Symbolic values and taxation

Nozick is known for defending the entitlement theory of distributive justice. The entitlement theory prohibits most kinds of redistribution by public officials on the grounds that, insofar as people are entitled to their property, redistribution violates those entitlements. In his later work, Nozick seemed to walk back his endorsement of the entitlement theory, writing that the theory was inadequate because it failed to account for the symbolic significance of state action. There, he suggested that public officials might be entitled to tax people for the benefit of the needy as a way of collectively expressing the political community’s care for the poor. In this essay, I reconstruct Nozick’s initial defense of the entitlement theory in a way that preserves the initial spirit of his argument while making the theory consistent with his later remarks about symbolic values and the importance of caring for the poor.