WEBVTT NOTE Nozick's Argument for the Minimal State 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:11.640 All right, I'm going to discuss with you this afternoon Robert Nozick's argument for the minimal state, 2 00:00:11.640 --> 00:00:18.720 which came out in his famous book, Anarchy, State, Utopia. 3 00:00:18.720 --> 00:00:25.160 I remember buying the book when it first came out near the end of 1974. 4 00:00:25.160 --> 00:00:32.160 It's hard to believe that that's nearly 32 years ago, but it is. 5 00:00:32.160 --> 00:00:50.160 What Nozick attempts to do in the book is to argue on the basis of the same natural rights that anarchist libertarians hold to be the ones that individuals possess, 6 00:00:50.160 --> 00:01:01.800 says that a minimal state is justifiable in what he claims that by what he calls an invisible 7 00:01:01.800 --> 00:01:12.880 hand process, people in an anarchist state of nature would find it by a series of steps 8 00:01:12.880 --> 00:01:20.120 in their interests, in their rational self-interest to establish what he calls sometimes a state-like 9 00:01:20.120 --> 00:01:27.880 Entity. Now, I think what I'm going to be doing is to offer, go through the steps of 10 00:01:27.880 --> 00:01:35.880 his argument and try to give some criticism. To anticipate the ending, I don't think his 11 00:01:35.880 --> 00:01:43.520 argument succeeds. I hope I'm not, for those of you who like suspense, I hope I'm not ruining 12 00:01:43.520 --> 00:02:00.520 Now, there are available, as you know, quite enormous literature on this Nozick's argument, which is the first part of his, of Anarchy State Utopia, part one of Anarchy State Utopia. 13 00:02:00.520 --> 00:02:11.520 We could mention, for example, the volume one, number one of the Journal of Libertarian Studies, which contains a well-known article by Roy Childs, 14 00:02:11.520 --> 00:02:22.120 and also has Murray Rothbard's article, The Immaculate Conception of the State, which has been reprinted in Rothbard's Ethics of Liberty. 15 00:02:22.120 --> 00:02:28.920 But what I intend is more of an internal criticism of Nozick's argument, 16 00:02:28.920 --> 00:02:43.920 Rather than use various views that are external to it and say that Nozick is wrong because he uses such and such an unacceptable principle, 17 00:02:43.920 --> 00:02:49.920 what I want to do is examine the argument just as he gives it. 18 00:02:49.920 --> 00:02:56.920 Now, I want to mention a few things about the starting point of his argument. 19 00:02:56.920 --> 00:03:04.200 The first question we have to consider is why is he taking the anarchist starting point? 20 00:03:04.200 --> 00:03:09.900 We could say, well, if the argument succeeds, then he would have shown that anarchists have 21 00:03:09.900 --> 00:03:16.160 a reason to support the state, that that isn't itself a justification state unless the anarchist 22 00:03:16.160 --> 00:03:17.720 starting point is correct. 23 00:03:17.720 --> 00:03:22.940 Of course, remember, he did think the anarchist starting point was correct. 24 00:03:22.940 --> 00:03:29.660 He is a libertarian, so he's not rejecting libertarian natural rights. 25 00:03:29.660 --> 00:03:33.780 He's arguing on that basis that we can support the state. 26 00:03:33.780 --> 00:03:40.160 Now, there's a very important passage here on page five where he gives his starting point. 27 00:03:40.160 --> 00:03:44.220 This is crucial, I think, to understanding the argument. 28 00:03:44.220 --> 00:03:51.640 He said, more to the point, especially for deciding what goals one should try to achieve 29 00:03:51.640 --> 00:03:58.400 would be to focus on a non-state situation which people generally satisfy moral constraints 30 00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:00.760 and generally act as they ought. 31 00:04:00.760 --> 00:04:04.000 Such an assumption is not wildly optimistic. 32 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:07.160 It does not assume that all people act exactly as they should. 33 00:04:07.160 --> 00:04:15.080 So what he's starting with is a situation in which people generally observe the correct 34 00:04:15.080 --> 00:04:20.200 moral conduct as the libertarian theory demands. 35 00:04:20.200 --> 00:04:30.040 Not everyone does, but most people do. Now, when he argues, one point that also needs 36 00:04:30.040 --> 00:04:35.440 to be understood to grasp this argument, is that it isn't enough, and he's well aware 37 00:04:35.440 --> 00:04:43.760 of this, to show that there's a series of steps from this starting point of libertarian 38 00:04:43.760 --> 00:04:51.760 and Natural Rights, by which one could arrive at a state where these steps would violate no one's rights. 39 00:04:51.760 --> 00:05:02.760 We could readily conceive of situations where people start off in a certain situation and then do things that violate no one's rights, 40 00:05:02.760 --> 00:05:06.760 but we wouldn't think that this is a good argument for the result. 41 00:05:06.760 --> 00:05:16.760 For example, supposing all of you donated all your money to me, this would violate no one's rights. 