prior probability

Thus far, we have reviewed the first eight (of eleven) subsections of Chapter 10 of ASU. Here, we review the ninth subsection (pp. 326-331), where Nozick finally gets around to addressing the elephant in the utopian room: who will resolve the inevitable disputes that will occur among the multiple utopias in Nozick’s imaginary world, and who will enforce exit rights in this world? Nozick thus acknowledges that two kinds of conflict will arise, even if we were to fully embrace and implement his utopian framework: (1) inter-utopia disputes, i.e. disputes between different communities, and (2) intra-utopia disputes, i.e. internal disputes within a particular community when members wish to leave in breach of their contractual or family obligations to that community.

It is here–well over 300 pages into his libertarian tome–that Nozick finally concedes that we will need a strong “central authority” (i.e. a state!!!) after all, thus refuting the central thesis of his book! (Frankly, to expect that this central authority will remain a “minimal state” begs belief.) Nevertheless, or perhaps because of this enormous and embarrassing internal contradiction, Nozick does not attempt to describe what this state or central authority would look like. He simply notes (p. 330): “What the best form of such a central authority is I would not wish to investigate here.” To this blatant cop out, all I can say is: c’mon man! In any case, we will review the last two subsections of Chapter 10–and thus conclude our review of ASU–in our next post.

Nozick spots several problems with his utopian framework in the middle sections of Chapter 10 of ASU (pp. 320-325). One problem is theoretical: his framework for utopia appears to be internally inconsistent. On the one hand, the overall framework is based libertarian principles, but on the other, the individual utopias within his framework are free to choose paternalistic principles for their internal governance. In the words of Nozick (p. 320):

“The operation of the framework has many of the virtues, and few of the defects, people find in the libertarian vision. For though there is great liberty to choose among communities, many particular communities internally may have many restrictions unjustifiable on libertarian grounds: that is, restrictions which libertarians would condemn if they were enforced by a central state apparatus. For example, paternalistic intervention into people’s lives, restrictions on the range of books which may circulate in the community, limitations on the kinds of sexual behavior, and so on.”

How do we resolve this paradox? How can local communities be paternalistic and the overall framework be libertarian at the same time? Among other moves, Nozick’s ties his solution to this paradox to property rights (p. 322): “A face-to-face community can exist on land jointly owned by its members …. The community will be entitled then, as a body, to determine what regulations are to be obeyed on its land ….” Nozick also notes that size matters. That is, to the extent that most communities within his framework will be small and local, most interactions within such communities will be face-to-face and in person. But why should the level of paternalism within a given community depend on its size? Because of the greater mental costs or psychic harms generated by deviant nonconformists in these small communities. (But what about Nozick’s axiom that individuals have inviolable rights? Why can those rights now be waived at the community level?)

Next, Nozick identifies two additional potential problems with his utopian framework: change and dictatorship. In particular, how should we deal with communities that change their internal rules against the wishes of some of its members, and how should we deal with totalitarian communities? As Nozick notes, the former scenario–involving a community whose rules change over time–might pose a big problem for some because of an asymmetry in the costs of voting with one’s feet: it is more costly for you to exit a community that you are already living in than it is for you to refuse to join a community you don’t like. But according to Nozick, this asymmetry problem is easily solvable via contracts (p. 324): “… individuals need only include in the explicit terms of an agreement (contract) with any community they enter the stipulation that any member (including themselves) will be so compensated for deviations from a specified structure (which need not be society’s preferred norm) in accordance with specified conditions.” This solution, however, presupposes a court or some other coercive system for enforcing contracts and resolving disputes over what types of structural deviations are large enough to trigger the compensation provision of the contract.

