Nozick and the Individualist Anarchist

Abstract

Robert Nozick, in Anarchy, State, and Utopia¹ presented his by-now-famous view that ‘minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so, on, is justified’.² He went on to say that only such a state is justified. Since then, the view has been frequently presented that a more extensive state than the one proposed by Nozick is warranted³ — as has the view that only a less extensive state,⁴ or no state at all, is morally permissible. When such an antistatist, or anarchist, view is presented, however, rarely has its advocate also been an advocate of capitalism, that is, an individualist anarchist. But occasionally that does happen. In this paper I propose to criticize Nozick from the individualist anarchist point of view and show that although he has challenged the classical arguments of the individualist anarchist, the anarchist has a reply.