42 00:05:16.760 --> 00:05:28.760 Each of you is free to do that if you or she wants, but it would probably, from everyone's point of view except for mine, not be a very good idea. 43 00:05:28.760 --> 00:05:41.760 So if Nozick's argument were just that there's some set of permissible steps by which we could come up with a state from a libertarian anarchist starting point, that wouldn't be sufficient. 44 00:05:41.760 --> 00:05:56.760 We could come up, say, with a more extreme case. I don't accept this view myself, but Nozick holds that, at least he held at the time this book was written, that the people could sell themselves into slavery, 45 00:05:56.760 --> 00:06:16.760 I mentioned this in 331, I think. So supposing everyone in the starting point sold himself into slavery, then we'd have a justification for the state that wouldn't violate anybody's rights according to Nozick, but again, this wouldn't be a good argument for the state. 46 00:06:16.760 --> 00:06:39.760 Nozick thinks he can do much better than that. He thinks he can show that by a series of steps, each of which is in people's self-interest and rational for them to take, each step will be an improvement on the previous step, but they'll wind up with a mistake. 47 00:06:39.760 --> 00:07:00.760 Now, there's one other preliminary. I mentioned that Nozick has an invisible, what he calls an invisible hand justification state here, following Adam Smith's famous metaphor, or if Mark Thornton is correct, it's really Kantian's metaphor of the invisible hand. 48 00:07:00.760 --> 00:07:30.760 What he means is that people aren't consciously setting out to establish a state, he just thinks this is what they're going to come up with, they don't have to consciously aim at it, but I don't think, contrary to what some people have claimed, that the invisible hand mechanism is integral to the justification, to his argument for the justification, it isn't that, it's because it's an invisible hand mechanism and nobody has planned it, 49 00:07:30.760 --> 00:07:47.760 in this, that that's part of the reason for thinking the state is morally alright. He just thinks that's just a feature of his explanation. That in itself doesn't add, in his view, to the moral weight of the argument. It's just a feature of his argument. 50 00:07:47.760 --> 00:07:59.160 So the argument, his argument has three main stages, and the first of these is where he, 51 00:07:59.160 --> 00:08:03.600 what he says is, again we're starting from the anarchist starting point, we start trying 52 00:08:03.600 --> 00:08:11.280 to get to a dominant agency. 53 00:08:11.280 --> 00:08:20.600 So what he says in here is, again, we're starting off just as, say, Murray Rothbard would, with 54 00:08:20.600 --> 00:08:23.000 people have libertarian natural rights. 55 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:30.760 So one thing they can do, and they probably will do, is establish private protection agencies. 56 00:08:30.760 --> 00:08:38.320 So we'll have in a free society various private protection agencies in competition with one 57 00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:44.680 One another each will be trying to attract customers and he's assuming these are all 58 00:08:44.680 --> 00:08:51.440 in a particular territory. He doesn't say exactly how large the territories he has in 59 00:08:51.440 --> 00:08:58.560 mind are. We can assume he means something like a temporary nation. He doesn't really 60 00:08:58.560 --> 00:09:05.960 specify exactly how large the territories he has in mind are. 61 00:09:05.960 --> 00:09:26.680 Now, then he says, well, what's going to happen if, say, let's imagine, say, I steal something from, let's say I find some books in the library here that I like, so I take them and steal them, 62 00:09:26.680 --> 00:09:36.680 And then the authorities here find out about it and they go to their protection agency and try to get some sort of action against me. 63 00:09:36.680 --> 00:09:41.680 I suppose I'm in a different protection agency. What's going to happen? 64 00:09:41.680 --> 00:09:50.680 Well, one thing that can happen, suppose the agencies don't agree on whether I'm guilty of theft. 65 00:09:50.680 --> 00:09:59.960 Say, my agency finds me innocent and won't agree that I should pay any penalty, and the 66 00:09:59.960 --> 00:10:06.960 other group says, no, I was guilty, then one thing that can happen is that the agencies 67 00:10:06.960 --> 00:10:13.680 will simply fight it out, and Nozick thinks that, and this is one assumption that some 68 00:10:13.680 --> 00:10:20.360 people have challenged, it's certainly a controversial one, he thinks that if agencies disagree or 69 00:10:20.360 --> 00:10:30.360 If people disagree and they can't resolve a dispute, then they're free to use force to impose their own view of the matter. 70 00:10:30.360 --> 00:10:38.360 They don't have to settle matters. It might well be that it's more to their advantage to come to some sort of agreement, 71 00:10:38.360 --> 00:10:45.360 and Ludwig has thought of this point and will come to what he says about that shortly. 72 00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:57.360 In the first part, he's thinking that the agencies will clash because they can't resolve a dispute. 