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| Anarchy, State, And Utopia | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Nozick
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $16.95
You Save: $8.05 (32%)
New (23) Used (37) from $16.34
Avg. Customer Rating:  34 reviews
Sales Rank: 10155
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 267
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6 x 1.1
ISBN: 0465097200
Dewey Decimal Number: 320
EAN: 9780465097203
ASIN: 0465097200
Publication Date: September 31, 1974
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Product Description
In this brilliant and widely acclaimed book, winner of the 1975 National Book Award, Robert Nozick challenges the most commonly held political and social positions of our age—liberal, socialist, and conservative.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 29 more reviews...
Political philosophy deep clean October 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Nozick's seminal and controversial book is a must. He argues that the role of the state should be dwindled to a night watchman role to ensure the enforcement of contracts, a military, and some small services such as road protection. The rest of society makes free decisions and interactions amongst themselves.
I don't agree with Nozick's system. I think any political system that takes one value (in this case, individual liberty) and stretches it to override every other consideration is unworkable as it does not take into account the complexity and multi angled relations of human affairs. I wonder what Nozick's true intentions were in writing it - perhaps some kind of thought experiment, a construction of society from first principles? Whatever your political philosophical viewpoint, you must add this book to your reading to act as a deep bicarb-soda clean of all your preconceived ideas. Certainly if you read it properly and engage with the arguments, you will be forced into thinking deeply.
 Vive l'anarchie, l'etat et l'Ethiopia! July 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Nozick's trenchant arguments for freedom emanate from moral conviction rather than economic theory. Life affirming to the core, they are framed in a delightful style leavened with wit. The spirited quality omniscient in his analyses consistently inspires whilst the skill and precision of his definitions, distinctions and diction impress throughout. He clearly derived much joy from the pursuit of philosophy.
To Nozick, the individual is sacred, self-owning and inviolable. Individuals are ends in themselves, not the means through which other individuals may attain ends. From this conviction issues the right to life, liberty and property. The first part is devoted to finding justification for the existence of the state as an agent of monopoly power.
He defends the minimal or "night watchman" state by isolating through analysis the detailed procedural matters involved in the use of force. Force is applied in reaction to crime, in order to protect rights and for settling disputes. The state is thus restricted to defending society from outside coercion, deterring & punishing force & fraud and ensuring the honoring of contracts.
Nozick then proceeds to criticize any type of state of which the power exceeds the minimal, a harmful entity that inevitably wrongs the sovereign individual.
Here he defines the entitlement theory of justice which comprises justice in acquisition (& in rectification should it be violated), holding and transfer. Briefly this means property is justified if it derives from procedures like voluntary transfer or acquisition that is just; it is a non-patterned principle. "From each as they choose, to each as they are chosen." Justice is not a passive state but a process.
Although agreeing with Hayek on all points, their style & reasoning differ markedly. Nozick's analytical method is far removed from the approach of the author of The Road to Serfdom.
Neither conservative nor anarchist, Nozick was a classical liberal or libertarian. He rejects the distinction between economic rights and civil liberties, and between the market and the civil spheres which in any case overlap in many instances. "Capitalist acts between consenting adults" is an example of the way he clarifies with wit.
And in confronting the lunatic fringe represented by Rothbard, he explains convincingly why Anarcho-capitalism is unstable and impossible in reality.
Back to the statist side, Nozick elegantly dismantles the case for egalitarianism in his engagement with John Rawls, illustrating the fallacies & injustice of redistribution, regulation of commerce and welfarism by means of innovative and memorable arguments.
His objection to "positive rights" like equality of opportunity is based on the fact that they require a substructure of materials & actions that may belong to others. On this subject Chantal Delsol's criticism of the European welfare state came to mind. Observing how welfarism smothers citizens in perpetual adolescence so that they conflate rights and desires, she defines this process of inhibited growth leading to selfish demands as the "sacralization" of rights.
What began as freedoms are transformed into entitlements. This process also transforms those who are responsible & productive into the slaves of the petulant adolescents, a situation that brings to mind another Nozickian saying: "Marxist exploitation is the exploitation of people's lack of understanding of economics."
Having demonstrated the irrationality and injustice of attempts to enforce equality, Nozick lovingly restores individual freedom as the primary principle. His cutting analyses is enhanced by entertaining and thought-provoking observations on alienation, equal opportunities, exploitation, love, the psychology of envy, drugs, sex and rock `n roll (sigh ... no, but a word or two would have been rapturous).
Oddly enough, this book first came to my attention when I bought The Patti Smith Group's Radio Ethiopia way back in the late 70s. The artwork inside showed a disheveled Patti sitting against a brick wall with the slogan VIVE L'ANARCHIE. Thus the punk band's Anarchy & Ethiopia became associated with Nozick's Utopia in the mind of a confused teenager.
Finally, the utopian concept is explored.
A free society serves as framework for utopia, offering a meta-utopia that permits voluntary movement between dimensions where everybody benefits from the presence of everybody else. The gist of it is voluntary association for mutual benefit.
The innumerable attempts to "refute" Nozick bear witness to the abiding light so eloquently revealed in this masterpiece of political philosophy. A further measure of its success is the influence that Anarchy, State & Utopia has exercised on various other disciplines.
