Customer Reviews

Anarchy, State, and Utopia

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you have any interest in political philosophy at all, if you are worried about the erosion of individual liberty (and its companion, individual responsibility) in modern society, or (even) if you are a collectivist and actually promote government involvement in our individual lives for the "greater good" at the expense of some or all, you MUST read this book. It is a somewhat difficult book to digest, so others (political moderates or those apathetic with regard to political philosophy) need not even crack the cover.

If you find that you agree with the arguments and conclusions of Robert Nozick, you will be enriched with ammunition for debating political philosophy. If you DON'T agree and you believe that your disagreement is based upon sound philosophy, you will still be greatly rewarded - if for no other reason than you were required to expend some great effort to refute the presented material as you read it.

The major principles presented and defended by Mr. Nozick are as follows:

1) Anarchy is not tenable. 2) A "minimal state" or "nightwatchman state" that only protects the rights of its constituents is justified/legitimate. 3) any state beyond that "minimal state" is unjustified/illegitimate because it will inherently violate the rights of (at least) some of its constituents.

Beyond these major principles, Mr. Nozick also revisits the concept of Utopia in the last section of the text. I found this last section very enjoyable. Mr. Nozick's presentation of the concept of "Meta-Utopia" opened up whole new avenues of political thought for me.

I agree with the major principles of this work as I have stated them above; however, I found that I did not agree with everything presented. I enjoyed the mental exercise required to think through many of the presented topics. I was very pleased to realize the existence of this book and to read it.

Not that it has any bearing on the significance of the presented material, I did find the book to be quite difficult to read. Similar to what many critics and reviewers of this book have stated before, I found the organization of the presented material lacking and the absence of concise summaries of major topics disappointing. I found myself wishing that this were not the case - so that I might glean more benefit from the reading of the book. Also, Mr. Nozick seems too quick to prolifically digress into tangent discussions. Although the topics of these tangent discussions are quite interesting, it is my opinion that, coupled with the organization problem already mentioned, the frequency and magnitude of these discussions detracts from the persuasiveness of the book.

Even with the shortcomings, I feel some great deal of enlightenment and joy after reading this book. Mr. Nozick obviously respects and attempts to understand opposing views to the degree that he is willing to examine them with great scrutiny and then, aptly, present his arguments against them. Since I read books like this one to help me seek answers to philosophical political and otherwise) questions, I found it refreshing that an author would approach (or at least, attempt to approach) such arguments so objectively.

As I said at the beginning of this review, anyone with an interest in political philosophy will find the reading of this book to be time and thought well spent.

Rawls and Nozick were responsible for reinvigorating rights-based liberalism in the 20th century, saving political philosophy from mere in-fighting among utilitarians, and the superstitions of Marxism. Political philosophy since is largely a response to Rawls and Nozick.

This is a work of genius, though it is frequently misunderstood, perhaps on purpose. Most readers, including important philosophers like Thomas Nagel, simply misunderstand the argumentative structure, with the result that many famous criticisms of the book are irrelevant.

Nozick's thesis is that a minimal state can be justified, but a more than minimal state cannot, except under unusual situations.

Part I of the book is addressed to other libertarians, specifically market anarchists (also called anarcho-capitalists). As such, Nozick assumes libertarian rights of self-ownership (or self-governance). Basically, Nozick wants to show market anarchists that a minimal state can arise without violating anybody's rights, where the rights in question are things that all parties to the debate agree that we have. To do so, he describes a scenario in which security companies come inevitably to have natural monopolies over geographic areas. After providing a highly original analysis of the nature of risk and its moral implications, plus a hugely important discussion of side constraints and moral prohibitions, Nozick establishes that such a monopoly would legitimately prohibit other security firms and independent enforcers from operating in its area, provided it compensates everyone involved. The most natural form of compensation is free security. Nozick then argues that an equilibrium will occur in which the security of all can be provided for with an analogue of coercive taxation.

