Author Archives: F. E. Guerra-Pujol

We continue our review of Chapter 2 of Anarchy, State, and Utopia. As we noted in a previous post, Chapter 2 is divided into five subsections. Here, we review the third subsection (pp. 15-17), which is aptly titled “The Dominant … Continue reading →

Our previous post revisited the first section of Chapter 2 of Anarchy, State, and Utopia. In that post, we summarized Nozick’s comprehensive summary of three serious problems that could arise even in Locke’s idyllic version of the state of nature. … Continue reading →

Chapter 2 of Anarchy, State, and Utopia is divided into five separate subsections. Here, we will review the first of these five subsections (pp. 10-12), where Nozick summarizes Locke’s description of the state of nature and identifies three practical problems … Continue reading →

Chapter 1 of Nozick’s classic work “Anarchy, State, and Utopia“ poses the following “what if” thought experiment: What if we lived in a state of nature, in a world in which there were no actual states or governments? This hypothetical … Continue reading →

We interrupt our year-end review of Anarchy, State, and Utopia to share this story with our loyal followers: “When someone asked mathematician Richard Bellman how to tell the difference between an excercise and a research problem, he replied if you can solve … Continue reading →

Before we jump into Chapter 1 of “Anarchy, State, and Utopia”, we want to return to Nozick’s preface one last time. The preface not only summarizes the main conclusions and methods of his book; it also calls out the intellectual … Continue reading →

Nozick’s preface sets forth his main conclusion: only a “minimal state”–i.e. a collective “limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on”–is consistent with the principle of individual rights. Nozick further concludes … Continue reading →

Let’s begin our review of Robert Nozick’s book Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Nozick opens his preface with this famous sentence: “Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights).” This … Continue reading →

… A page by page, chapter by chapter review of Nozick’s classic work Anarchy, State, and Utopia. (Here is a PDF of Nozick’s book for your reference.) Fasten your seat belts, this project will take up the rest of November … Continue reading →

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