- A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in acquisition is entitled to that holding.
- A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in transfer, from someone else entitled to the holding, is entitled to the holding.
- No one is entitled to a holding except by (repeated) applications of 1 and 2.
"Whatever arises from a just situation by just steps is itself just." (Nozick, 1974: p.30, p.31).
What is interesting, considering the fundamental significance Locke's proviso holds in Nozick's theory, is the way in which Nozick interprets and modifies it to serve his own purpose. Locke's original proviso states that: "title is acquired by mixing labour with un-owned objects, provided that 'enough and as good' is left for others in common" is "streamlined and extended" but in doing so at very least "smoothes away an indispensible part of Locke's theory" (O'Neill cited in Paul, 1981: p.311, p.312) and at most subverts the spirit of Locke's theory to justify his own means. There is important background to both parts of the proviso, the acquisition of goods and the condition of "enough and as good" that Nozick either refutes or ignores completely.
For acquisition of un-owned things Nozick is accurate in citing Locke's conception of mixing labour with an object to obtain what Nozick desires, full capitalist rights or liberties. But there are two further conditions Locke sets; firstly that on the earth there is no "un-owned" territory or resource. Locke's theological foundation is the God gave the earth to man and thus the first distribution was equal between every man in existence. Thus secondly the only justification there can be to deny humanity possession of anything by mixing one's labour is to improve it, and even then there is still the Lockean condition that there must be "enough and as good". The former of these conditions is totally ignored by Nozick and whilst the latter is observed (shortly after his aforementioned uncertainty regarding mixing the tin of tomato juice and the sea) he does not draw the conclusion that acquisition by these means does not give him the full capitalist rights he desires. Theoretically Island X, a previously uninhabited island abundant with resources, is discovered, settled in, and totally acquired by the leaders of the settlers. The leaders then utilise a small portion of arable land, laboured on by the people, to grow enough bananas to export and maintain an existence. To Locke the appropriation of territory that is not used and improved is an illegitimate denial of common rights to that land, whilst to Nozick this is an entirely legitimate acquisition and as the leadership is at total liberty to do as they please with their land. This example highlights the inappropriate use of Locke (the "Father of Liberalism"), by Nozick to support his own more extreme libertarianism.
The second part of the Lockean proviso, "enough and as good", Nozick clearly objects to and this is what he replaces with the notion that "if others are not harmed (i.e., made worse off) by an original acquisition then it is legitimate" (Kavka cited in Corlett, 1991: p.299). In the time between Locke's Two Treatises of Government in 1689 and Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia in 1974 there has been a roughly 1000% increase in the world population from 700 million to almost 7 billion.
In that time practically all territory on the planet has been appropriated and it is a matter of the vastly different worlds Locke and Nozick were addressing when they came to any differences in their theories of acquisition. This does not, however, shield Nozick from scrutiny in his claim that the rights of those without property, are not violated by those with, either by acquisition or inheritance.
First to be determined is how Nozick judges that someone has been "harmed". A. R. Lacey deemed that Nozick "seem[ed] to assume that the base line is a state of nature with no appropriation at all" and admits that "This would indeed allow a lot." (Lacey, 2001: p.43). Whilst the position is defended by Hailwood on the grounds that prior appropriation might hinder the execution of natural rights (Lacey, 2001: p.43), this does not go on to serve as a defence of Nozick's theory that prior appropriation is only a restriction of rights, not a violation.
Nozick would defend the justice of this position, in the case of Island X and the islanders without property, in that regardless of who owns the property all of the islanders have employment ("indirect benefits they receive from the system, which are primarily due to economic development spurred by it" (Kavka cited in Corlett, 1991: p.300)). But in appreciation of what Locke would call God-given and Nozick would call the Libertarian natural right to earth's resources Kavka asks of the rights of the property-less islanders and whether they exist at all:
"Is it fair for their use of natural resources (in general and in the competition to acquire more) to be restricted by the prior acquisitions of others, provided only that they are better off that in the property-less state of nature?" Especially when the property-less state of nature has already been deemed an inappropriate comparison. The proposal that those whose use of natural resources is limited and restricted are not in a worse position " if one's actual (restricted) situation is at least as good as the counterfactual unrestricted situation" (Kavka cited in Corlett, 1991: p.299) produces an odd contradiction in Nozick's work observed by Cheyney Ryan (cited in Paul, 1981: p.339). Whilst elsewhere in his work he used personal liberty to defend the wealthy from redistributive taxation for the betterment of society, when rights are admittedly restricted (and debatably violated) it is just only when it is for the betterment of society. From this Ryan draws the conclusion that rights to private property and to autonomously decide what to do with them are valued more highly than natural rights to resources and thus that those with property hold greater rights than those without.
