Are we all slaves?
The libertarian philosopher, Robert Nozick, has written a compelling short story entitled ‘The Tale of the Slave’. The story can be found in his Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974). It is a compelling case against the legitimacy of any government, including democratic ones and makes us question everything from taxation to government.
'The Tale of the Slave' goes as follow:
"Consider the following sequence of cases... and imagine it is about you.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 vast range of their powers.
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.)
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?"
What do you think? Are we all slaves or is there a clear line between slavery and extortion?
Reference
Robert Nozick – Anarchy State and Utopia (1974)
Once again a very profound piece. Thank you for your writings.
Thanks, @ryanart! You're comment is very encouraging.
"The best slave is the one that doesn't realise that's what he is"... [Author Unknown]
In a sense slavery and extortion is one and the same, however when looking for instance within the Modern Day Debt Slavery system the extortion of said slaves is merely hidden from view until those who have eyes can see it.
The illusion behind the modern slavery system in which the majority of Western Civilization's have perpetuated unwittingly to their people, is simply the illusion of choice. Having the choice of the lesser of two evils for instance in a Bi_partisan electoral system is not true freedom of choice.
The modern day construct is that of a ruse of freedom under the illusory of choice in many facets which is why I for one applaud the likes of applications built upon the Blockchain such as Steemit and the Cryptocurrency movement that is steamrolling ahead as this has the potential to restore the ability for majority of us to exert free will when we can explore outside the razor wire fences of the current paradigm with decentralized avenues of choice.
It's a question of mind in my opinion. A slave is someone that has accepted to be one. If you are not willing to bow your knee and consider yourself a free man - despite you are not really free - then you are only a prisoner, but not a slave.
Ahh this time it's somewhat easier to understand :P I believe we are all slaves but they make us feel like we are actually free. That's just my opinion :)
I understand the idea and i totally agree because i'm wild myself. But i don't agree with encouraging other people to anarchy because we need centralised control system for people who can't control themselves and only bring chaos, no? I mean.. it's such a pain in the ass to catch everyone of them..
Hm... can we have control systems without having a centralized control system called the State? Would we, human beings, not from the ground up set rules and regulations? I think law without government is possible.
Anyway, thank you for your comment! And didn't I tell you yet that your profile pic makes me laugh so much... That's genius. :D
I can't believe that this thing called law without government exist. But i'm up to any good form of a better life if it's possible.
If i was beautiful man like you i'd probably instantly put my own photo too in avatar to meet some ladies lol. Mr. Bean thanks you!)
A very philosophical post to think for a while
Great - a good philosophical post is supposed to make you think. :P
Yes man thanks :)
I'm a slave :(
Me too... Let's break out of it and start a seastead.
We could try and annex one of the uninhabited Wadden islands 😜. I think Rottumerplaat is still empty
Or make a revolution. :-D
Sounds good to me 😀
Wow, great post. I find it very interesting that you have touched this subject, I have always thought the same as you. We are slaves of consumerism, of the high elites that dominate the nations, the law is always partial in its favor. The worst thing is that we are hypnotized by this reality, and very few people manage to raise their awareness of this @chhaylin Good post, I will follow you, follow me.
We are 100% slaves. Born into slavery.
I understand that this is a gradient scale, but;
If I refuse to participate in their votes, understand their rules (as well as is possible since their rules seem rather arbitrary and always changing) and play their game so that they have nothing of mine to take and I behave in a way that follows my own ethical code(which is often more ethical than their laws).
Am I less a slave?
I also understand that it is impossible to avoid all taxation as it is baked into the prices I pay for goods and services.
But it makes me feel like a rebel.