Justice_ What's the Right Thing to Do_ - Michael Sandel [30]
Nozick illustrates the folly (as he sees it) of redistribution with a hypothetical example about the basketball great Wilt Chamberlain, whose salary in the early 1970s reached the then lofty sum of $200,000 per season. Since Michael Jordan is the iconic basketball star of recent times, we can update Nozick’s example with Jordan, who in his last year with the Chicago Bulls was paid $31 million—more per game than Chamberlain made in a season.
Michael Jordan’s Money
To set aside any question about initial holdings, let’s imagine, Nozick suggests, that you set the initial distribution of income and wealth according to whatever pattern you consider just—a perfectly equal distribution, if you like. Now the basketball season begins. Those who want to see Michael Jordan play deposit five dollars in a box each time they buy a ticket. The proceeds in the box go to Jordan. (In real life, of course, Jordan’s salary is paid by the owners, from team revenues. Nozick’s simplifying assumption—that the fans pay Jordan directly—is a way of focusing on the philosophical point about voluntary exchange.)
Since many people are eager to see Jordan play, attendance is high and the box becomes full. By the end of the season, Jordan has $31 million, far more than anyone else. As a result, the initial distribution—the one you consider just—no longer obtains. Jordan has more and others less. But the new distribution arose through wholly voluntary choices. Who has grounds for complaint? Not those who paid to see Jordan play; they freely chose to buy tickets. Not those who dislike basketball and stayed at home; they didn’t spend a penny on Jordan, and are no worse off than before. Surely not Jordan; he chose to play basketball in exchange for a handsome income.9
Nozick believes this scenario illustrates two problems with patterned theories of distributive justice. First, liberty upsets patterns. Anyone who believes that economic inequality is unjust will have to intervene in the free market, repeatedly and continuously, to undo the effects of the choices people make. Second, intervening in this way—taxing Jordan to support programs that help the disadvantaged—not only overturns the results of voluntary transactions; it also violates Jordan’s rights by taking his earnings. It forces him, in effect, to make a charitable contribution against his will.
What exactly is wrong with taxing Jordan’s earnings? According to Nozick, the moral stakes go beyond money. At issue, he believes, is nothing less than human freedom. He reasons as follows: “Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor.”10 If the state has the right to claim some portion of my earnings, it also has the right to claim some portion of my time. Instead of taking, say, 30 percent of my income, it might just as well direct me to spend 30 percent of my time working for the state. But if the state can force me to labor on its behalf, it essentially asserts a property right in me.
Seizing the results of someone’s labor is equivalent to seizing hours from him and directing him to carry on various activities. If people force you to do certain work, or unrewarded work, for a certain period of time, they decide what you are to do and what purposes your work is to serve apart from your decisions. This… makes them a part-owner of you; it gives them a property right in you.11
This line of reasoning takes us to the moral crux of the libertarian claim—the idea of self-ownership. If I own myself, I must own my labor. (If someone else could order me to work, that person would be my master, and I would be a slave.) But if I own my labor, I must be entitled to the fruits of my labor. (If someone else were entitled to my earnings, that person would own my labor and would therefore own me.) That is why, according to Nozick, taxing some of Michael Jordan’s $31 million to help the poor violates his rights. It asserts, in effect, that the state, or the community, is a part owner of him.
The libertarian sees