At the end of this section, Nozick, provided the argument is successful (and there are good reasons to think it is not) has established that an agency provided court, military, and police services in a geographic area will arise without violating rights and without the explicit intention of creating a state.

A very common misreading of Nozick occurs here. Many philosophers think Nozick believes that only a state that does arise in this manner and has this form (of a security company with private shareholders) can be legitimate. Nozick didn't think this and isn't committed to it. Instead, what he believes he has shown is both that a minimal state is desirable (it would arise unintentionally as a result of spontaneous order because it is superior to market anarchy) and legitimate. Nozick can then say that this leaves open whether the state will be democratic and in what way.

The second part of the book is meant to challenge arguments for the more than minimal state. It is also misunderstood, even by very smart people. Nozick does not assume libertarian rights in part II, though he refers to them at times. Instead, his argument consists of three factors. First, he primarily addresses egalitarian liberals (hereafter e-liberals). E-liberals believe that rights to personal freedoms (sexual activity, etc.) are justified, but hold that economic activity can be controlled by government decree. Nozick examines e-liberals reasons for wanting a more-than-minimal state (such as a welfare state or social democracy), and debunks them by drawing analogies between the economic activity the e-liberal would regulate and personal freedoms the e-liberal desires to leave free. If the e-liberal cannot identify a morally salient difference, she is forced to either deny the personal freedom, thus becoming an authoritarian, or admit that the economic activity should remain free, thus conceding Nozick's point.

Another style of argument used in part II is what I will call "the liberal presumption" argument. The liberal presumption is that any human activity ought to remain unregulated by laws unless some strong reason can be shown to regulate the activity. (This can be contrasted against the authoritarian presumption, which Mussolini and Stalin held, namely that any activity ought to be governed unless strong reason can be shown to let it be free.) Nozick addresses e-liberals, who hold the liberal presumption, and then attacks the reasons they offer in support of regulating various activities. He shows that the reasons are based on misunderstandings and bad arguments, thus restoring the liberal presumption.

The last type of argument does not rely on this presumption. Nozick addresses Marxists, for instance, who are not liberals. His arguments against them consists mostly of just showing what's wrong with their position. For instance, Marxist exploitation theory crucially depends upon bad economic theory, such as the labor theory of value, something which was shown false back in the early 1870s. (Almost all contemporary economists would agree with Nozick on this. Marxism is to smart people what creationism is to dumb people, a pseudo-science.)

The result of these arguments is to show that the more than minimal state cannot be justified.

Along the way, in part II, Nozick provides us with some gems. He gives the first major critique of Rawls. The critique is devastating, as Nozick points out mistakes in Rawls reasoning (simple logical errors, etc.) that leave Rawls' project ungrounded. Rawls, for some reason, never responded to this critique. Nozick also analyzes envy, and provides hypothetical histories to arrive at the more than minimal state that uncover its nature (it is logically equivalent to system in which we all own parts of each other). He also sketches a theory of justice in holdings to contrast with Rawls, Dworkin, and others. This theory, the entitlement theory, is very rough, but it provides a welcome alternative to simplistic theories maintaining that all there is to justice is establishing patterns of ownership.

Part III is the least often read and least understood part of the book. Partly, it provides a contractarian argument for libertarianism (see Loren Lomasky's article in David Schmidtz' book, Robert Nozick, contemporary philosophy in focus). It thus contains some of the foundations that Nagel claims Nozick lacks (though this criticism is based on Nagel's mistaken reading.) In part III, Nozick asks us to try to construct a system that allows for experimentation and in which everyone, despite their differences, can find a society that allows them to live out their conceptions of the good. The system that best approaches this is a libertarian framework, inside of which non-libertarian communities may be established provided they respect other, different communities. Part III is sketchy, but contains seeds of brilliant things, and it is too bad it hasn't been explored more.

Overall, I would say that the argument of part I is the weakest, part II is the strongest, and part III the most interesting and ripe with philosophical potential.

