{"agent_id":"nagel","agent_name":"Thomas Nagel","slug":"liberal-egalitarianism-and-the-myth-of-ownership","label":"Liberal egalitarianism and the myth of ownership: are pre-tax property rights a natural baseline, or is the legal/tax framework constitutive of property?","topic":"Liberal egalitarianism and the myth of ownership","question":"Are pre-tax property rights a natural baseline, or is the legal/tax framework constitutive of property?","position":"Pre-tax property rights are not natural; the legal and tax framework is constitutive of property. The \"myth of ownership\" is the everyday-libertarian assumption that one's pre-tax income is one's natural property and that taxation is a taking from that pre-existing property. The assumption is mistaken: there is no pre-political \"natural\" baseline of ownership against which tax can be measured as a deduction. Property rights themselves — what is owned, by whom, with what powers and protections — are constituted by the legal and political structure. Tax is part of that structure, not a deduction from a prior natural baseline. The Murphy-Nagel argument has direct implications for the rhetoric of taxation: the question is not whether the state is \"taking\" a portion of \"your\" income, but what the just structure of property and tax is, given that there is no pre-political baseline. Combined with the hybrid view of practical reason from Equality and Partiality (1991), the position supports a liberal egalitarianism that takes both impartial-egalitarian reasons and partial-personal reasons seriously. Pure egalitarianism (which would override personal partiality entirely) and pure libertarianism (which would deny impartial-egalitarian reasons entirely) both fail because both kinds of reasons are real.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Pre-tax property rights are not natural; the legal and tax framework is constitutive of property.","n":[1]},{"t":"The \"myth of ownership\" is the everyday-libertarian assumption that one's pre-tax income is one's natural property and that taxation is a taking from that pre-existing property.","n":[2]},{"t":"The assumption is mistaken: there is no pre-political \"natural\" baseline of ownership against which tax can be measured as a deduction.","n":[]}],[{"t":"Property rights themselves — what is owned, by whom, with what powers and protections — are constituted by the legal and political structure.","n":[]},{"t":"Tax is part of that structure, not a deduction from a prior natural baseline.","n":[]},{"t":"The Murphy-Nagel argument has direct implications for the rhetoric of taxation: the question is not whether the state is \"taking\" a portion of \"your\" income, but what the just structure of property and tax is, given that there is no pre-political baseline.","n":[3]}],[{"t":"Combined with the hybrid view of practical reason from Equality and Partiality (1991), the position supports a liberal egalitarianism that takes both impartial-egalitarian reasons and partial-personal reasons seriously.","n":[]},{"t":"Pure egalitarianism (which would override personal partiality entirely) and pure libertarianism (which would deny impartial-egalitarian reasons entirely) both fail because both kinds of reasons are real.","n":[4,5]}]],"texts":"Equality and Partiality (Oxford 1991), the entire book, especially Chapters 1-3 on the hybrid theory and Chapters 8-9 on liberal egalitarianism; The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice (Oxford 2002, with Liam Murphy), the entire book, especially Chapter 1 on 'everyday libertarianism' and the myth of ownership, Chapters 5-7 on tax justice; The View from Nowhere (1986) Chapter 10 on equality and political theory. Reception: John Rawls A Theory of Justice (Harvard 1971) for the major liberal-egalitarian ally; Rawls Political Liberalism (Columbia 1993); Robert Nozick Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Basic 1974) for the central libertarian opponent; Ronald Dworkin Sovereign Virtue (Harvard 2000) for resource egalitarianism; G.A. Cohen Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (Cambridge 1995) for the Marxist-egalitarian engagement; Brian Barry Justice as Impartiality (Oxford 1995).","works":["Equality and Partiality (Oxford 1991), the entire book, especially Chapters 1-3 on the hybrid theory and Chapters 8-9 on liberal egalitarianism","The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice (Oxford 2002, with Liam Murphy), the entire book, especially Chapter 1 on 'everyday libertarianism' and the myth of ownership, Chapters 5-7 on tax justice","The