What links Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota novels and Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, The State and Utopia?

The Terra Ignota novels by Ada Palmer are among my favourite books because they unite my interests in science fiction and political philosophy. The world of the 25th century that Palmer depicts in her books is informed by the philosophy of many different thinkers - most notably great names of the 18th century such as Voltaire and the Marquis de Sade. 

Recently, I was indulging my love of political philosophy by listening to an episode of the second series of David Runciman’s podcast, Talking Politics: History of Ideas, about the 20th century Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick. As Runciman outlined Nozick’s ideas, something in my mind clicked and I was transported to the world of Terra Ignota.

20th century thinking in the 25th century

I’m not sure if Nozick is one of the thinkers that Palmer drew on for the books. One of the interesting things about the novels is that there is almost no reference to the 20th century in them. The world of the 25th century looks on the 20th century as those in the 18th century looked on the Medieval period: barbaric and violent. The people in Palmer’s novels idealise the more civilised (in their view) 18th century, in the same way that those in the 18th century idealised the ancient world.

One way that the books signal the insignificance of the 20th century to the lives of the people of the 25th century, is that a key figure in the history of Terra Ignota is Adolf Riktor Brill. The name subtly says to the reader, in the 25th century the most famous Adolf in history is not the one you’re thinking of, because enough time has passed that the associations of the 20th century are not what people immediately reach for. What has power for us has receded into history. Hitler is as well-known as Edward I.

All this is to say that the connection between Nozick writing and Palmer’s novels may be deliberate, or maybe an inference that I have drawn. I think it’s worth exploring as reading Terra Ignota helped me understand Nozick’s ideas, and vice versa.

Anarchy, The State and Utopia

Robert Nozick was an American philosopher who taught at Harvard University and wrote many famous philosophical books in the 1970s and 80s. Probably his most famous books is Anarchy, The State and Utopia, which was written as a response to his Harvard colleague John Rawls's 1971 book A Theory of Justice. Anarchy, The State and Utopia is a response to Rawls’s ideas of how to arrive at the ideal state and offers an alternative to Rawls Theories. (Rawls’s A Theory of Justice is a book I intend to blog about in the future.)

When laying out his ideal state, Nozick begins with the idea that all humans have natural rights that cannot be violated. He draws on the work of John Locke to outline what these natural rights are, most notably that no one should harm another person or their property, even for the good of society. Locke also said that if you mixed your labour with something then you own the product of that Labour. If you own the product then it’s a violation of your natural rights for anyone to take it.

Nozick says that there is no justification for breaking someone’s natural rights. You cannot take the property of another person without their permission or harm them. From this, he argues that there is no justification for a modern state that taxes people (i.e. takes their property) and uses violence to enforce this. This is where the anarchism in the book’s title comes in: the state cannot be justified because it breaks our natural rights.

Minimal states

Nozick said that protection co-ops are justified. Many individuals cannot protect themselves from the aggression or greed of others, so to stop their natural rights being violated they could exchange their labour for protection from others. Protection co-ops would evolve over time, developing methods of settling disputes between members, getting stronger and thus being better at protecting their clients. As the protection co-ops evolved they would eventually become what Nozick referred to as “minimal states”.

Minimal states offer protection against your natural rights being violated and nothing else. Nozick thought that minimal states are the only type of state that can be justified. Any state that does more than this, for example a state that redistributes people’s wealth in the name of equality or fairness, is violating people’s natural rights.

Nozick's statement that the only justifiable state is a minimal state that does not redistribute has made his book a favourite amongst libertarians and anarcho-capitalists. I’ll come back to what I think of minimal states and a world where the state only guarantees the protection of your natural rights. For now, I want to dwell on how much Nozick’s ideas reminded me of Palmer’s Terra Ignota books.

The minimal state of the Universal Free Alliance

One of the distinguishing features of Palmer’s future is that humanity now lives in hives, not nations. Hives have some things in common with states, in that they have citizens, leaders, languages and all sorts of complicated rules, some of which are customs and some of which are laws. Hives differ by ideology or outlook on life. The Mitsubishi hive is a corporation, the Cousins are a family, the Utopians are dedicated to the future. Unlike states or nations, membership in hives is voluntary. You can choose the hive you like, or have none at all, and you can leave when you like.