If you care about political philosophy, you owe it to yourself to read this book. You also owe it to yourself to understand it. If you find yourself thinking Nozick is making a dumb mistake or begging the question, you've misunderstood. But you'll be in good company.

This book is one of the most unusual in the history of political philosophy, and perhaps one of most brilliant. The author's ideas are thought-provoking and highly original, and he asks the reader to consider arguments, rather than engaging in a "diatribe to convince" (my words here). The author creates a reading atmosphere of intellectual honesty, and this helps to soften the possible uneasiness that some readers might feel in encountering these kinds of arguments for the first time. Some may seem radical and unpalatable for readers of other political persuasions, but any reader who is open to new ideas should find the reading highly interesting. The political philosophy of libertarianism finds its best apology here, but the contents of the book, and the method of presentation will and has found application to other political philosophies, and to legal philosophy.

In the first chapter, the author asks the reader to consider what he calls the "state-of-nature theory". This (Lockean) notion, although archaic in the author's view, allows one to answer whether a state would have to be invented if it did not exist, this being a classical question in liberal political philosophy. The chapter is a detailed justification for pursuing the state-of-nature theory. He holds to the premise that one can only understand the political realm by explaining it in terms of the nonpolitical. He thus begins with the Lockean state of nature concept and uses it to build a justification for the state in the rest of the book.

Most of the discussion in part 1 of the book revolves around the "dominant protective association" in a given geographical area. The author then builds on this in an attempt to justify from a moral perspective "the minimal state". Along the way, one reads about the "ultraminimal state", which has a monopoly over the use of force except that necessary for immediate self-defense, but will not provide protection to those who do not purchase it. The author discusses the tension that arises between the ultraminimal state and those who decide not to participate in it. The game-theoretic, optimization-theoretic approach that the author takes, although not advanced and rigorous from a mathematical standpoint, is very straightforward to follow for those not familiar with the more analytical and formal aspects of many modern treatments of political science.

In part 2 the author attempts to deal with alternatives to the minimal state, such as those proposed by the political philosopher John Rawls, and incorporating the doctrine of "distributive justice". The entitlement-welfare state dialog has not abated in modern political debate, and those who desire an in-depth analysis of these debates will find it in this book. And again, game-theoretic analysis comes into play, although not from a rigorous mathematical standpoint. One of the more interesting discussions in this part concerns the right of individuals to leave a state that they find too compulsory. If a compulsory distribution scheme is the most important, why would a state permit this emigration? Would such an overidding principle of compulsory distribution also permit forced immigration? These are the kinds of questions that the author addresses in the book, and some are left solely for consideration by the reader.

Reader who desire a list of platitudes and endless arguments supporting libertarianism will not find them in this book. Readers though who are not concerned with their political and cognitive equilibrium disturbed will enjoy immensely this book. If it can assist in more careful individual consideration of accepted political doctrine and moral cliches, it has done its job.

...and indeed it has.

To refute the propoganda that was written about Nozick by reveiwer Roger Albin, that Nozick is no longer a Libertarian, here is a an interview with Nozick in an article that appeared originally on the Liberator Online September 11, 2001:

Robert Nozick (1939-2002) is one of the most respected and honored philosophers in the world.
In 1974, Nozick -- then a largely unknown thirty-five-year-old professor of philosophy at Harvard -- published Anarchy, State, and Utopia. The book startled and amazed reviewers, reached a huge audience, and immediately established Nozick's reputation as a major new figure in philosophy -- in fact, as an international intellectual celebrity.
Anarchy, State, and Utopia was a rigorous examination and defense of libertarianism. It was controversial, exciting, and -- most shockingly for a serious philosophical work -- a pleasure to read. And it is hard to overstate the book's importance to libertarianism.
As Laissez Faire Books editor Roy Childs wrote in 1989:
"Nozick's 'Anarchy, State, and Utopia' single-handedly established the legitimacy of libertarianism as a political theory in the world of academia. Indeed, it is not too much to say that without Nozick's book, there might not be a vital and growing academic libertarian movement today, making its way from university to university, from discipline to discipline, from nation to nation."
So it was all the more shocking (and tragic for libertarianism) when, in his 1989 book "The Examined Life," Nozick hinted he had rejected the libertarian philosophy he presented so brilliantly in "Anarchy, State and Utopia." Rumors begin flying that Nozick had abandoned libertarianism. Some even said he had embraced socialism!
In a fascinating and far-ranging new interview with Laissez Faire Books Associate Editor Julian Sanchez, Nozick said he'd been a libertarian all along.

