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A Critique Of Robert Nozick's Political Philosophy
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Against anarchism, Nozick claims that a minimal state is justified
because it (or something very much like it) would arise spontaneously
among people living in a hypothetical “state of nature†through
transactions that would not involve the violation of anyone’s natural
rights following the 17th century English philosopher John Locke. Nozick
assumes that everyone possesses the natural rights to life, liberty,
and property including the right to claim as property the fruits or
products of one’s labour and the right to dispose of one’s property as
one sees fit (provided that in doing so one does not violate the rights
of any one’s else). Everyone also has the natural right to punish those
who violate one’s own natural rights. Because defending one’s natural
right in a state of nature would be difficult for anyone to do on his
own. Individual would band together to form “protection associationâ€, in
which members would work together to defend each other’s rights and to
punish rights violator.
Eventually, some of these associations would
developed into private business offering protection and punishment
services for a fee. The great importance that individuals would attach
to such services would give the largest protection firms a natural
competitive advantage, and eventually only one firm, or a confederation
of firms) would have a monopoly of force in the territory of the
community and because it would protect the rights of everyone living
there, it would constitute a minimal state in the libertarian sense. And
because the minimal state would come about without violating anyone’s
natural rights, a state with at least its powers is justified.
Against
liberalism and other leftist ideologies, (modern form of liberalism)
Nozick claims that no more than the minimal state is justified, because
any state with more extensive powers would violate the natural rights of
its citizens. Thus the state should not have the power to control
prices or to set a minimal wage because doing so would violate the
natural right of citizens to dispose of their labour as they see fit.
For similar reasons, the state should not have the power to establish
public education or health care through taxes imposed on citizen who may
wish to spend their money on private services instead. Indeed,
according to Nozick any mandatory taxation used to fund services or
benefits other than those constitutive of the minimal state in unjust,
because such taxation amount to a kind of “force labour†for the state
by those who must pay the tax.
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 3]
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