The Tale of the Slave

[Goo For You]

Consider the following sequence of cases, which we shall call the Tale of the Slave, and imagine it is about you.

1. There is a slave completely at the mercy of his brutal master's whims. He often is cruelly beaten, called out in the middle of the night, and so on.
   
2. The master is kindlier and beats the slave only for stated infractions of his rules (not fulfilling the work quota, and so on). He gives the slave some free time.
   
3. The master has a group of slaves, and he decides how things are to be allocated among them on nice grounds, taking into account their needs, merit, and so on.
4. The master allows his slaves four days on their own and requires them to work only three days a week on his land. The rest of the time is their own.
5. The master allows his slaves to go off and work in the city (or anywhere they wish) for wages. He requires only that they send back to him three-sevenths of their wages. He also retains the power to recall them to the plantation if some emergency threatens his land; and to raise or lower the three-sevenths amount required to be turned over to him. He further retains the right to restrict the slaves from participating in certain dangerous activities that threaten his financial return, for example, mountain climbing, cigarette smoking.
6. The master allows all of his 10,000 slaves, except you, to vote, and the joint decision is made by all of them. There is open discussion, and so forth, among them, and they have the power to determine to what uses to put whatever percentage of your (and their) earnings they decide to take; what activities legitimately may be forbidden to you, and so on.
   
   Let us pause in this sequence of cases to take stock. If the master contracts this transfer of power so that he cannot withdraw it, you have a change of master. You now have 10,000 masters instead of just one; rather you have one 10,000-headed master. Perhaps the 10,000 even will be kindlier than the benevolent master in case 2. Still, they are your master. However, still more can be done. A kindly single master (as in case 2) might allow his slave(s) to speak up and try to persuade him to make a certain decision. The 10,000-headed monster can do this also.
7. Though still not having the vote, you are at liberty (and are given the right) to enter into the discussions of the 10,000, to try to persuade them to adopt various policies and to treat you and themselves in a certain way. They then go off to vote to decide upon policies covering the vastrange of their powers.
8. In appreciation of your useful contributions to discussion, the 10,000 allow you to vote if they are deadlocked; they commit themselves to this procedure. After the discussion you mark your vote on a slip of paper, and they go off and vote. In the eventuality that they divide evenly on some issue, 5,000 for and 5,000 against, they look at your ballot and count it in. This has never yet happened; they have never yet had occasion to open your ballot. (A single master also might commit himself to letting his slave decide any issue concerning him about which he, the master, was absolutely indifferent.)
9. They throw your vote in with theirs. If they are exactly tied your vote carries the issue. Otherwise it makes no difference to the electoral outcome.

The question is: which transition from case 1 to case 9 made it no longer the tale of a slave?

(from Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, pp. 290-292.)

Anyone else love these?

[SiriusDawg]

Cogitating more on the question of Robert Nozick, I’m really not sure what conclusion to draw from his very brief remarks on politics in Invariances. He says that people have a duty not to harm one another and that society ought to enforce that duty. He then considers the possibility that society ought to also enforce the duty to help others in need, but rejects it. He doesn’t offer a very extended argument for this conclusion, but cites the idea that our top priority ought to be maintaining “the functioning of nonviolent relations, so that the right of non-interference are what are to be most strongly mandated and enforced, thereby preserving room for people to pursue their own ends and goals.”

In part, this seems to stumble into the old saw of positive versus negative freedom. If I take $10,000 from Jamie Dimon and give it to a homeless person, it seems to me that the net ability of human beings to pursue their own ends and goals has been enhanced. But you also get other policy dilemmas. Are state level taxes exempted from the critique of coercion on the grounds that you can always go live in another state? If we have persuasive research to indicate that investment in high-quality preschool will do a better job of reducing violent crime then investing in prisons, should we do that instead? Is coercing people to cough up some resources they own in part because their ancestors coerced Native Americans into giving up resources an act of corrective justice aimed at deterring future coercion, or is it a new coercion of its own? Is coercing people into paying taxes to finance a war to “liberate” Iraq a way of on net increasing the amount of non-interference in the world?