An excerpt:

Sanchez: "In 'The Examined Life' (1989), you reported that you had come to see the libertarian position that you'd advanced in 'Anarchy, State and Utopia' (1974) as 'seriously inadequate.'
But there are several places in 'Invariances' where you seem to suggest that you consider the view advanced there, broadly speaking, at least, a libertarian one. Would you now, again, self-apply the L-word?"

Robert Nozick: "Yes. But I never stopped self-applying it. What I was really saying in 'The Examined Life' was that I was no longer as hardcore a libertarian as I had been before. But the rumors of my deviation (or apostasy!) from libertarianism were much exaggerated. I think this book makes clear the extent to which I still am within the general framework of libertarianism, especially the ethics chapter and its section on the 'Core Principle of Ethics.'"

NOTE: Nozick's scholarly work is not casual reading. Yet it is well worth the effort for the serious student of ideas. We never recommend Anarchy, State and Utopia without also passing along Roy Child's wisdom on how to read this marvelous book: "Two final things to remember: This is a book of many parts, and you can usually skip a section without harm, returning to it later. Finally, Nozick sometimes retreats into math and other modes of argument that are beyond me. I always skip this stuff and I've never had a single sleepless night over it."

I disagree with the substantive claims of political philosophy that this book makes, but it would be churlish of me not to give this 5 stars. Giving intellectual credibility to a superior predecessor to libertarianism, Nozick devotes half of this book to defending the minimal state and the other half to presenting him notion of patterned distribution against Rawls contractualism. Sharp and insightful, ASU is also unusually readable for modern political philosophy.

Nozick's classic is an outstanding book. One of its great virtues is its accessibility to the intelligent layman. This books is alot easier to read than, say, Ronald Dworkin's "Sovereign Virtue" and easier to read than Rawls's "A Theory of Justice". In addition, it is much more focused and tighter than those two books (about 200 pages less than each of them). Nozick stays pretty focused on his main arguments and doesn't stray too far into tangenital side issues, whereas Dworkin and Rawls do much more.

The heart of the book are Chapters 3 and 7. In chapter 3, Nozick lays out his foundations for libertarianism: the idea that individuals are ends in themselves. He claims that libertarian rights follow from treating people as ends and never only as means. The core of Libertarian rights is the idea that in order to deal with people you must have their consent. This treats them as ends because you will only be able to gain their consent if they think that transacting with you or cooperating with you (or whatever) is in their own best interests. Hence, they'll only do so when doing so serves their own ends; requiring consent treats people as ends and not only as means.

In chapter 7, Nozick uses his famous Wilt Chamberlain example to show that egalitarian theories of distributive justice require continual interference with liberty. That is because voluntary transactions lead to inequalities that violate the preferred pattern of distributive justice.

The second part of chapter 7 is a pretty thorough critique of Rawls. Rawls ignores the claims of the most talented and well off and he treats people's abilities as common assets. And more.

So, this is a very good book on Libertarianism. Many have pointed out that Nozick doesn't firmly establish foundations for Libertarian rights. That is true and he admits as much in the Preface. At the same time, the idea of treating individuals as ends in themselves, allied with the idea of self ownership, even if it is just assumed, is still intuitively appealing and seemingly right.

I haven't read the first part on the dispute between anarchists and proponents of the minimal state but I've heard it is quite good as well.

