===== PAGE 1 =====

Robert Nozick: Property, Justice and the
Minimal State. By Jonathan Wolff. Stanford
University Press, 1991.

onathan Wolff sets himself an ambitious goal in Robert Nozick.

His principal aim is to offer a guide to Nozick’s Anarchy, State,

and Utopia. Beyond this, he says that “part of [my] task will
be to reconstruct Nozick’s arguments and conclusions to make them
as coherent as possible. . . . I shall try to clarify Nozick’s reasoning
and make good the gaps where necessary and possible, so that we
might appreciate the force of the arguments, and subject them to
rigorous examination” (p. 2).

Wolff succeeds admirably in presenting a simplified version of
Anarchy, State, and Utopia." His accomplishment deserves extra
praise because he strongly opposes what he believes to be the political
consequences of the work (p. viii), but nevertheless remains fair in
his presentation. Wolff never stoops to caricature, and the quarrels I
have with his discussion concern matters of interpretation, not out-
right errors.

Wolff’s account suffers from one principal defect, which prevents
me from wholeheartedly recommending it. The author conflates
Nozick’s position with that of other libertarians. Sometimes he criti-
cizes Nozick for positions he does not hold, but other libertarians do;
on other occasions he challenges libertarians generally for not an-
swering difficulties just because Nozick does not address them.
Wolff’s mistake in large part stems from his acceptance of the argu-
ments of G. A. Cohen, one of his teachers. Cohen, a Marxist political
philosopher of great acuity, has devoted several articles to Nozick
which suffer from the problem previously discussed.

The issue arises quite early: At page 4, Wolff refers to Nozick as
holding that one has “rights of ownership over oneself.” He amplifies
this remark so that the “thesis of self-ownership” becomes the basic

Ihe book is concerned only with the Nozick of Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York:
Basic Books, 1974). Wolff notes Nozick’s criticism of libertarianism in The Examined
Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), but he does not discuss Nozick’s later views
at length (p. 2).

The Review of Austrian Economics, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1991): 129-133
ISSN 0889-3047

129


===== PAGE 2 =====

130 The Review of Austrian Economics, Vol. 5, No. 2

principle of Nozick’s system. In point of fact, Nozick never uses the '
term “self-ownership” in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. He does indeed
hold that a person has rights over his or her body, i in similar fashion
to those such as Murray Rothbard who do use the term.

But much more than a difference in words is involved. In part
because Wolff thinks that Nozick believes in self-ownership, he
ascribes to him the position that all political rights consist of either
rights over one’s body or absolute rights to property. There is no
room for civil liberties, that cannot be reduced to the two basic
forms of rights. Murray" Rothbard and several other libertarians
do hold exactly this view, but Nozick does not. Rothbard contends,
for example, that free speech dissolves as a problem if one reduces
situations of conflict to their underlying basis in property rights.
Nozick attempts no ‘such reduction.

Wolff's introductory chapter i is otherwise accurate. He rightly
notes that Nozick, and libertarians generally; sharply distinguish
between the morally right and the legally enforceable. If people do
not have welfaré rights, it does not follow that the poor should be
cast aside. Wolff asks: “But if all aid were voluntary, how much
would be forthcoming?” (p. 12). He proceeds to canvas some ideas
on voluntary aid by Milton and Rose Friedman, and others; but he
neglects Nozick’s own comments’ on the i issue. Nozick holds that if
people democratically support welfare taxes, there is little reason
to think they would refuse to give charity voluntarily. He questions
whether welfare provision is’a public good.

Wolff then turns to a, fuller characterization of Nozick’s position
on rights. He points out that Nozick attaches great importance to the
Kantian principle that one ought not to use others simply as means.
Each person has a separate life, and people cannot be used as means
to the welfare of others.

' But why should people be treated as ‘ends? Wolff notes that
Nozick’s response places great, stress on the value of each individual
pursuing a “self-shaping’ life plan. He suggests that if one regards
the meaning of one’s life as more closely connected with others than
does Nozick, a different view of rights might ensue (p. 29).

Here 1 think Wolff’s slightly but significantly misapprehends
Nozick’s view. The prohibition against using others follows: from the
Kantian principle, not from Nozick’s explanation’ of why. -people are
morally valuable. Even if one were to adopt a view of life’s meaning along
the lines Wolff suggests, this would not directly challenge Nozick’s view
of rights. It. would. do so only if the new view required rejection of the
Kantian principle, or a different interpretation of it from the one Nozick
offers. But to claim this requires more argument then Wolff offers.

(LE


===== PAGE 3 =====

Book Reviews 131

Wolff presents as an example of a different view of rights a theory
advanced by Samuel Scheffler, in which people have welfare rights
as well as the negative rights favored by libertarians. In this view,
“one necessary condition of leading a life is to lead a life” (p. 32). In
order to lead a life, do not people require rights to food, shelter, etc.?

The argument has gone too fast. Granted that people need certain
goods to lead meaningful lives, does it follow that they need the right
~ to these goods as well? Why is not sufficient if they obtain the goods
through charity? Further, Nozick’s proposal, once more, is not that
people should have a set of rights determined by the notion of a
meaningful life; it is that political measures ought not to require
using some people as means to the ends of others. Even if one needs
certain goods to lead a meaningful life, welfare rights may give some
people the right to use others as means. (Scheffler’s suggestion is
unsatisfactory as stated here (p. 31), since on its terms, if anyone’s
using a particular good would prevent someone else from having a
reasonable chance of living a decent and fulfilling life, no one would
have a right to the good. What then is to be done with it? I suspect
that this could be “fixed up.”)

