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Equal Freedom and Unequal Property: A Critique of Nozick's Libertarian Case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Christopher John Nock
Christopher John Nock
Affiliation:
McMaster University
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Abstract

Robert Nozick argues that inviolable capitalist property rights are a necessary corollary of the free society. This view is grounded in his commitment to the classical liberal principle of equal liberty. This article tests the internal coherence of Nozick's perspective with reference to the demands set by this principle. It is argued that his laissez-faire proposals cannot satisfy these demands. This prompts a consideration of the type of socio-economic arrangements that could respond to the dilemmas posed by the equal liberty principle, the suggestion being that a participatory democratic framework would promote a response superior to Nozick's.

Résumé

Robert Nozick affirme que les droits inviolables à la propriété capitaliste sont l'indispensable corollaire d'une société libre. Cette opinion est basée sur le principe libéral classique de la liberté pour tous. Cet article examine la cohérence intrinséque de la perspective de Nozick concernant les exigences posées par ce principe. On y affirme que ses propositions de laissez-faire ne peuvent satisfaire ces exigences. Cela amène à considérer des arrangements du type socio-économique, lesquels pourraient répondre aux dilemmas posés par le principe de la liberté pour tous. On suggère qu'un cadre démocratique, auquel chacun serait libre de participer, apporterait une réponse plus satisfaisante que les mesures recommendées par Nozick.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , December 1992 , pp. 677 - 695
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1992

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References

1 Friedman, Milton, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 162.Google Scholar

2 See in this vein Tawney's response to Hayek in Tawney, R. H., Equality (London: Allen & Unwin, 1952), 254–268.Google Scholar

3 Traditionally these “extra-libertarian” values have tended to include a notion of equality of opportunity for self-development, a commitment to the general welfare of society and participation in the decision-making processes of society. In the modern liberal tradition these values were first systematically pursued in the new liberal response to the failings of mid-Victorian laissez-faire capitalism. See, for example, Hobhouse, L. T., Liberalism (London: Oxford University Press, 1911Google Scholar). These themes continue to appear in various forms and combinations in diverse liberal egalitarian perspectives. See, for example, Pateman, Carole, Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977Google Scholar), and Political Obligation: A Critique of Liberal Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1985Google Scholar); Macpherson, C. B., The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977Google Scholar); and Burnheim, John, Is Democracy Possible? The Alternatives to Electoral Politics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1985Google Scholar).

4 See, for example, Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980Google Scholar), esp. chap. 2. Rawls emphasizes the priority of the ideal of equal liberty but notes that “a person's good is determined by what is for him the most rational long-term plan of life”(92). This hints at a dissatisfaction with the Nozickian equation of interests with desires and, by implication, with Nozick's conception of freedom. Also see Dworkin, Ronald, “Liberalism,” in Sandel, Michael, ed., Liberalism and Its Critics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984), 60–77Google Scholar. Here, Dworkin criticizes the market, which Nozick praises for allowing economic liberty, as “defective principally because it allows morally irrelevant differences to affect distributions.” This suggests that, for Dworkin, there are morally relevant factors which should guide distribution which may not prevail when people pursue their own desires in their own way. Nozick is keen to suggest that interests should be equated with desires to avoid the potential for charging people with being ignorant of their “real” interests. He hints that perspectives like those of Rawls and Dworkin too readily open the way for justifying the paternalist coercion of those people deemed to be ignorant. For Nozick, this potential “freedom through coercion” paradox must be avoided at all costs. This is why, he suggests, interests must be equated with desires if freedom is to prevail.

5 See Dixon, Keith, Freedom and Equality: The Moral Bases of Democratic Socialism (London: Routledge & Regan Paul, 1986Google Scholar), esp. chap. 1.

6 See Gutmann, Amy, Liberal Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980Google Scholar), chap. 1, and Walzer, Michael, Spheres of Justice: A Defence of Pluralism and Equality (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 310.Google Scholar

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8 Connolly, W. E., Terms of Political Discourse (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1983), 152Google Scholar. Connolly identifies this as the notion which holds that “every adult person should be allowed to do as he chooses unless overriding reasons can be advanced that justify limiting in certain respects.”

