Wilt Chamberlain NBA GOAT

 On page 161, Nozick brings up an example of watching Wilt Chamberlain playing basketball as an example against patterned principles of justice. The argument follows that if one million people decide to chip in 25 cents of their ticket money and give it to Wilt to play basketball (D1), Wilt will receive a total distribution of $250,000 (D2). In this case, because D1 is justified, D2 which followed from D1 is also justified. In fact, Nozick goes as far as saying "by what process could such a transfer among two persons give rise to a legitimate claim of distributive justice on a portion of what was transferred, by a third party who had no claim of justice on any holding of the others before the transfer?" (161-162). Nozick then uses this notion to explain that patterned principles of justice (specifically in a socialist society) would consistently interfere with the daily lives of people, as humans are always inclined to ensure their own needs are fulfilled beyond the level of distribution at D1. This would occur unless all acts of capitalism are forbidden, which is obviously unlikely and unjust. 

I largely agree with this sentiment. A purely distributive system where no one is allowed to go above the level of D1 is obviously absurd and counterintuitive to how we have evolved over our history. However, I find that there is a caveat in Nozick's argument. Chiefly that if we take his account at face value, we are able to make the deduction that the argument follows that taxation as a principle is inherently unjust. Indeed, Nozick would proceed to make the argument later on that taxation is akin to forced labor. While this may seem to make sense at face value, upon further investigation and examining how this is applied in the real world, we immediately run into issues. Taking the Wilt example, Nozick argues that the movement from D1 to D2 applies only to two stakeholders, Wilt and the person paying the 25 cents. The logic goes that if third parties (the government) had no claims of justice before the transfer, they logically don't have any after the transfer. However, consider the logistics of actually purchasing the ticket. The reason why a consumer would have the confidence to put the money in the box is because he believes his side of the contract would be upheld. Likewise, Wilt plays before receiving the money since he is confident he will actually be given the money. The structural system that ensures this actually happens, stems from the power of the government in the form of the enforcement of contracts. This enforcement does not actually occur "before the transfer", as there was no need for a contractual enforcement prior to the customer handing in the money. It is only during the transfer itself, that an agreement is made and a mechanism is in place to ensure both parties uphold their side of the argument. Indeed we see the movement from D1 to D2 involves a third party that is responsible for upholding the agreement being made, which is the state, thereby justifying taxation in this regard as an exchange for the service. This could be applied to any other similar case, which negates Nozick's argument against taxation in this instance. 

On a side note, Wilt Chamberlain was absolutely insane as a basketball player. He dropped 100 points in a game once and averaged over 50 points per game in the '61-'62 season. Dude was nuts.