Nietzsche distinguishes between master morality—which originates in strength, creativity, and affirmation—and slave morality, which stems from resentment and weakness. The legal structures of tax havens reflect master morality. They are crafted by those who have transcended conventional norms. They do not ask for fairness but assert their own form of legitimacy.
The law, in this context, becomes a vehicle for strategic self-legislation. The elite do not obey the law; they write it. It is no longer about protecting the weak but empowering the strong. Tax havens are post-moral zones: they stand “beyond good and evil.”
III. Heidegger’s Perspective: Enframing and the Technological Essence of Law
Martin Heidegger, in The Question Concerning Technology, does not address taxation directly but offers a powerful critique of modernity’s mode of revealing the world. His concept of enframing (Gestell) refers to the technological ordering of reality, where everything—including human beings and institutions—is seen as a “standing-reserve,” a resource to be optimized.
Within this worldview, law ceases to be a revelation of justice. It becomes a subsystem of calculative thinking. The legal code of the tax haven does not seek to uncover truth or protect Being. Instead, it functions as a data infrastructure designed for capital mobility. Justice is no longer asked—it is automated.
In such a system, truth is obscured. Legal sovereignty itself becomes a commodity. A tax haven jurisdiction does not assert its Being through culture, history, or morality—it asserts it through optimization. It becomes a platform, a legal software for capital.
Heidegger warns that in technological thinking, we lose our capacity to question Being. We forget the essence of things and only see their utility. A tax haven, then, is a space where law has lost its essence. It is no longer a human-cultural revelation—it is a machine.
IV. How the Symptom Operates: Concealment Through Legality
One of the most insidious features of the tax haven as a symptom is its ability to conceal what it reveals. This paradox is central to both Nietzsche and Heidegger.
Nietzsche argues that legal forms remain even after their moral content is inverted. The law is still called “law,” but it no longer means justice—it means strategy. The outward appearance of legality masks the inner reality of domination. It is precisely this illusion that makes tax havens so dangerous: they look legal but function as instruments of inequality.