There is one further problem in Wolff’s discussion of Nozick on
rights. In his discussion of self-defense and punishment, Wolff does
not mention that Nozick’s use of the term “punishment” is different
from its ordinary language sense of the imposition of a penalty.
Nozick means by punishment a penalty that exceeds compensation.
His question: why may we punish? is not equivalent to: why may we
use force to retaliate for violations of rights?

Probably the most difficult section of Anarchy, State, and Utopia
is Part I, in which the minimal state is derived. On the whole, Wolff
does an excellent job in presenting clearly the steps in Nozick’s
complex argument. I found particularly valuable his challenge to the
view that a monopoly protection agency will arise from the state of
nature. Nozick’s argument rests on the assumption that a larger
agency will tend to defeat a smaller one in cases of conflict. A
snowballing effect will ensue in which more and more people will
transfer to the large agency. Wolff contends that in some cases, a
smaller agency may defeat a larger one (p. 56).

Wolff also presents some interesting challenges to Nozick’s prin-
ciple of compensation. In his sketch of the role risk plays in the
derivation of the minimal state, he fails to place sufficient stress on
the type of fear Nozick thinks risky behavior that threatens bodily
harm generates. Those who employ risky decision procedures may
induce this anxiety. Compensation for the fear in case of wrongful use
of a procedure is not feasible, since the anxiety arises not from any


===== PAGE 4 =====

132 The Review of Austrian Economics, Vol. 5, No. 2

given instance of the use of the procedures, but from perceptions of a
general policy. It is for this reason that Nozick holds that the use of
such procedures may be prohibited. “Prohibition” means that punish-
ment, as earlier defined, may be imposed.

Wolff raises the pertinent question of why the dominant agency
must compensate those who are disadvantaged by the prohibition of
risky decision procedures, if one has no right to impose this risk. He
overlooks the stress Nozick places on differences of opinion as to what
constitutes an unacceptably risky procedure. A procedure need not be
prohibited because its user, or a consensus of moral opinion, consider
it too risky. Rather, the dominant agency acts on its own view of the
matter. An example might be the prohibition of the use of majority
verdicts in jury trials for criminal offenses. The user of the prohibited
procedure who is compensated has not done something morally
blameworthy.

Further, Wolff fails to note that the dominant agency has no
rights that other agencies lack. Non-dominant agencies, or indepen-
dents for that matter, may prohibit the dominant agency from using
risky decision procedures on their members or themselves, respec-
tively. The problem with their doing so is that the dominant agency
will not accept their views about risky procedures and will win in case
the dispute leads to forcible conflict.

Wolff considers at length Nozick’s entitlement theory of justice.
Naturally, he gravitates toward the Wilt Chamberlain case; and here
his reliance on Cohen leads him in a misapprehension. The example
depends for its force on the moral intuition that people have the right
to make voluntary transfers of goods to which they are entitled. Wolff
questions whether Nozick can use this claim, since he has not shown
that the liberty of transfer follows from property rights. Nozick, he
alleges, believes that “your liberty is only restricted if someone stops
you from doing what you have a right to do” (p. 94). This contention
rests on the view already mentioned that Nozick’s political theory
recognizes only self-ownership and property rights as legitimate
moral claims. Cohen takes Nozick to be saying this, and Wolff wrongly
follows in his footsteps. To reiterate, this position is not to be found
in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Likewise mistaken is the view that
Nozick thinks “you are only forced to do something if someone . . .
violates your rights” (p. 94). This misinterpretation, also taken over
from Cohen, extrapolates from an analysis of coercion in a particular
case—wage bargains in which there is no threat or use of overt
violence—to a general theory of coercion.

Wolff rightly does not commit himself to accepting Cohen’s sup-
position that the Lockean proviso is the sum and substance of


===== PAGE 5 =====

Book Reviews 133

Nozick’s principle of property acquisition (pp. 113-14). Nozick does
not specify a principle of acquisition at all, as Wolff also correctly
notes. He might usefully have discussed work by Rothbard, Ellen
Paul, and others, who have addressed this problem from a libertarian
standpoint. Also, what Wolff aptly terms the “zipping back argument”
(p. 108) does not show that Locke’s proviso prevents property acqui-
sition under all circumstances. This argument claims that if one
appropriator fails to satisfy the proviso, no one can do so. It does so
only if there is a “last” person who cannot appropriate while leaving
as much and as good for others. Nevertheless, the argument does
indeed show that a problem exists given what most Lockeans have in
mind as the outcome of property acquisition.

Wolff is not convinced by Nozick’s claim that taxation is on a par
with forced labor. Wolff objects that there is a continuum between
forced labor, on the one hand, and unrestricted liberty, on the other.
Starting with slavery, we can gradually portray various states of
affairs, each allowing greater liberty than its predecessor. Why is the
infringement of liberty represented by taxation especially important?
Depending on its severity, taxation may leave people relatively free.

Recourse to the prohibition of treating people as exclusively as
means will I think enable us to see a difficulty in this argument. The
various social states do not lie on the continuum that Wolff supposes.
Rather, there is a gap between cases in which people are recognized
as ends-in-themselves and those in which they are not. Within the
latter class, some instances of coercion are more severe than others.
But all suffer from the disqualifying defect of using some people for
the benefit of others. In this way, taxation is akin to forced labor in
an important respect.

Wolff discusses many other issues, but I think enough has been
said to indicate the book’s flavor. Wolff has amply achieved his goal
of writing a useful introduction to Nozick. If he had in mind a more
ambitious aim, i.e., a full-fledged assessment of the virtues and vices
of Nozick’s theory and of libertarianism as a whole, the verdict must
be less favorable.

David Gordon
The Ludwig von Mises Institute