The seven hives in the books exist together, along with the three types of hiveless people, in a larger structure called the Universal Free Alliance. The Universal Free Alliance is a minimal state, similar to what Nozick described. The Universal Free Alliance has Seven Universal Laws that all citizens, regardless of their hive, must obey. Even the Blacklaw Hiveless, who have renounced all laws and associations, must live under the Seven Universal Laws of the Universal Free Alliance. The Universal Free Alliance makes sure that no one has their rights provided by the Seven Universal Laws violated.

The rights given under the Seven Universal Laws are not the same as those of Nozick’s minimal state and the Universal Free Alliance has a legal code, institutions and powers that go beyond what Nozick argues says is a justifiable minimal state to protect natural rights. However, the Universal Free Alliance conforms to the same idea that all people have basic rights that must be protected against those who would violate them by a state. Beyond that you are free to do as you like.

Communes and hives

So, what does Nozick or the Universal Free Alliance think you should do with your freedom now that your natural rights are protected? Join communes or hives. If you want. In Anarchy, The State and Utopia, Nozick said that communes would arise within the minimal state and that people would be free to join. These could offer citizens more than what the minimal state does.

A commune might levy taxes on its members to build roads or schools or because they think an equal distribution of wealth is fairer. A commune might follow an ideology like social democracy or communism. Crucially, membership in a commune is voluntary, you can leave at any point you want, which prevents them abusing their members.

This system is very similar to the hives of the Universal Free Alliance. Everyone who lives in the Universal Free Alliance must obey the Seven Universal Laws, but they are free to join hives according to what they believe is right. You can become Mitsubishi if you believe in corporatism or you can be a Cousin, or a Mason or an Utopian, if you identify with the philosophy behind these hives. You are also free to leave a hive whenever you want.

The freedom to not live under capitalism

Nozick’s book is often held up as an Anarchist Capitalist manifesto, or a call for society where the state only protects property rights and doesn’t intervene in markets or tax its citizens. I am in favour of a state that does much more than Nozick’s minimal state. A state that redistributes wealth to account for the unfairness in society. A state that prevents the accumulation of wealth and power by individuals to the point where they can influence society as a whole. A state that taxes its citizens to collectively pay for schools and hospitals.

You might think that I would strongly oppose Nozick’s ideas, but I can see the appeal of them for one simple reason. In Nozick’s world, you can opt out of capitalism by joining a non-capitalist commune. Everyone is given that freedom.

Many people, usually wealthy Westerners, have told me, at length, about how great capitalism is. How it’s fair. How it creates wealth and the material comforts we all enjoy. I usually respond to this with a list of the problems of capitalism. How it’s unfair. How it wastes resources. How it’s destroying the natural environment. One of the key problems with capitalism is that we don’t have a choice about whether we want to live under capitalism or not (unless you want to defect to North Korea). Nozick’s system gives us the choice.

Choosing to live under capitalism

Nozick’s minimal state gives us the freedom to be capitalists or communists if we want. No one is forced to live under an ideology they don’t agree with. If you don’t like the low wages and insecurity of capitalism then you move to a commune run according to social democracy, or communism or libertarian socialism. If these systems fail then people move to other communes, rather than being trapped by an authoritarian government that has complete control over their life.

How would capitalism or neoliberalism work if the poorest paid workers could choose to live under communism or social democracy? Would it be stable? Would capitalism find people to work on assembly lines for pennies a day or look after sick old people for a handful of dollars, whilst a few billionaires hoard a huge chunk of society’s wealth, if the poor had a choice about which system they lived under?

This choice would make capitalism fair. Maybe people would choose to be poor in a capitalist commune for the chance, theoretically, to become one of the wealthy few. However, with the freedoms offered by the minimal state, people wouldn’t be forced to live under capitalism’s exploitative economic system. Maybe they would trade the freedom of capitalism for the security of socialism. It would be interesting to find out.

Freedom of choice

This choice of how you want to live your life is one of the defining features of Palmer’s novels. They’re set in a world where you can choose your state, your family or choose to have none of the above. Freedom from coercion is something we can all believe in. The state that Nozick describes offers any amount of freedom or any amount of security that anyone would want. This choice is what links Palmer’s world and Nozick’s writing, and makes both different to our world.