A further complication that produces further considerations into Nozick's theories of justice in acquisitions is the idea of inheritance. According to Nozick, the passing of a gift "justice in transfer" is entirely just even though it equates to someone holding exclusive rights over an object that they themselves have not mixed labour with. Nozick's justification of this end is of course that it was taken by what he defines as legitimate steps. And the bequeathing of wealth or inheritance to others is "an expression of caring about them, and it intensifies those bonds" (Nozick, 1989: p.30). But Nozick is not naive of the potential flaws in his own theory and in his later work The Examined Life he observes that "bequests that are received sometimes are then passed on for generations to persons unknown to the original earner and donor, producing continuing inequalities of wealth and position." "The resulting inequalities hardly seem fair." (Nozick, 1989: p.30, p.30).
Island X shall be returned to as a means of proving how Nozick's rather negative theory applies poorly to the current world. Suppose a group of islanders no longer recognise the descendents of the leaders of the settlers as the rightful owner of the island and stage a coup in which the only liberty of the ex-leadership restricted is that of their private property. Those who are now in power make use of all their territory, export more than the bare minimum necessary to survive, make a large profit with which they enrich the community and "spur economic development" as Nozick himself would have appreciated.
Now, despite the enormous improvements in situation Nozick would argue that it is unjust because all acquisitions of trade and gift from the point in which territory was illegitimately appropriated are unjust. A similar conclusion is reached when Nozick's theories are applied (un-successfully) to the real world, as David Shmidt stated "What can a historical theory say about a world where few titles have an unblemished history?" (Schmidt, 2006: p.208). It seems the only solution for these problems would be if Nozick accepted to divide his focus on just procedure between that and some kind of end-state value. For this to happen his previous objections to the "constant interference" necessary to maintain the pursuit of this end-state or pattern would need to be tempered.
Nozick's objection to this "constant interference" raises a point noticed by Thomas Scanlon regarding the strength of Nozick's protest. A question Kavka asks is how constant is this interference and how does it compare to other violations and restrictions of rights? He believes that a violation of rights comes as a physical barrier whereas a restriction is more akin to withholding of information. Kavka concludes that Nozick's description of taxation as a violation is inaccurate and indeed, his portrayal of prior acquisitions as only a restriction on rights is too when considering the "barriers to movement place[d] in one's way by the fences and guards protecting other's property" (Kavka cited in Corlett, 1991: p.303).
Whilst Nozick's theory was written as a challenge to the dominant pattern and end-state theories, Scanlon thinks the argument presented is too extreme as few people call for the kind of intervention and violation of liberties Nozick so detests. In his famous example of Liberty upsetting the pattern system, that of Wilt Chamberlain charging an extra $25 per game and per spectator, voluntary action is the means by which equality is disrupted.
Few people call for intervention on such a personal, physical level, indeed Scanlon sees that "What offends an egalitarian primarily is the great inequality in the initial resources people have as a result of the social positions into which they are born". The point he makes is that Nozick's theory objects to the pervasive actions and desires of a non-existent position.
Whist overstated to some extent, this is an attractive statement on which to conclude. It provides reasoning for the inaccurate foundations of Nozick's account of the theories of justice in acquisition; that it was constructed as a competitor to end-state and pattern but in being too keen to distance itself from them disregarded both their flaws and merits. It also justifies the inaccuracy in application to the real world, in which the theories fail. Nozick's theory really is political theory and as such pursues truth more than applicability. Lawrence Davis (cited in Paul, 1981: p.353) recognises Nozick's failures but also distinguishes in them a purpose nonetheless: "Nozick has given us a new and ingenious theory of just distributions. His attempt to clear away the opposition appears to have failed, but he has articulated another point of view from which to assess the justness of the patterns of holdings around us."
Bibliography
Schmidt, D. (2006) Elements of Justice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Nozick, R. (1989) The Examined Life, New York: Touchstone
Corlett, J. A. (1991) Equality and Liberty: Analysing Rawls and Nozick, London: Macmillan
Academic and Professional Limited
Paul, J. (1981) Reading Nozick: Essays on Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Oxford: Basil Blackwell
Publisher Limited
Lacey, A. R. (2001) Robert Nozick, Chesham: Acumen Publishing
Nozick, R. (1974) Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing
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