[Soixante-Retard]

The following is taken from Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (pp. 290-292) and the question that ends the excerpt is open to debate.

Consider the following sequence of cases, which we shall call the Tale of the Slave, and imagine it is about you.

1. 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.
   
2. 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.
   
3. 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.
4. 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.
   
5. 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.
   
6. 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.
   
   Let us pause in this sequence of cases to take stock. If the master contracts this transfer of power so that he cannot withdraw it, you have a change of master. You now have 10,000 masters instead of just one; rather you have one 10,000-headed master. Perhaps the 10,000 even will be kindlier than the benevolent master in case 2. Still, they are your master. However, still more can be done. A kindly single master (as in case 2) might allow his slave(s) to speak up and try to persuade him to make a certain decision. The 10,000-headed monster can do this also.
   
7. 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.
   
8. 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.)
   
9. 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?

[WilrickV]

Slavery is foremost a social position as defined by the culture in which the slave resides. Someone may meet the criteria of #1 without being a slave.

[RhetoricThug]

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.

I mean, I'm not too sure... But that seems like real freedom for at least 4 days. Can the slave go wherever? Will this slave be considered a slave during their own time. Will the society shun them as slaves anyway?

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.

Sounds like a glorious plantation. Or a human capitalistic system...

If they are exactly tied your vote carries the issue.

Though, here they have real power. Situational, but real.

[Pants-of-dog]

A slave is not free to go. In none of these cases 1 through 9 is this discussed. Thus, there is not enough information to answer the question at the end.

[RhetoricThug]

there is not enough information to answer the question at the end.

That is how I felt. I attempted even so

[mikema63]

In some sense we will always be slaves to everyone else except in some vague Robinson crusoe scenario where you are alone, and even then you are a slave to nature.

You can never be 100% free of everyone and everything.

[RhetoricThug]

In some sense we will always be slaves to everyone else except in some vague Robinson crusoe scenario where you are alone, and even then you are a slave to nature.

You can never be 100% free of everyone and everything.

I'm always optimistic. What you said is precisely true and always floating around in my brain waiting to depress me.

Perhaps it is our God-complex, not seen by any other intelligent creature on Earth that gives us the illusion of freedom.

[Nunt]

I guess the excerpt shows that slavery is not an 'all or nothing' concept. Rather it is a continues concept in which people can be slaves into various degrees. I would define the concept of slavery as follows:

"Someone is a slave if other persons routinely violate the slave's rights and the slave is unable to seek compensation for these rights violations"

This is a very broad defition, but I guess people could also formulate more strict definitions of slavery based on the frequency and the serverity of rights violations.

[Eran]

While I sympathise with the argument, I don't think it is logically sound.

When does a pile of sand stop being a pile of sand? If you start with a pile and take one grain at a time, at some point you'll have something that isn't quite a pile of sand. Yet what you would then have is but one sand grain away from being a pile...

Nozick is making the implicit assumption that there is something evil about even the smallest degree of slavery. Thus if full, crude and cruel slavery is wrong, the same holds as long as some element of coercion persists, regardless of how small that element is.

One answer is thus to say that while the person never ceases to be a slave, the degree to which he is a slave diminishes to the point that it is no longer a morally-significant evil.

[SolarCross]

The answer to Nozick's question is that all 9 are slavery. The conditions the slave experiences are secondary the primary signifier of slave or freeman is whether or not the individual consented to the conditions.

To illustrate this consider my tale of a freeman.
1. A freeman is asked by the man if he could tell him the time. The freeman consents to the request looks at his watch and tells the man the time.
2. The man asks the freeman if he would mow his lawn once a week in return for some money. The freeman considers his schedule and agrees to the deal.
3. The man asks the freeman if he would work in his landscaping business for a fixed sum of money each week. The freeman weighs up the pros and cons and shakes on the deal.
4. The man asks if the freeman would agree to work for not less than 5 years no matter what other opportunities presented themselves in that time. The freeman shrugs and agrees.
5. The man asks if the freeman would agree to work for the rest of his natural life in return for a much enhanced renumeration. The freeman decides it is an acceptable bargain and consents.
6. The man asks if the freeman would consent to work for him for the rest of his life and be on call 24/7 to do whatever the man wants on pain of death. The freeman with a dash of masocism signs on the dotted line.
7. The man asks if the freeman would allow the man to beat him if he was feeling angry. The freeman somewhat doubtfully agrees.
8. The man asks if the freeman would allow the man to kill him and harvest his organs for sale on the black market if in return the man gave 90% of the proceeds to charity. The freeman selflessly agrees.

So at what point did the freeman stop being free?

Conditions are irrelevant - consent is everything.

[SecretSquirrel]

Conditions are irrelevant - consent is everything