9 Some liberal egalitarian assessments have already cast doubt on the internal coherence of Nozick's perspective. Generally, however, they have tended to do so in an indirect manner. See, for example, Davis, Lawrence, “Comments on Nozick's Entitlement Theory,” Journal of Philosophy 73 (1976), 836–844CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goldman, Alan H., “The Entitlement Theory of Distributive Justice,” Journal of Philosophy 73 (1976), 823–835CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gill, Emily R., “Responsibility and Choice in Robert Nozick: Sins of Commission and Omission,” Personalist 59 (1978), 344–357Google Scholar; Johnson, Karen, “Government by Insurance Company: The Antipolitical Philosophy of Robert Nozick,” Western Political Quarterly 24 (1976), 178–188Google Scholar; and Kearl, J. R., “Do Entitlements Imply that Taxation is Theft?” Philosophy and Public Affairs 7 (1977–1978), 74–81Google Scholar. The criticisms of Nozick's perspective developed in this article will go beyond what has been achieved in these writings and will attack his case at a more fundamental level.

10 Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 172.Google Scholar

11 Locke, John, “The Second Treatise of Government,” in John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. by Laslett, Peter (New York: New American Library, 1965), sect. 4.Google Scholar

12 See ibid., sects. 6–7.

13 See ibid., sect. 25.

14 John Locke, “The First Treatise of Government,” in Locke, Two Treatises of Government, sect. 42.

15 Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, 179n.

16 See ibid., 175–76.

17 See, for example, Held, Virginia, “John Locke on Robert Nozick,” Social Research 43 (1978), 169–195Google Scholar; Steiner, Hillel, “The Natural Right to the Means of Production,” Philosophical Quarterly 27 (1977), 45–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Paul, Jeffery and Paul, Ellen Frankel, “Locke's Usufructuary Theory of Self-Ownership,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 61 (1980), 384–395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 This view received wide consideration after Gough stressed it in his analyses of Locke's contentions concerning property. See Gough, J. W., John Locke's Political Philosophy: Eight Studies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950), 71–92Google Scholar. The most influential recent contribution to this view is Tully, James, A Discourse on Property: John Locke and His Adversaries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Rapaczynski has also sought to deny the possibility that Locke intended to justify capitalist property relations in an interesting but confused analysis of Locke's theory of appropriation. See Rapaczynski, Andrezj, Nature and Politics: Liberalism in the Philosophies of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), chap. 6.Google Scholar Also see Andrew, Edward, “Inalienable Rights, Alienable Property and Freedom of Choice: Locke, Nozick and Marx on the Alienability of Labour,” this Journal 23 (1985), 529–550.Google Scholar

19 See Locke, “Second Treatise,” sects. 25–27.

20 Ibid., sect. 37.

21 See ibid., sect. 46.

22 See ibid.

23 See ibid.

24 See ibid., 46, 48–49.

25 Ibid., sect. 36.

26 Ibid., sect. 35. Emphasis added.

27 See ibid., sect. 85.

28 See ibid., sect. 35. Some commentators have sought to suggest that Locke did not consider consent a necessary prerequisite for justifying appropriations that went beyond enough and as good. See, for example, Thomson, Judith Jarvis, “Property Acquisition,” Journal of Philosophy 73 (1976), 664–666CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mansfield, Harvey C. Jr., “On the Political Character of Property in Locke,” in Kontos, Alkis, ed., Powers, Possessions and Freedom: Essays in Honour of C. B. Macpherson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), 23–38Google Scholar. Perhaps the most cogent expression of this view is Waldron, Jeremy, “Enough and as Good Left in Common for Others,” The Philosophical Quarterly 29 (1979), 319–328CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Waldron insists that “the ‘enough and good’ clause is not intended by Locke as a restriction on acquisition and so…does not have to be removed in the course of Locke's justification of contemporary inequality”(324).Locke seems not to have considered the enough and as good proviso to act as a constraint on original appropriation. However, the introduction of money—and the large and unequal appropriations this gave rise to—did promote an important tension between the right of individuals to take whatever they could use and the right of others to live free from the wills of others. Those who had come to own large amounts of resources were now in a position to exercise their wills over the lives of non-owners. Regardless of Locke's own intent, the only way this development might be held compatible with the equal liberty principle is if it commanded the consent of those denied unmediated access to natural materials. This consent did not need to be explicitly expressed. As Locke's own contentions suggest, it could have been a tacit consent expressed through the use of money. This is clearly and consistently indicated by Locke in sections 36, 45, 47–51 of the “Second Treatise.”

