remembering nozick
One of the 20th Century's Great Advocates of Liberty.
Robert Nozick, Harvard professor and author of "Anarchy, State, and Utopia", died Wednesday morning, 23 January. In an era dominated (with a few notable exceptions) by pro-statist ideologies, his 1974 work was a provocative examination of the legitimacy of government power and a powerful refutation of John Rawls' "Theory of Justice."
Nozick's argument stated that justice is built upon a foundation of self-ownership. From ownership of one's self, it follows that the results of labor and skill by an individual are owned by that person as well. Further, individual owners can freely exchange ownership of property between each other.
Nozick's view was process-oriented: justice was not the end result of a series of actions, but was the voluntary agreements themselves. Repeated application of this principle resulted in the development of complex social and economic agreements that are observed in modern society. He used Wilt Chamberlain's salary in his famous example (i.e., thousands of people paid the L.A. Lakers to see a game, who then in turn paid Chamberlain.) Milton Friedman, in "Capitalism and Freedom", described how approximately one million people are involved in some way in the process of turning a corner of wheat field into a loaf of bread on a supermarket shelf. Along the way, hundreds - perhaps thousands - of voluntary exchanges are made, with each party expressing his right of self-ownership and ownership of the results of his labor.
Clearly, Nozick's notion of justice and social order stands in stark contrast to the prevailing attitudes of the 20th century, when hundreds of millions were sacrificed to support the ideology of forced redistribution of property and the belief than individuals are cogs of the machinery of state, rather than autonomous beings.
Diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1994, Nozick struggled with the disease for eight years. He was 63.
25.01.2002 © ljr