  Would the fact that a practice involves redistribution as tax and transfer or rights’ infringement be of basic moral significance? Most seem to agree that it would. Indeed, the debate between Nozick and his egalitarian critics has generally related to whether a policy’s being redistributive in either of these senses provides a decisive moral reason to reject them. Nozick (1974, p.ix) has (along with other libertarians) claimed that it does, objecting, “The state may not use its coercive apparatus for the purpose of getting some citizens to aid others.” Nozick’s egalitarian critics have insisted that such practices may be a regrettable necessity. Thomas Scanlon (1981, p. 199), for instance, has argued: “It may be true, as Nozick claims, that there is a continuum of interferences extending from taxation to forced labor, each foreclosing a few more options than the preceding. But the fact that there is such a continuum is no reason why we must be indifferent between any two points along it.” And Thomas Nagel (1981, p. 201) adds that “there is a big difference between suddenly expropriating half of someone’s savings and attaching monetary conditions in advance to activities, expenditures, and earnings — the usual form of taxation. The latter is a much less brutal assault upon the person.”