==============================
 "Anarchy, State, and Utopia"
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Have read Robert Nozick's "Anarchy, State, and Utopia", another good
book from the long queue. Some of his views I do not share (social
liberalism looks much more appealing to me than libertarianism), but
as usual, exposition to varied ones, and especially those with good
argumentation, is useful: for general knowledge and context, as well
as to contrast one's views with those, to try identifying differences
underpinning different understanding, look for
counterarguments. Additionally, Nozick raises more questions than
proposes answers, so it provides a decent quantity of food for
thought.

Some of the examples of things I disagree with (or, to put it in
another way, do not understand Nozick's position, maybe simply because
of misunderstanding what is written; re-reading it someday with a
closer attention to those might be useful):

- His criticism of "end-state" principles of justice is about
  voluntary transfers (exercise of the ownership rights) breaking the
  predefined distribution patterns. He counts Rawls's difference
  principle as "end-state", since it restricts distribution. Yet I
  fail to see how an individual transferring goods whatever way they
  wish would be contrary to the difference principle, which is about
  organization of institutions. Though he criticized (and quoted) the
  original edition of "A Theory of Justice", and I have only read the
  revised one, so it may be the source of some mismatches.

- Seems to mostly ignore the "original position" and the whole social
  contract approach in Rawls's criticism, but when considers the
  "original position", argues that the joint product of social
  cooperation can be completely disentangled, because bonuses to be
  paid (to provide motivations) require that. The implication and such
  a strict requirement for motivation seem dubious.

- Apparently he supports patents and copyright law, possibly viewing
  them as a kind of contract. While the kind of contract that
  introduces taxes for social purposes he views as forced labor, at
  times seems to mock such implicit contracts. Both points make sense
  separately, but not sure how arguments used against the latter do
  not convince him to ignore the former.

- Speaking of application of arguments to unintended subjects, I
  suspect the arguments for state as a protective agency, upon
  transferring to it the right for self-defense, can be relatively
  easily extended to areas like medicine (especially for epidemics),
  perhaps firefighting (and related inspections), which also favor a
  monopoly, organized and decisive action, without alternative
  agencies with possibly inferior standards, or some people harming
  others by abstaining. While a protective agency may also start
  drafting people if they will have trouble hiring them, growing this
  minimal state further.

- One may argue for more rights than those on property (including
  life); the selection of those in the state of nature seems a little
  arbitrary, mixed with a moral theory postulating those natural
  rights, so they are fixed. Though even with fixed moral rights, a
  society may strive to provide more of conventional rights to its
  members, if they so desire, which they seem likely to. Though this
  is basically another way to the social contract argument.

- Apparently he views more egalitarian positions as stemming from
  envy. I view it as a likely way to reach an agreement needed for
  cooperation, and the tendency to demand this kind of fairness looks
  to me like an evolved self-repair mechanism for a society, to
  discourage parasitic behavior.

- The history of morally justified actions, on which Nozick focuses,
  becomes increasingly unverifiable in the long run.

- At times he seems overly pedantic, and at times reminded me of
  Socrates with his questioning: the questioning in general is a good
  approach, but can be disproportional. That way, one may also
  question whether the "voluntary" contracts considered by Nozick are
  really voluntary in a useful sense (to exclude, say, scams), whether
  it makes sense to consider morality as something fixed and
  shared. He defines those voluntary contracts as any that do not
  violate the rights, but the facts of such violations can also be
  debated, since those are not basic and immediately knowable parts of
  reality. Or one may even dive into extreme reductionism and reject
  theories not justified starting from physical models. But that is
  not a practical way to compose a political theory: one has to settle
  on "pretty good", as in "worse is better".

- Nozick prefers "invisible hand" explanations, which seem neat to me
  as well, but they also seem to neglect political participation,
  human capability for planning and cooperation, do not quite treat
  people as intelligent beings.

- Assumes that people want more than the "experience machine", which I
  am not sure about.

- Some of his examples conflate interpersonal relationships and
  material possessions.

- When Nozick considers workers' control, apparently (and strangely to
  me) he equates desirable efficiency with maximizing total profit per
  company, as opposed to maximizing average profit per worker. The
  latter he views rather as a problem.

- The government of the praised minimal state is left mostly
  undefined. It is some kind of a monopolistic corporation, so
  possibly controlled like those usually are, which would make it a
  dictatorship; something like a military junta or a
  securocracy. Unclear what would prevent power abuses in it.  

It also felt like the law of the instrument is in action, when Nozick
presents utopia as a competitive market. As well as a minimal
state. Like "market-oriented philosophy" (akin to "object-oriented
programming"), where everything is a market. Though it can also be
described as different optics, which seem to be especially apparent
when they differ between the writer and the reader.

The last chapter made me to draw parallels with writing a hypervisor
instead of an operating system, a combinator calculus or lambda
calculus implementation instead of a useful programming language, or
indeed a framework (as Nozick calls it) instead of application
software or a political theory: minimal and neat, and other things can
be set on top, but not quite the goal itself. Though still useful for
educational purposes, and probably in certain situations.

Apparently due to such pure libertarianism not being satisfactory even
to some libertarians, as it lacks what is usually perceived as social
justice, there is "bleeding-heart libertarianism", as an alternative
name for neoclassical liberalism. As I understand it, some of its
proponents argue that social justice will emerge from libertarianism
(as utilitarians may argue that rights and freedoms would emerge out
of utilitarianism), while others advocate for introduction of
universal basic income to achieve that. Not sure why to still call it
"libertarianism" at that point with the latter approach: seems more
confusing than useful for categorization. Though probably it still
underlines the priorities.

As usual, it is tricky to pick the next book, since there are many
promising ones in the queue: on history, economics, philosophy,
political science. Not to mention those on STEM subjects, which I
neglect these days. But it is also exciting.

In other news, my VPS is back online, after about 44 days of
downtime. Fortunately I had no mail correspondence during those (so
did not have to deal with inserting messages from zoho.com to a
mailbox manually), and noticed that I have almost no active XMPP
contacts left, so it was not much of a loss. A case of feeling
relatively free and relaxed due to not having (or having few)
attachments or obligations, at least in this small area.


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:Date: 2026-07-22