Obviously, you can try to answer these questions. And arguably you can produce facts and arguments that lead to the correct small government libertarian answer in all cases. But you’d have to be making consequentialist arguments about economics, military policy, etc., and it’s really not clear that Nozick’s particular formulation of principled liberalism would make any difference in the answer. And I think the reason his remarks on politics were so brief and his argument in favor of his favored position so threadbare is precisely because he didn’t think it was possible to draw many interesting policy conclusions from his philosophical position.

http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/20...ory/?mobile=nc

[Goo For You]

I like Yglesias a lot; he's one of the smartest pundits around. And I tend to agree that nonempirical philosophy has a somewhat limited use for making political decisions. However, I'm not sure that you can make this argument without pulling the rug from under liberalism as well (*). Also, if you already recognize that philosophy has limited use, Yglesias's point becomes somewhat a conversation stopper. I think he's at his best when he writes positive stuff.


EDIT: (*) MY may well be ok with this conclusion (i.e. he won't mind refraining from making arguments about how the mechanics of the "liberal" way of thinking are in some way intrinsically valuable for political discourse), but if so, he should be talking about nonempirical philosophy in general. As it stands, he's clearly trying to single out libertarianism, which seems to be the snarky leftist in him trying to one-up the opposing team (he seems to have outgrown this as of late, and he never was as bad as 99% of the academic left)

[HeinousMark]

I don't know what all that means and I don't care There's a liberal nigger in the white house and queers are gettin' MARRIED. Our Job-Creators are just being pissed on, and living off dollar-store-bologna-sammiches, while the Entitlement/Welfare Culture rides around in limousines eating lobster and 2 pound Kobe Steaks.

[Goo For You]

Cliff notes: Nozick is being a smart-ass nigger and Yglesias is being a snarky-ass nigger.

[I invented that]

I don't know what all that means and I don't care There's a liberal nigger in the white house and queers are gettin' MARRIED. Our Job-Creators are just being pissed on, and living off dollar-store-bologna-sammiches, while the Entitlement/Welfare Culture rides around in limousines eating lobster and 2 pound Kobe Steaks.

[MatthewT]

mark's one of those odd ducks that thinks he knows how the other side actually thinks. in doing so, he actually shows us how he thinks.

[HeinousMark]

Gosh, nothin' gets by that Matthew. And I'm glad Mr. IIT enjoyed my explanation of a Straw Man a week or two ago.

[MatthewT]

just sayin' you're not subtle dude

[HeinousMark]

just sayin' you're not subtle dude

I know, not trying to be. You wanna know what's scary? I sometimes get PMs and Reps( + and - ) from (sincere) posters here who buy into it 100%. I almost feel bad when that happens......I can't stay in character very long anyway; it makes me feel icky.....

[MatthewT]

i think maybe they're just counter-trolling you dude

[Goo For You]

i think maybe they're just counter-trolling you dude

When I repped him yesterday, I was playing along with him. Really sad to see he thought I bought into his act.

[HeinousMark]

i think maybe they're just counter-trolling you dude

I don't think they all are, Matty, I really don't.

When I repped him yesterday, I was playing along with him. Really sad to see he thought I bought into his act.

Ah, well there you go.

[MatthewT]

When I repped him yesterday, I was playing along with him. Really sad to see he thought I bought into his act.

[MatthewT]

it's just that i see the left doing worse things than they blame the right for doing, and it's weird, like i'm in Carlinland and just watching a nuthouse.

one side lies 10 times; the other side lies once; the first side says "see! both sides lie!"

[HeinousMark]

it's just that i see the left doing worse things than they blame the right for doing, and it's weird, like i'm in Carlinland and just watching a nuthouse.

one side lies 10 times; the other side lies once; the first side says "see! both sides lie!"

Oddly enough, sarcasm aside, that's exactly how I feel about the "right".

[MatthewT]

i figured as much. it's like living in bizzaro world

[Goo For You]

Do the poll, bitches.

[MatthewT]

turrible thread imho

[Bro]

it's just that i see the left doing worse things than they blame the right for doing, and it's weird, like i'm in Carlinland and just watching a nuthouse.

one side lies 10 times; the other side lies once; the first side says "see! both sides lie!"

The right lies to you. The bible lies to you. You are one gullible person.