Anarchy, State, and Utopia

Anarchy, State, and Utopia is a work of political philosophy written by Robert Nozick in 1974. This highly acclaimed libertarian book was the winner of the 1975 National Book Award. In opposition to A Theory of Justice by John Rawls, Nozick argues in favor of a minimal state, "limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on." When a state takes on more responsibilities than these, Nozick argues, rights will be violated. To support the idea of the minimal state, Nozick posits an ultraminimal state as a thought experiment and attempts to show how it will lead to a minimal state.

Criticisms

Fellow libertarian (but anarcho-capitalist) Murray Rothbard has criticised Anarchy State and Utopia in his article "Robert Nozick and the Immaculate Conception of the State" http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/1_1/1_1_6.pdf on the basis that:

Related Topics:
Libertarian - Anarcho-capitalist - Murray Rothbard

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• (1) that no existing State has been "immaculately conceived" in the way envisaged by Nozick;
• (2) that on Nozick's account the only minimal State that could possibly be justified is one that would emerge after a free-market anarchist world had been established;
• (3) that therefore Nozick, on his own grounds, should become an anarchist and then wait for the Nozickian invisible hand to operate afterward; and
• (4) that even if any State had been founded immaculately, the fallacies of social contract theory would mean that no present State, even a minimal one, would be justified.