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Nozick on our Debt to 'Society'


Robert nozick.jpg

 "Suppose some of the people in your neighborhood (there are 364 other adults) have found a public address system and decide to institute a system of public entertainment. They post a list of names, one for each day, yours among them. On his assigned day. . .a person is to run the public address system, play records over it, give news bulletins, tell amusing stories he has heard, and so on. After 138 days on which each person has done his part, your day arrives. Are you obligated to take your turn? You have benefited from it, occasionally opening your window to listen, enjoying some music or chuckling at someone’s funny story. The other people have put themselves out. But must you answer the call when it is your turn to do so? As it stands surely not.”

 This is important, and a response to the "muh roads" arguments of statists. Yes I benefit from the existence of roads created by government edict. Yes, I plan to continue using the roads while arguing for anarchism. No, that is not hypocrisy. 

 If you decide not to take your turn as a DJ in the situation posited by Nozick, then at worst you will be deemed by the others in the neighborhood as rude. If they insist on sticking to the calendar and completing the 365 day cycle with the 364 willing adults, there will be one day when there is no DJ on the PA.  Or they could shift to a 364 day cycle, calendar be damned. 

 Maybe this is how innovation happens, because some grouch isn't cooperative.
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