Okay, so what about totalitarian communities? This possibility is a problem because such a total community would be inconsistent with Nozick’s moral axiom that individuals have rights and that these rights cannot be violated without some form of compensation. Nozick, nevertheless, brushes this problem aside (p. 325): “It goes without saying that any persons may attempt to unite kindred spirits, but, whatever their hopes and longings, none have the right to impose their vision of unity upon the rest.” Everyone is thus free to join whatever community he wishes, even a totalitarian one, so long as he does not attempt to impose his choice of community on others. In short, Nozick’s framework for utopia is a libertarian one, but the individual utopias within this framework need not be. We are now almost done with Part III of Anarchy, State, and Utopia. We will conclude our review of ASU in our next two posts.

Nozick: As long as the overall framework is free!

Nozick compares and contrasts “design devices” with “filter devices” in the fourth and fifth subsections of Chapter 10 of ASU (pp. 312-320). (He also appears to take a parting shot at Rawls. More on that below.) Here, Nozick temporarily concedes, for the sake of argument, that there is a single universal utopia, that there is one kind of ideal society that is best for all men. If so, how would we go about discovering what this society is like? Nozick describes two methods of discovery: (1) a priori design and (2) ex post filtering. Continue reading →

In the third subsection of Chapter 10 of ASU (pp. 309-312), Nozick provides two additional reasons why a universal utopia for everyone is an impossible fantasy. The first reason is “the fact that people are different” and have different values (p. 309). (And even when our values overlap, we assign different weightings to the values we may share!) The other reason is the ubiquity of trade offs. Unless we postulate a magic wand that allows us to summon manna from heaven, not all goods can be realized simultaneously, so trade-offs will have to be made, even in utopia! Moreover, as Nozick correctly notes (p. 312), “there is little reason to believe that one unique system of trade-offs will command universal assent. Different communities, each with a slightly different mix, will provide a range from which each individual can choose that community which best approximates his balance among competing values.” Continue reading →

We restated Robert Nozick’s mental model of imaginary worlds in our previous post. Next, in the second subsection of Chapter 10 of ASU (pp. 307-309), Nozick hits the pause button to compare and contrast his model of possible worlds with the actual world. Here, Nozick explores the line between fantasy and the feasible, giving several reasons why we won’t be able to realize his model of possible worlds in the actual world. Among these are conflict, friction, and closed borders.

1. Conflict and war. What happens when the worlds come into conflict with each other? Or as Nozick notes (p. 307): “Unlike the model, in the actual world communities impinge upon one another, creating problems of foreign relations and self-defense and necessitating modes of adjudicating and resolving disputes between the communities.”
2. Friction. Another obstacle are information costs (ibid.): “In the actual world, there are information costs in finding out what other communities there are, and what they are like, and moving and travel costs in going from one community to another.”
3. Closed borders. Imagine living in Communist Cuba or East Berlin during the Cold War, or as Nozick puts it (pp. 307-308), “in the actual world, some communities may … try to prevent [their members] from freely leaving their own community to join another. This raises the problem of how freedom of movement is to be … enforced when there are some who will wish to restrict it.”

In short, these problems will make it difficult, if not impossible, to project his model of possible worlds onto the actual world. Nevertheless, as Nozick notes, sometimes the second best is good enough, citing R. G. Lipsey & Kelvin Lancaster’s influential paper, “The General Theory of the Second Best,” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Dec. 1956), pp. 11-32, available here. In other words, just because Nozick’s model of possible worlds diverges from the actual world, doesn’t mean we should give up our search for utopia. We will review Nozick’s “framework for utopia” in our next post.

Nozick builds a beautiful mental model in the first subsection of Chapter 10 of ASU (pp. 297-306). This simple model has the following parts (p. 299):

1. Universal imagining rights. “Imagine a possible world in which to live; this world need not contain everyone else now alive, and it may contain beings who have never actually lived. Every rational creature in this world you have imagined will have the same rights of imagining a possible world for himself to live in (in which all other rational inhabitants have the same imagining rights, and so on) as you have.” That is, you are allowed to imagine your own possible utopia or association and you are allowed to populate your imaginary society with as many or little “rational creatures” as you like, but everyone else in your world is also allowed to imagine their own utopian associations.
2. Universal emigration rights. “The other inhabitants of the world you have imagined may choose to stay in the world which has been created for them (they have been created for) or they may choose to leave it and inhabit a world of their own imagining.” In two words, open borders!
3. Iteration. There is no arbitrary stopping point. This process of imagining new utopian associations and entrance into and exit from these imaginary societies will continue indefinitely until someone imagines a world that people want to voluntarily join and remain in.