29 See ibid., sect. 50.

30 See, for example, ibid., sects. 189–91.

31 See ibid., sect 41. Here Locke stressed the obvious material benefits associated with a system allowing the large and unequal private appropriation of productive resources. This was done by comparing the position of the lowly day labourer in England with that of a native king in North America. Reeve suggests that “the contrast between England and America, for Locke, turns on the lack of incentive to lay out labour where there is no money. It might not be too fanciful to regard the welfare level as the unintended consequence of the use of money. Money encourages the more intensive use of resources like land, but there is no suggestion that anyone has in mind the overall result of the process when giving tacit consent to its use” (see Reeve, Andrew, Property [Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1986], 56CrossRefGoogle Scholar). This may well have been true at the time of people's original consent to the use of money. The suggestion here, however, is that as the unforeseen productive benefits of the use of money increased, they would have become increasingly self-evident. Locke's contentions suggest that this would have provided good reasons for people to continue to consent to money and to the effects of its use.

32 This resettlement option was not explicitly offered by Locke but is hinted at in section 48 of the Second Treatise.

33 See Simmons, Alan John, Moral Principles and Political Obligation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 75–100.Google Scholar

34 Nozick, Anarchy, Slate and Utopia, 175.

35 See ibid., 181.

36 Ibid., 68. Emphasis added.

37 Ibid., 80. Emphasis in original.

38 Indeed, the situation facing those lacking access to enough and as good in Nozick's laissez-faire framework is even less satisfactory than suggested by his affirmation of a tort liability system. These people do not have access to arbitrated compensation. They must accept whatever level of “compensation” is dictated by impersonal market forces. This is a level which they may consider wholly unsatisfactory.

39 See ibid., 72. Steiner has provided an excellent direct critical assessment of Nozick's notion of compensation. See Steiner, Hillel, “Justice and Entitlements,” Ethics 87 (1976–1977), 150–152CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The critique of this notion developed here is similar to Steiner's but goes well beyond it.

40 Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia,73.

41 Ibid., 78.

42 See ibid., 77–78. This seems to contradict Singer's suggestion that Nozick's views are not consequentialist. See Singer, Peter, “Why Nozick Is Not so Easy to Refute,” Western Philosophical Quarterly 24 (1976), 191–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 This assumption is implicit throughout Nozick's writing. See, for example, Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, 67–77, 149–238. It is an assumption that provides an answer to Ryan's question: “Nozick invoke[s] personal liberty as the decisive ground for rejecting patterned principles of justice… But where the rights of private property admittedly restrict the liberties of the average person, he seems perfectly willing to trade-off such liberties against material gain for the society as a whole. Why is liberty accorded primary importance in one case and not the other?” (Ryan, Cheyney C., “Yours, Mine and Ours: Property Rights and Individual Liberty,” in Paul, Jeffery, ed., Reading Nozick: Essays on Anarchy, State and Utopia [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983], 339).Google Scholar

44 As such, this type of federal regime may be the result of attempting to meet the demands of the equal liberty principle rather than being the necessary precondition for equal liberty which Ackerman suggests it is (see Ackerman, Bruce A., Social Justice in the Liberal State [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980], 171–191).Google Scholar

45 See Dahl, Robert A., Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961).Google Scholar

46 See Lukes, Steven, Power: A Radical View (London: Macmillan, 1974), 9–15, 21–25, 36–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Tussman, Joseph, Obligation and the Body Politic (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), 28.Google Scholar

48 The term “solidarity” is used here generically. Liberal egalitarians have employed a number of such notions, for example, “fraternity,” “neighbourliness,” “unity,” “community” and “mutual aid” to bolster their call for participatory democracy. These differing notions are well documented in Gaus, Gerald F., The Modern Liberal Theory of Man (London: Croom Helm, 1983), esp. chaps. 2–3.Google Scholar