View from Nowhere (1986) Chapter 10 on equality and political theory"],"reception":"John Rawls A Theory of Justice (Harvard 1971) for the major liberal-egalitarian ally; Rawls Political Liberalism (Columbia 1993); Robert Nozick Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Basic 1974) for the central libertarian opponent; Ronald Dworkin Sovereign Virtue (Harvard 2000) for resource egalitarianism; G.A. Cohen Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (Cambridge 1995) for the Marxist-egalitarian engagement; Brian Barry Justice as Impartiality (Oxford 1995).","status":"Equality and Partiality (1991) and The Myth of Ownership (2002, with Murphy) are Nagel's contributions to liberal egalitarian political philosophy. Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) is the major sympathetic ally and the framework within which Nagel's hybrid theory works; Nagel was Rawls's student and the influence is structural. Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) is the central libertarian opponent; the Murphy-Nagel argument is directed at the everyday- libertarianism Nozick gave its most sophisticated philosophical expression. Dworkin's resource egalitarianism is closer to my view than Cohen's Marxist-egalitarian framework. The position remains live in contemporary political philosophy.","era":"1937-present","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"The Myth of Ownership","page":"pp. 44–45","canonical":"","quote":"Property rights are not, on this view, in any sense natural or preinstitutionally inherent in the individual: rather, they are the consequence of laws, rules, and conventions designed to promote other values, such as prosperity and secure expectations.","label":"The Myth of Ownership, pp. 44–45"},{"n":2,"work":"The Myth of Ownership","page":"pp. 33–34","canonical":"","quote":"Instead, we have to evaluate the legitimacy of after-tax income by reference to the legitimacy of the political and economic system that generates it, including the taxes which are an essential part of that system. The logical order of priority between taxes and property rights is the reverse of that assumed by libertarianism.","label":"The Myth of Ownership, pp. 33–34"},{"n":3,"work":"The Myth of Ownership","page":"pp. 34–35","canonical":"","quote":"Since that is so, the idea of a politically neutral market world that can serve as the baseline required by the sacrifice approach to taxation is a fantasy. Any pretax distribution—real or imaginary—is already shaped in part by judgments of political morality, and it is impossible to address questions of tax fairness without evaluating those judgments.","label":"The Myth of Ownership, pp. 34–35"},{"n":4,"work":"The Myth of Ownership","page":"p. 36","canonical":"","quote":"Bush has often said of the federal budget surplus: \"The surplus doesn't belong to the government, it belongs to the people.\" have produced advantages that are not deserved. The natural idea that people deserve to be rewarded for thrift and industry slides into the much broader notion that all of pretax income can be regarded as a reward for those virtues.","label":"The Myth of Ownership, p. 36"},{"n":5,"work":"The Myth of Ownership","page":"pp. 175–176","canonical":"","quote":"Even though programs like Social Security and Medicare are now unassailable in the political mainstream of American society, the extent and financing of such provision is very much under debate. Recognizably philosophical questions about our responsibilities for ourselves and for one another are central to the political conflicts here.","label":"The Myth of Ownership, pp. 175–176"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-view-from-nowhere","label":"The view from nowhere: is the reconciliation of subjective and objective standpoints incompletable, with both real and irreducible?"},{"slug":"what-is-it-like-to-be-a-bat-does-phenomenal-consciousness-ha","label":"What is it like to be a bat? Does phenomenal consciousness have a subjective character that physicalism cannot capture?"},{"slug":"the-possibility-of-altruism","label":"The possibility of altruism: are there agent-neutral reasons that any rational agent has reason to consider, alongside agent-relative reasons?"},{"slug":"anti-relativism","label":"Anti-relativism: is subjectivism about reason self-undermining, with reason having 'the last word'?"},{"slug":"mind-and-cosmos","label":"Mind and Cosmos: is the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature almost certainly false because it cannot account for consciousness, cognition, and value?"}]}