Continue reading →

After many months and multiple blog posts, we have now reached the tenth and last chapter of Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Nozick begins this chapter by asking whether his ideal of the minimal state would inspire men to struggle or make sacrifices on its behalf, or as Nozick puts it (p. 297, end note omitted): “Would anyone man the barricades under its banner?” Before we jump into Chapter 10, however, let’s take a closer look at its overall organization and structure.

Chapter 10 is titled “A Framework for Utopia,” and it is the most creative and thought-provoking chapter in a book full of creative and thought-provoking ideas. This last chapter is divided into eleven separate subsections as follows:

• The model (pp. 297-306)
• The model projected onto our world (pp. 307-309)
• The framework (pp. 309-312)
• Design devices and filter devices (pp. 312-317)
• The framework as utopian common ground (pp. 317-320)
• Community and nation (pp. 320-323)
• Communities [that] change (pp. 323-324)
• Total communities (p. 325)
• Utopian means and ends (pp. 326-331)
• How utopia works out (pp. 331-333)
• Utopia and the minimal state (pp. 333-275)

Here, Nozick will “pursue the theory of utopia to see where it leads” (ASU, p. 297). But what conditions must a society satisfy to qualify as a “utopia”? Nozick will present a beautiful and original mental model to begin his pursuit of utopian theory; we will restate his model in our next post.

We interrupt our ongoing review of Anarchy, State, and Utopia to ask a simple question: why isn’t there a movie version of the popular Broadway musical “Hamilton” yet? According to this report in The Wall Street Journal (hat tip: kottke), we might just get what we have been wishing for! (As much as my dear wife Sydjia and I would love to see this musical in person, we are not going to pay thousands of dollars for this privilege.) A massive bidding war is apparently going on to bring “Hamilton” to the silver screen, and bids for the legal rights to the musical might exceed $50 million! For more details about auction theory in general, check out this undergraduate course on optimal auctions (via Cheap Talk).

Nozick devotes the last subsection of Chapter 9 of ASU (pp. 292-294) to the problem of “hypothetical histories.” Here, he poses a crucial question (p. 293): “How should hypothetical histories affect our current judgment of the institutional structure of society?” This hypothetical history question is especially poignant because both John Rawls and Robert Nozick use this device–hypothetical histories–to build their theories of justice by which to evaluate the structure of North American society today: Rawls’s is the original position; Nozick’s, the dominant protection association. Nevertheless, Nozick’s answer to his hypothetical history question is less than satisfying. (See, e.g., David Johnston, The Idea of a Liberal Theory, Princeton U Press (1994), p. 56, n. 36, available here.) In fact, his analysis of the relation between hypothetical and actual histories ends up falling into a vicious circle! Continue reading →

Let’s start wrapping up our review of Chapter 9 of Anarchy, State, and Utopia (ASU) by taking stock of Robert Nozick’s mind-blowing thought experiment in this chapter. In summary, Nozick imagines a collective corporate entity or Great Corporation in which “each person owns exactly one share in each right over every other person, including himself.” (ASU, p. 285.) In other words, each person has an equal say in the lives of all others. Furthermore, Nozick coins a new term to christen this system: demoktesis or “ownership of the people, by the people, and for the people” (p. 290). What is so terrible about this imaginary scheme? It turns out there are two big problems with demoktesis. One is the problem of holdouts. According to Nozick (pp. 289-290), persons who refuse to participate in this scheme would not be allowed to remain in the same territory in which the great corporation operated; nor would they be allowed to create a competing corporation. For my part, my initial response to this argument was to push back against Nozick’s conclusions regarding holdouts. His entire scheme is imaginary, so why can’t we imagine an alternative world consisting of competing human corporate conglomerates? Continue reading →