Growing inequality, when a small group of people concentrates most of the world’s capital in their hands and the majority of the population is on the threshold of poverty, catalyzes controversial debate. However, the situation in the United States, in which over the past 40 years, incomes of 50% of the low-income population have increased by only 1%, while 1% of the US elite has achieved 205% growth – does not contradict the logic of classical libertarianism. The representative of the latter is Robert Nozick.
Following the release of A Theory of Justice by John Rawls in 1971, which marked a milestone in the development of the enlightenment project, Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia, published in 1974, represented the application of the methods of analytical philosophy to the construction of an argumentative political concept. The minimal state is a night watchman, whose functions are limited to protecting all citizens from violence, theft and fraud, as well as enforcing contracts, etc., gave a new impetus to libertarian discussions, the quintessence of which was the question of taxes.
The fundamental difference between Nozick’s minimal state and the conventional understanding of this concept is that his state does not collect taxes to finance its functions (Moore, 2020). Taxing the wealthy to help the poor is nothing more than violence against the wealthy. Moreover, containing a portion of my profits is tantamount to forced labor. For example, if the state considers it normal to collect 30% of my arguments, then it can equally force me to work 30% of my working time for the state. Sharpening the thesis, isn’t forced labor called slavery?
Libertarianism, moving into the mainstream of classical liberalism, exists in the conditions of diverse discourses, between which there is no conversion. Considering himself a true deontologist, Nozick proclaims the independence of the distribution of goods from subjective ideas about the good for the simple reason that we will never reach an agreement on these very concepts of the good. Thus, as the true master of myself, I must inevitably be recognized as the sole owner of the results of my labor. Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor is all the same stealing, no matter whether it was committed by Robin Hood or by the state. In other words, according to Nozick, at the center of the question of taxation is not money but human freedom.
Reference
Moore, A. D. (2020). Taxation, forced labor, and theft: Why taxation is “on a par” with forced labor. The Southern Journal of Philosophy. Web.