sunsets, movies, and redistribution
"Isn’t it surprising that redistributionists choose to ignore the man whose pleasures are so easily attainable without extra labor, while adding yet another burden to the poor unfortunate who must work for his pleasures?” (Nozick 170)
After reading certain parts of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, I was surprised by the way Nozick described the redistributionist’s argument. He writes that people are either the men who “choose to work longer to gain an income more than sufficient for his basic needs [because they] prefer some extra goods or services to the leisures and activities [they] could perform during the possible nonworking hours” or the men “who choose not to work the extra time [because they] prefer the leisure activities to the extra goods or services [they] could acquire by working more” (170). From this, Nozick then jumps to how this makes it “illegitimate for a tax system to seize some of a man’s leisure (forced labor) for the purpose of serving the needy.” In doing this, Nozick fails to take into account that in many situations, choice is entirely out of the equation and the people who are in need are not people who are choosing not to work but are unable to.
Often, the people Nozick seems to view as those with simple pleasures are the people who simply do not have the opportunity to find jobs and are unable to work for their higher level pleasures. As a result, they may be left trying to find contentment within the constraints of the positions in society they are in and end up finding pleasure in looking at a sunset. While it is true that different people have different pleasures, Nozick’s argument would only make sense if everyone had an equal opportunity to achieve those pleasures. In the case of watching a movie versus looking at a sunset, both the wealthy and poor person are able to look at the sunset, while the poor person may not have access to a job and therefore the financial ability to watch a movie.
On a separate note in response to Nicole’s blog post (about the accumulation of generational wealth and how it does not justify inheritance taxes):
Ultimately one of the key points Rawls makes in A Theory of Justice is that generational wealth is not deserved nor is it something people are entitled to. By chance, some people are born into wealthy families while others are not. Just because a person is born into a wealthy family does not mean they did anything to deserve the money they started out with. (However, this does not mean the additional money they earn through hard work later in their life is undeserved. It only means the initial conditions that allow for them to start off in the position they do is inherently unfair, and therefore requires justice as fairness to even the playing field and have their advantage be used for the general good.) Generational wealth in the first place is antithetical to fair equality of opportunity and therefore makes it necessary to engage in redistribution or adjustment through Rawls’ principles. In this scenario, an inheritance tax would help the least advantaged person in society. While abolishing preferential hiring/admissions would also be another method of adjusting the institution to preserve fair value, wealthy people would naturally have access to other avenues (such as tutoring, private education, etc.) and equality of opportunity would still fail to be secured. Therefore, taxes, which take a portion of the wealthy person’s money, and would in Rawls’ ideal society be used to benefit the least advantaged person, would be justified.
I want to comment further on the point about taxation and pleasures as it was also a point brought up by Nozick that really stood out to me. Firstly, I agree with Grace, and many others who stated, that choosing to work or not to work is not as easy as Nozick makes it up to be. There are many structural problems which effectively keep some people away from working. However, that point is not acknowledged by Nozick and he connects it with pleasures.
ReplyDeleteMy first issue was if we should call watching sunsets or seeing a movie pleasures or should we look for a different word. The word pleasure involves a desire to do the X or Y but I am not quite convinced that it is desire or rather a simple want to relax that plays a role here. I would rather call these activities wants or simple pleasures.
Secondly, Nozick states that a “man who chooses not to work the extra time prefers the leisure activities to the extra goods or services he could acquire by working more.” I do not see what is wrong with such an approach. The idea that we should hustle and work exceeding hours just to gani a reward at the end is an approach that causes mental health issues and disintegrations of communities. Nozick’s approach only allows people to gain simple pleasures from life because they work, work, and work.
However, I do not believe that such be fully the case. While yes, people should work and labor gives many a purpose, and many intangible benefits, besides the compensation, it should not dictate when a person can enjoy their lives or not. Therefore, the state should “seize some of man’s goods” for the purpose that each of us can go and see the movie and not only watch the sunsets. While, how should taxation work is an idea that goes beyond the scope of the comment, I think that an agreeable tax structure can be created which does not over-exploit the rich but also helps the struggling.