Greg Feirman (gfire77@yahoo.com)

Robert Nozick argues from the (Kantian) principle that nothing and nobody can use an individual as a means rather than an end. We are inviolable in ourselves as individuals and as owners of our property (legitimately acquired in the form of land etc.; or understood as our bodies/minds). Any boundary crossing not expressly consented to, is a violation of these fundamental negative rights. Understood as such, any state that seeks to redistribute through taxation is performing an unconsented-to boundary crossing, and is therefore guilty of violation of these fundamental rights.

It's altogether a very impressive feat of logical, consistent argumentation from first principles. I find the book impeccable. I am not a libertarian after reading Nozick's book, but it has forced me to devote a lot of time and energy to working out why I'm not a libertarian. After all, who can disagree with the principle of `don't do to others what you wouldn't want others to do to you'? The morality underlying Nozick's edifice is entirely acceptable, and yet as the argument progresses I found myself getting more and more uncomfortable. The problem has to do with which rights you might agree are fundamental and inviolable. Is the right to property, however acquired, fundamental to liberty? Nozick argues that it is. Without justice in property, there is no justice. Or Freedom. Or Liberty. Without the concept of private property, we are all potentially slaves to the State.

Concomitant with that proposition is an attitude which can be labelled `individual atomism'. Nozick, in keeping with other libertarians like Von Mises, Rothbard and Hoppe believes that individuals are paramount, unique and indivisible. Nothing may impinge on them. They enter the world fully formed (philosophically speaking) and exist before, above and outside of society. Indeed, I suspect that for most libertarians, society is a rootless (pointless?) concept. This isn't necessarily a provable falsity. It is a view-point which however, is myopic. For by focussing so exclusively on one aspect of individuality, it ignores a host of other elements that contribute to individuality. Humans do not grow up alone. Our very being - in whatever category you choose to view it (philosophically, developmentally, ethically, biologically) - is formed in relation to, in opposition to, in agreement with others of our species (and, indeed, with other species). There is a totality which, through a `perspective shift' suddenly leaps into sight. It is this - society? - which Nozick et. al. are uncomfortable with. To be fair to Nozick, he is perhaps an abstainer on the concept of society. In the `Utopia' part of his book, he argues that as individuals we have the freedom to choose whichever society we might, assuming we can find enough other individuals who share our value preferences. And indeed, by going back to the first ethical principle of `don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you' Nozick can claim that he's arguing from a principle which recognises other individuals as equal to - if completely separate - from ourselves.

If there is a flaw in the libertarian and/or Nightwatchman State position, we must seek it in the so-called inviolability of private property rights. Nozick is very fuzzy here, and such fuzziness is telling. He disagrees with the Lockian formula for justice in acquisition and replaces it with a notion that there is justice in acquisition if by such acquisition we don't leave others any worse off. If we do, then compensation (however determined) is due. That's a very `nice' principle, but it seems to me to be a fairytale. A libertarian political philosophy has to, at some stage, come to grips with the notion of origins, and it is here that Nozick fails. Can there ever be justice in acquisition of private property? How much property is needed? Can somebody allowably grab more than others? If so, then they will have more `freedom' than the rest, and more liberty. A secondary consideration has to do with demographics. Libertarianism seems to me to be a view-point ideally suited to frontier communities. Where are we to find such communities these days? And how could you possible recreate them?

A final word on the usual association of libertarianism and free-market economics. Clearly Nozick thinks that only the unfettered operations of a free-market can sort out the competing claims of individuals in a State Of Nature; and that through such operations a minimal or Nightwatchman State can arise. He is, to be fair, agnostic on the rights of individuals to choose other forms of economic arrangements in his Utopia. But I suspect that he'll have his bets firmly behind the capitalists who will out-compete all other social systems...

I simply had to say that this book, though certainly not perfect, is a very interesting (and even entertaining) piece which certainly gives Rawlsian liberals something to chew on. In complete contrast from what an earlier reviewer has said, this book is hardly an embarrasment to Nozick, and while he has altered his positions on some points in the book, his later work is hardly a repudiation of AS&U.

