Robert Nozick’s classic of political philosophy, Anarchy, State and Utopia, turns fifty this year. His blasting of the redistribution of wealth shook academia to its core in 1974 and its intellectual tremors are arguably still being felt to this day. Nevertheless, Nozick’s arguments clearly lost in the ‘real world’; high taxes and high benefits still run amuck. Indeed, even in the heyday of neoliberalism, the 1980s, Thatcher often justified her tax cuts on the basis they advantaged the poorest in society. Did Nozick get it right in advocating for libertarianism though, or, did John Rawls really come to the correct conclusion in defending the social democracy which most states now embody? Little has not been written in the scholarly dispute; yet, Nozick’s case remains close to totally unheard in popular debate. It’s about time that is put right.
In making his first argument against redistributive taxation, Nozick asks us to picture our ideal distribution of wealth across society. He then asks us to imagine Taylor Swift produces a new album and becomes very rich due to many people buying it. Suddenly, egalitarians argue there is injustice within society, because, for example, the poorest could be made better off via an income tax on Taylor Swift’s earnings. To these thinkers, Nozick asks this though: If the original distribution was just and the step to the next distribution was just too, how can any injustice have been introduced? He answers by saying no such injustice can have been introduced because productive activity, e.g., selling a new album, does no wrong and the just shares of everyone else remain the same. Hence, redistribute taxation, founded on an ideal patten of wealth across society, must be opposed, for no injustice from productive activity per se every arises to be corrected.
Against this line of thinking egalitarians have argued the system of natural liberty Nozick favours is unjust because it largely distributes wealth to people on the basis of their natural talents which are ‘arbitrary from the moral point of view’, due to them being from underserved social, familial and genetic factors. In virtue of this moral reasoning, Rawls argues everyone must decide upon principles of justice behind the veil of ignorance where everyone is ignorant of everything about their themselves (which is always infected by the aforementioned factors) and unaware of where they will turn up in civil society when this thought experiment is ended. According to Rawls participants will favour the difference principle which ensures the worst off in society are as well off as possible because they would not want to risk being in any worse situation; this requires redistributive taxation. Nozick pushes at the very fountain of this thinking.
In a cutting passage opposing Rawls’s theory of justice, Nozick points to the total implausibility of eliminating everything which is ‘arbitrary from a moral point of view’ from people behind the veil of ignorance. Existence itself is morally arbitrary; after all, neither the particular egg or sperm which combined together to form you deserved that meeting. Excluding existence from behind the veil of ignorance would ensure no principles of justice are produced though as no one would exist there to come up with any. This is not a conclusion any moral realist can accept. Even Rawls’s idea to simply treat natural talents as undeserved and thus warranting distribution according to maximising the position of the worst off is implausible too. No one deserves their two eyes, two arms or two kidneys, yet redistributing these would be wrong; therefore, serious doubt must be cast on any principles of justice which attempts to eliminate such underserved entitlements.
A final argument Nozick makes is redistribute taxation per se seriously undermines self-ownership. Following Herbert Spencer, he asks us to consider a set of full slaves whose owner wishes to increase his returns on them. To do this he transfers his right to control their occupation and spare time back to them and only maintains a rights to a middling portion of their income. Should they refuse to pay this portion of their income though he keeps the right to imprison them. Nozick holds these people remain slaves, thus, for the same reasons, he holds people today are slaves via income tax too. Sure, this slavery is enormously better than the chattel slavery of the 18th Century, but its essence remains, as individuals are forced to give up the fruits of their labour to others under the threat of violence against them.
Nozick rejects the idea income taxation is not minimal slavery under the presence of democracy too: Were the slave owner to transfer his income rights to a hundred of his former stock and ninety of the least productive extract forty percent of the income from the top ten workers, after a vote on the proposal, the slavery would remain; by parity of reasoning, it remains under democracy as well. Nor does giving the best workers subsidised healthcare, education and pensions detract from this. And as for “the social contract”, Nozick is happy to dismiss it ‘as not worth the paper it’s not written on’.
In Anarchy, State and Utopia Nozick rejects redistributive taxation on the basis the arguments for it implausibly imply productive activity creates injustice, that our flesh and blood should be redistributed, and that minimal slavery is required too. It is time his arguments are put into the popular debate and the injustice of redistributive taxation is ended. Many will question the prospects of politicians adopting these robust positions, and I can see their point. Yet arguing for lower taxes because they raise revenue simply accepts the immorality of redistribution and reaffirms it. This affirmation must end. The productive are not workhorses to pull the worst off along; they are ends in themselves, and ought to be free from the blasted reins of redistributive taxation.