and that any state that exerts more intervention than the minimal state violates human rights (45).
So it is unlikely that Nozick will find state intervention (such as taxation) justifiable for unjust distribution caused by internalized social norms such as racism. Suppose a white and an African American (a descendant of a former slave) college graduates are competing for a job offer at a company. They have equal resume and experience. The only difference between them is their race. However, African American students loss the job and is unemployed simply due to his race; whereas white students got the job. This is an example of unjust distribution (racial discrimination in workspace) arises through a just process (competing for a job offer). Nozick may agree with such injustice caused by racial discrimination is an undesirable outcome. I would say that since it is unjust, we could correct such injustice by taxing the white student’s earning and compensate it to the African American student. Nozick may response: ‘But to do so, it would require violating the property right of the white student. Taxing the white student for his income is equivalent to letting him work part-time for the African American student.
This is essentially equivalent to forced labor.’ Responding to Nozick’s objection, I would say that such racial discrimination in the job market is caused by the past injustice of slavery in the U.S. In history, African Americans were treated unfairly and sabotaged of their free will to build the wealth we have today. Thus the society today is built based on the injustice of slavery. Then according to the rectification of injustice, we are obliged to correct past injustice of slavery by offsetting racial discrimination to ensure a just distribution in the present. Taxation, which would mostly benefit the racially discriminated and the underprivileged groups affected by historical injustice, is thus a justified mean of rectifying past injustice of slavery. Nozick clearly stated in his essay that redistribution is unacceptable with the exception when ‘those takings fall under the principle of the rectification of injustices’ (65). His obsessive defense of individual property blinds him from the fact that taxation is a mean of rectifying historical injustice which falls under this exception. Directing money received from taxation toward enforcing the affirmative action is a form of rectification of historical injustice of slavery.
Thus, I would say that Nozick has failed to acknowledge that taxation is a way of rectifying injustice. And this failure would leave injustice arising through just means (such as racial discrimination in the workplace) unresolved even though it could be resolved through Nozick’s principle of rectification of injustice. Thirdly, Nozick’s adoption of the Lockean proviso of maintaining the poor above a minimum baseline raises inconsistency with his idea of entitlement view being an un-patterned principle. Nozick’s proviso claims that an initial acquisition is just if it is mixed with one’s labor and that it does not make others worse off. In his endorsement of the Lockean proviso, Nozick supports the idea of a baseline to ensure everyone has a fair chance of survival. However, this idea seems to contradict Nozick’s claim of the entitlement principle being un-patterned. To illustrate, suppose a family encounters a hurricane and is left with nothing; they cannot survive on what they currently have.
Other families in the society were not affected by this natural disaster. If Nozick determines that the family is above the baseline, he is likely to condemn any state intervention, which requires redistribution to resolve such issue, to be unjust under the light of violating personal property. The reasoning goes like this: ‘if the family has bad luck, why do I owe them some of my stuff that I am already entitled to? It is was the family’s bad luck, not mine. But I am forced to carry the burden of the family’s bad luck.’ In this case, Nozick’s handling seems rather unsympathetic to those who lose in natural lotteries. On the other hand, if Nozick determines that the family falls below the baseline, then the proviso would say that this family is entitled to at least a little something because they are below the baseline and would need help from other families to return them to the ‘enough and as good left over’ state (73). Nozick’s adoption of the Lockean proviso would agree to redistribution to help bring the family above the baseline.
But such a situation sounds a lot like a patterned distribution: all members in the society is ensured above a baseline that would give them a fair chance of survival. This contradicts with Nozick’s claim of the entitlement principle being un-patterned. In conclusion, Nozick’s justification of distribution arising from just steps must be just is flawed in many ways. First, he fails to account luck into his metric of just distribution. Ignoring such important factor can cause huge inequalities of holdings in the society through economic advantages gained through inheritance. Second, he fails to see that taxation can be used as a mean of rectifying historical injustice (such as slavery). His total rejection of taxation could leave injustice arising through just means (such as racial discrimination in the workplace) unresolved even though it could be resolved through Nozick’s principle of rectification of injustice. Finally, although Nozick intends to use the Lockean proviso’s idea of a baseline for the poor to ensure just in initial acquisition. He contradicts himself in this enforcement and falsely presents the entitlement principle as a patterned principle.