Nor, as this previous reviewer writes, is AS&U only currently of interest to Randian libertarians. This is absolutely preposterous, as Nozick actually went out of his way to dismiss Rand in subsequent work, and the forumlations of his arguments here are not Randian. They are far more Lockean. One might also mention that the book did win a National Book Award, which (to me at any rate), would seem to indicate that it is probably not your everyday Randian screed.

As a junior in college, I took a course in political philosophy at the University of Michigan, which boasts of the nation's top faculties in ethics. The introductory political philosophy course that I took there gave heavy doses of both Rawls and Nozick. People who know what they are talking about consider Nozick's book quite important in debate of contemporary political philosophy. Those who clearly don't know what they are talking about (see the 1-star review below) ... well, they simply slam the guy and the book.

In summary, well worth a read.

The essence of Nozick's theory is that the justification for property historical, namely, whether it is acquired or transfered in accordance with moral princples, not an end-state theory of how it ought to be distributed. He makes a number of compelling arguments. However, he never describes the moral princples or principles of justice that apply in any detail. And, as is often the case, the devil is in the details. Morality does not give one any absolute rights over property, for to do so would be to say we can harm others with our property. A much better approach, one that is sympathetic to Nozick but more realistic and well thought out, is to be found in M. Berumen's Do No Evil, Ethics, Economic Theory and Business. Berumen shows why private property is the default postion of morality, but he also shows why that does not mean ownership rights are unlimited or inviolate. He also shows the folly of socialism from a moral perspective. He finds the proper balance between libertarian conceptions and those who view the state as an instrument of justice.

You can get a wonderful overview of the book on Wikipedia. So, rather than try to provide such an overview here, let me offer a few comments on what reading along these lines has meant to me.

Nozick's book is an outstanding logical development, building a philosophical framework upon a presuppositional base of preeminence of individual rights. I've read it cover-to-cover with interest and profit. This book provides an intellectual base to the school of Libertarianism that so attracts people in Ayn Rand's prose. Notably, I have read late-in-life interviews with Nozick in which he said that he became less libertarian as he got older.

This book really should be read in conjunction with John Rawls' "A Theory of Justice," which I have not yet finished cover-to-cover due to its length and unavailability as an audiobook. After reading the most famous parts in Rawls book, I did finish a few good summaries and commentaries on the "Theory of Justice." Rawls and Nozick were contemporaries in the Philosophy Department at Harvard, and are leading minds on the left and right, respectively, of the American philosophical spectrum.

The Nozick logic leads to a world of perfect individual rights. In this world, charity becomes dependent on the free will of individuals who choose to grant charity. In this world, the more harsh aspects of Social Darwinism become morally permissible. However, the economist's problem of Moral Hazard (the freeloader problem) is completely solved. One who holds individual rights to be preeminent sees this Nozick system as perfectly satisfying the Golden Rule (aka principle of reciprocity), because at the formation of the social contract, all agree to accept individual rights as preeminent, thus "doing unto others as we would have them do to us."

The Rawls logic stems from applying the Golden Rule prior to developing the social contract behind a "veil of ignorance," in which founders/citizens do not yet know the circumstances and advantages of their birth. While complete individual rights may have been present while drawing up the social contract "behind the veil of ignorance," once out in society a measure of compassion and charity becomes almost obligatory, due to agreements made behind the veil of ignorance. In this world, the more harsh aspects of Social Darwinism will not be allowed by the social contract. However, this world is more susceptible to economist's problem of Moral Hazard (the freeloader problem) than Nozick's world.

Interestingly, both the Nozick and Rawls approach can be reconciled with both the Golden Rule and Kant's Categorical Imperative, as can Ayn Rand's thesis (and I've read papers by philosopher graduate students and Ph.D graduates doing so).

My bottom line? If men and women were gods and goddesses, either of these systems could make a happy world. The problem is that we are not.