The Tale of the Slave

The Tale of the Slave, by Robert Nozick

Please comment and post responses to the question Nozick asks in this excerpt from Anarchy, State, and Utopia.

If I'm breaking any copyright laws, please don't sue me; I don't have any money.

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• robert
• nozick
• tale
• of
• the
• slave
• anarchy
• state
• and
• utopia
• libertarian
• libertarianism
• democracy
• philosophy

[SweetRandal]

I no very little about Nozick, so please forgive me if my comment appears utterly ignorant. I am confused about the nature of your question. Perhaps I am a bit slow, but I never recognized an instance where I would not still be the property of someone else. Giving one the right to vote in certain situations does not appear to be any kind of genuine liberation. Without any background information, it seems that one would still be a slave. Could you highlight what is problematic in my thinking.

[androsphynx]

@SweetRandal Nozick basically believes that there should be only one law, something like that you may not initiate violence against another person. This would include messing with his property. The government itself would have to follow this law as well, so there would be no taxation (taking of property), no regulation (enforcing a regulation would be initiating a violence against a non-violent person), no laws against victimless crimes and so on.

[trueVincent555]

@androsphynx "there would be no taxation"...I wonder where you would get funds for building roads, and pay basic services like polie, firemen, hospitals and education...

True freedom is unattainable...if it was possible to ahieve absolute freedom everyone would fly out of their houses like superman and wonder through space just for fun...anyway freedom although very limited, is something that is neither cultivated properly under democracy or anarchy...check out what is a timarchy...

[androsphynx]

@trueVincent555 Just to be clear, I don't actually agree with Nozick's conclusions. I'm not a libertarian. I happen to think that Nozick was brilliant, and that someone thinking about political philosophy should be aware of his ideas.

A libertarian would believe that education, hospitals and the like would be run by private corporations. Police would still be a state role. Nozick didn't believe a perfect utopia was possible, just that libertarianism was as close as you could possibly get.

[PADRAEG]

Your enslavement ceased when you get to vote and speak to influence the entire elecorate. Of course, no one is completely free. Clearly this pure democracy does not provide pure freedom. Says Nozick that it does?

[androsphynx]

@PADRAEG The idea that your enslavement has ceased when you get to vote is the intuition he is challenging. He seems to be suggesting that pure democracy can be enslavement of everyone by everyone which is no better for the individual than enslavement by one.

[mule51]

Well, Nozick would not advocate for a "common good" per se. The common good is a utilitarian construction where one's individual rights may be infringed upon if the overall happiness (this word seems wrong) increases.

Nozickian philosophy proposes a morality through a series of side constraints unconcerned with what is "for the common good." These side constraints prohibit one from infringing upon another's individual rights. In this way no injustice is done to anyone.

[thefreedomartist]

in answer to the question: ultimately, i am always a slave, so long as i have a master...

[dantean]

I missed the opportunity to hear him lecture when I was in grad school in the 90s (you know where). The "voluntary slave contract" I've read that he strongly endorsed plays into fears that this is what capitalists are really all about, but perhaps this never dawned on him. To champion liberty while "offering" people in bad straits the "opportunity" to be his (or someone else's) slave sure appears diabolical. Maybe he wasn't that smart a guy. Or maybe he was, only in a Dr. Evil kind of way.

[plmnw]

fun stuff because the free market, and Nozick was a libertarian, is by far the greatest example of democracy. basically it can only work there as intended. as a political system it will probably always be a source of corruption, populism and moral decay.

[TheEthanwashere]

So this sounds a lot like describing wage slavery in the beginning. Anyhow, I get the concept of taxes being theft however they do go towards something you end up using in the end (not just allocated elsewhere for what the master wants, not purely at least).

[snarge]

@ralphinator Yeah, but people who sell things, etc. are Not infringing on anyone's rights (in this hypothetical), nor are they "enslaving" anyone. They Can enslave, but not just by being successful---they can only do so by force. You can vote to enslave. You cannot sell to enslave. A successful seller hasn't taken away any of my rights. At least I can't think of one he has. Being "free" does not mean that I should have access to everything I want. That's not a right of a free person.

[ralphinator]

Case 9 applies to our political system, liberal democracy, but doesn't it also apply to the free market? Really, the brands, goods, and jobs you have access to are determined by a majoritarian calculation, based on how people vote with their money. That the "votes" in the economy more closely reflect power relations than they do majority opinion isn't a development towards self-determination, in fact it moves people in the opposite direction.