A libertarian analysis of the movie “Snow Piercer”

Dear Dr. Block –

I am cc’ing my girlfriend because we are both interested and just watched the movie Snow Piercer with Ed Harris. We are in the future and global warming has become an apocalyptic problem. The government develops CW-7, a chemical they spray in the air to cool the planet. Ironically, with the intention of staving off the global warming, the CW-7 is underestimated and the planet freezes over (go figure gov.)! An engineer, Willford, played by Ed Harris, had the foresight of knowing the CW-7 would mess everything up and made a train that encompasses the entire planet that is self-contained and circles the globe. Earth outside is completely frozen and the only surviving humans are the ones Willford let on the train (the train has been circling for 18 years). If the train stops, everyone is dead. You step outside, you’re dead. The train is the only thing left, the train is it. The train is divided into a multitude of cars, each car varies in functions (green house, water, sex room, school, medical etc…). A certain group who was allowed to straggle on last resides in the tail car (the lower classes). It is dirty in the tail car, the only food is a some sort of processed gel bar thingy. Their kids are stolen from them from time to time because certain parts in train are in spaces only accessible by little children and they need to be mechanically operated because over time the wear-and tear has made some parts extinct (remember the only world basically is this train so once something is gone it’s “extinct” for ever)

To make a long story short, the lower classes (those in the tail car) revolt and break through to the other cars, kill guards, make their way to the front car, and finally to Ed Harris (Willford). They are pissed off, kill a bunch of people, the train eventually de-rails and humanity depends on two people and the movie ends. I’ll stop there and I hope I explained enough and clearly enough so you get the idea. It is a great movie and you find the time I recommend you check it out for yourself.

There are numerous questions here. 1. A mechanical part of the train that once functioned automatically has become broken over time and is now extinct and now requires basically a child slave to sit in a small crevice and manually operate the part. If this does not take place, the engine stops, the train
stops, the power stops, everyone dies, humanity is extinct. Willford sends his guard soldiers to the lower-class car and find a small kid, the guards take the kid from the parent, the kid now sits in the box and keeps the train going. Obviously this upsets everyone and contributes later to motivating a revolt. (The lower classes really don’t know what the purpose of all these encroachments are – they find out later.) Is it legitimate for Willford to kidnap the kid?

I thought they can start by trying to negotiate some sort of voluntary
agreement, but there is nothing really to trade for (after all its a
closed system, just a train). I mean Willford could offer them oranges
they make in the upper-class cars but that is about it. But if they
don’t agree to something voluntary, regardless, Willford would still
forcefully enslave the kid or humanity is extinct. What to do here?

2. and I’ll just leave it at 2 because I realize this is a long email.

The train system can only support a limited number of people. If the
lower classes breed too much Willford instigates some culling
measures. If Willford allows the lower classes to overpopulate,
resources are drained, the engineers die, the train stops, humanity
freezes, humans are extinct everyone dies. Once you are on the train,
there is no secession. You cannot open the window and jump out –
everyone freezes, everyone dies. Once you are in you are in. So if you
overpopulate you basically get machined gunned back to the sustainable
level and the bodies are taken care of in a movie-magic way.

Is it legitimate for Willford to kill members of the train in order to
make sure the population remains in a sustainable range?

Remember, it is WILLFORD’S train. He invented it, He allowed you to
come on. I don’t know how much that adds to argument but it is a fact
nonetheless in this universe.

Thank you Dr. Block for any time you spend on this! Sorry I wrote in a
butchered way, and grammatically challenged. I just wanted to type it
all out before I forgot it all. Thanks again!

P&G

Dear P&G:

When I hung out with Murray Rothbard and his living room crowd, there was a spate of questions we regarded as under the rubric of “If a monkey throws a man through a shop window, who pays for the damages?” Some of us regarded these challenges to libertarian theory with bemusement, some with vivid interest. I fell then into the latter category, and, looking back on my own contributions to the literature, many of them fall into this category (btw, the short answer to the monkey question is, Whoever owns the monkey).

What a lot of these questions have in common is that they place the bedrock of libertarianism, the non-aggression principle (NAP) in conflict with utilitarianism; in most cases, the only way to save the human race, or large parts of it, is by violating the NAP. These challenges are supposed to embarrass libertarians, and, in my estimation, they do a pretty good job of it. But it is the duty of libertarians to wrestle with them. I have done so, over and over, under four headings. One, the invincible Martians threaten to blow up the entire earth unless someone kills innocent person Joe. Two, is it licit for a libertarian to become a Nazi concentration camp guard, where he must kill innocent people, but can save some who would otherwise die. Three, you’re holding on to a flagpole on the 15th floor of a high rise building, and the owner tells you to drop off to your death; if you do, you die, if you don’t, you violate property rights (the opposite side of the coin of the NAP). Four, an innocent black man is in jail awaiting trial for raping a white woman in the US south in 1925. An angry mob wants to lynch him. If the sheriff allows the KKK to do so, one man dies, the innocent black prisoner. If the sheriff refuses, he, the innocent black man, half the mob, and half the town, are all killed in the ensuing melee. What to do, again, in a situation where libertarian justice (do not allow the mob to lynch the innocent prisoner – “justice though the heavens fall”) conflicts with saving many lives? For my analysis of all these questions, see some of my publications below.

Now to your question, which it turns out, is a lot easier to answer than the Martian one. Should the adults kidnap the child so as to save this last vestige of humanity? This of course violates the NAP, so it is unjust. But, doesn’t that mean that libertarianism spells the death knell for the human race? No. Because there is something behind and more basic than the NAP: libertarian punishment theory. That maintains that anyone who kidnaps anyone, child or not, must be punished. So the way to have our cake (uphold libertarianism) and eat it too (save human life – one of the key reasons for having libertarianism in the first place), is to have someone kidnap this kid, be given a medal for doing so, and then being punished for committing this heroic deed. I admit the latter is a bit jarring, but, I think, it follows the logic of the case.

So far, I’ve implicitly assumed that no one owns the train. But, as you say, it is owned by Willford. As long as he was clear before accepting visitors that he would rule in a totalitarian manner, he may do as he wishes (see my views on “murder park”), and will not violate the libertarian law.

Block, Walter E. 2001. “Jonah Goldberg and the Libertarian Axiom on Non-Aggression.”June 28

Block, Walter E. 2002. “Radical Privatization and other Libertarian Conundrums,” The International Journal of Politics and Ethics, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 165-175 (murder park)

Block, Walter E. 2003. “The Non-Aggression Axiom of Libertarianism,” February 17; (15th floor flagpole)

Block, Walter E. 2004. “Radical Libertarianism: Applying Libertarian Principles to Dealing with the Unjust Government, Part I” Reason Papers, Vol. 27, Fall, pp. 117-133;

Block, Walter E. 2006. “Radical Libertarianism: Applying Libertarian Principles to Dealing with the Unjust Government, Part II” Reason Papers, Vol. 28, Spring, pp. 85-109; (death penalty justified, net taxpayer, ruling class analysis)

Block, Walter E. 2010. “Response to Jakobsson on human body shields.” Libertarian Papers.

Block, Walter E. 2011. “The Human Body Shield,” Journal of Libertarian Studies; Vol. 22, pp. 625-630

Block, Walter E. 2009. “Libertarian punishment theory: working for, and donating to, the state” Libertarian Papers, Vol. 1 (concentration camp guard)

The Best of Walter E. Block