I appreciate Nozick's remarkable insight, his analytical excellence and his admirable elucidatory skills. But it is the exuberance, the optimism implying meaning and purpose, and above all the love of life radiating from his writing that resonate with this reader.
One of the strongest philosophical conceptions of distributive justice April 27, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Nozick's argument for individual rights as a response to Rawls's "Theory of Justice" is very strong in many ways. although his acceptance of the Lockean proviso is a sticking point for many (and, Hampton would argue, for Nozick himself), His careful look at property rights shows some of the best political thinking in the 20th century.
Unlike the proverbial anarchist, he does see the state as necessary to securing the property rights he so vigorously defends.
I highly recommend this work to anyone wishing to better understand the philosophical argument for libertarianism. The writing and reasoning are clear and easy to follow.
To understand this work in the context of the other major theories of distributive justice, I also recommend reading Rawls's "Justice As Fairness: A Restatement", Hampton's "Political Philosophy", and Simmons's "Moral Priniciples and Political Obligations".
Masterpiece of Pop-Philosophy January 9, 2007
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Nozick's A, S, and U is a great work of philosophy; not merely for its clear and forceful arguments, but because of its ability to act like a textbook. With ASU, you get a broad coverage of political theories, ethical theories, theories about argument, economics, government and more. Highly recommended for anyone who is doing philosophy at an undergraduate level.
I Loved This Book June 18, 2006
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
An observation and common criticism of the book, both in this little Amazon fishbowl and elsewhere, is that Nozick takes givens, starts the arguments, and proceeds without initial justification of his givens.
The charge is accurate. So throughout the logic of the case he builds one finds comments like, "This does not take seriously the person as an individual" with no support or clarification. What are these statements? Are they broad appeals to what everyone has already recognized through some moral sensory apparatus, a moral fact? Are they simply what Nozick has taken as true beyond dispute, or at least, beyond fruitful argument?
Some times they are. Some times, as with property rights, Nozick has simply accepted the work of previous thinkers, there John Locke. Are there flaws with Locke's property rights base? Yes, indeed there are flaws with any theory, and one must accept the least flawed if he ever wants to advance to a higher subject. This is especially true of ethics. But Locke is certainly no insignificant thinker, but rather a reliable starting point of an analysis. And what the author perceives as commonly accepted (but not necessarily unanimously accepted) principles are fair game when one is presenting an argument--without such data, we have nothing but skepticism unbounded.
And yet many seem intent on criticizing Nozick for not reinventing the wheel--for simply filling in gaps in other theories, weaving certain ones together in new ways without going through the substrata of the entire philosophy of Western civilization, doublechecking each vein.
I find that criticism unfair. Each writer, each theoretician, must accept certain truths to begin with, accept some axioms and from thence go forward. It simply won't do to demand an entire universe in every book. Some times the premisses a writer starts with will be bizarre to the reader, and so he will not accept the conclusions. Those skeptical of "rights" in general will find trouble accepting where we are led--and if the premisses started with are so absurd perhaps we can rebuke the author for his warped view on reality. But nothing presumed here can be dismissed so easily. You may charge, accurately, that Nozick has yet to prove the existence of external reality, and ergo, this political argument is unsupported. But you're a silly person to do so.
And some of you take the idea that a progressive tax could be immoral to be simply insane, and thus you find the book's conclusion contrary to reality as such. But I tell you the quality of the book is not merely its truth (though I do believe Nozick has presented here a powerful moral truth), but also the case Nozick builds from the (often widely-held) premisses he selects, and the mastery and beauty of that case. I don't think anyone can fairly deny the grandness of what he has done here. (I am not arguing that truth is insignificant--I am arguing it is one of many components of quality).
To be honest, I loved this book. I loved the honesty, I loved the politics he justified, I loved the vibrancy of Nozick's arguments, the freshness of his methods, the power of the Rawlsian critique, the dangling tantalizing questions. I loved the parts I agreed with and those I didn't agree with.
I loved the setup--the journey through economic theory to bring us a just minimal state from the anarchist's state of nature. I loved the detours along the way--the discussion of animal rights, utilitarianism, punishment and deterrence. I loved the minimal state, and the crisp arguments that ruled any increase in it immoral. I loved the discussion of utopia, born like dessert after a full meal, a whole new set of fun arguments, providing us with more rich analytic devices, and exploding possibilities.
I loved Nozick's style--never, not for a second, patronizing. Smart, quick, concise and dense, poignant with its thoughts, and yet neighborly, polite, forthright and friendly. Were I not already a libertarian I'd be one now. Were I not already interested in philosophy, I would be now. Were I not already an ardent Nozick groupie, I would be now.
There is a passage where Nozick gives a short paean to Rawls, the beauty of his theory, the mastery of his technique. Surely Rawls deserves it, but there can be no doubt that after this work, Nozick deserves no less glowing praise. It is hard to stress sufficiently the warmth and artistry of what the author accomplishes: the birth of a political philosophy, and a journey there with every step amazing. No cliches, no tricks, just light.
With this book, the libertarians have carved a slice of truth from the world. We can be defeated--but now we must at least be faced.
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