73 00:10:57.360 --> 00:11:08.360 Now, he thinks that it's likely that some agencies will tend to win disputes of that kind. 74 00:11:08.360 --> 00:11:18.360 So, what happens if that's true? Say, there's an agency that tends to win disputes over other agencies. 75 00:11:18.360 --> 00:11:31.360 Then, he says, well, customers who will want to shift to that agency because they want it to be the case that if they're in a dispute with someone, 76 00:11:31.360 --> 00:11:38.360 If they get a verdict against someone, then the verdicts that they get will be enforced. 77 00:11:38.360 --> 00:11:45.360 They won't want it to be the case that, say, they get a judgment against someone and nothing can be done about it. 78 00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:56.360 They'll tend to congregate to the agency that is able to win conflicts over the other agencies. 79 00:11:56.360 --> 00:12:03.960 So what we'll develop is what kind of spiraling effect by where more and more people will 80 00:12:03.960 --> 00:12:13.280 join the agency that tends to win fights with other agencies and this will further increase 81 00:12:13.280 --> 00:12:18.600 that agency's power because Nozick tends to assume a model where the more people are 82 00:12:18.600 --> 00:12:25.640 in an agency, the more clients have, the more it will be able to win fights with other agencies. 83 00:12:25.640 --> 00:12:44.640 I think he's just sort of a simplified assumption, but probably there's something to it, so it'll come out that one agency, if he's right, one agency will emerge as the dominant one in given territory. 84 00:12:44.640 --> 00:12:57.640 So, here he's making a distinction, as you know, between this particular good, mainly 85 00:12:57.640 --> 00:13:01.120 private protection, and other economic goods. 86 00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:08.960 As you know, one of the standard arguments against the free market is that there's a 87 00:13:08.960 --> 00:13:17.600 There's a tendency toward monopoly on the free market because of economies of scale. 88 00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:24.080 Large firms will tend to be much more efficient than firms that aren't very big and they'll 89 00:13:24.080 --> 00:13:29.480 take over, they'll be able to put these smaller firms out of business and then that will make 90 00:13:29.480 --> 00:13:33.880 them get even, they'll be even larger when they capture more of the market and they'll 91 00:13:33.880 --> 00:13:35.600 be able to expand further. 92 00:13:35.600 --> 00:13:40.920 So the result will be that one or a few firms will control most industries. 93 00:13:40.920 --> 00:13:44.840 This is very much the same kind of structure as Nozick's argument. 94 00:13:44.840 --> 00:13:52.120 Of course, we know that in the economic market for most goods, this isn't valid at all, 95 00:13:52.120 --> 00:13:56.520 that there's no general tendency for a monopoly to develop on the free market. 96 00:13:56.520 --> 00:14:02.840 You might monopoly a single seller of a good as far as economies of scale are concerned. 97 00:14:02.840 --> 00:14:05.840 This just depends on the conditions of the particular industry. 98 00:14:05.840 --> 00:14:11.680 Now Nozick is well aware of this and he mentions himself that this isn't true, this process 99 00:14:11.680 --> 00:14:18.520 of monopolization isn't true for most, for economic goods generally, he thinks though 100 00:14:18.520 --> 00:14:27.640 this is an exception because each agency is directly in rivalry with the other agencies 101 00:14:27.640 --> 00:14:42.640 He says that one agency's strength is determined by the other's weakness, so he thinks that the spiraling effect will take place in protection agencies, although not in other goods. 102 00:14:42.640 --> 00:14:49.640 He accepts the free market view for other goods, but he says this is an exception. 103 00:14:49.640 --> 00:15:03.640 His argument has something too, but it assumes, though there is a problem, it assumes that, in the first step, that there is some agency that will tend to win out in conflicts over other agencies. 104 00:15:03.640 --> 00:15:08.640 Then it goes from there and says, well, once this happens, then you'll get a spiraling effect. 105 00:15:08.640 --> 00:15:14.640 But what if it's not the case that one agency tends to win out in the first place? 106 00:15:14.640 --> 00:15:32.320 So he hasn't shown that he's right. There's this inevitable tendency that, even for his 107 00:15:32.320 --> 00:15:55.320 to take place, even in his argument, is right that once an agency tends to, well, establishes itself in some sort of primacy over others, there'll be a spiraling effect, continuing to favor that agency, he hasn't shown that the first step will always eventuate. 108 00:15:55.320 --> 00:16:03.320 Now, you probably noticed I left an important possibility out. I mentioned this at the first, but I didn't go on with it. 109 00:16:03.320 --> 00:16:11.320 This is the one I intended to, as I said, I would discuss later. What if the agencies don't fight it out at all? 110 00:16:11.320 --> 00:16:21.320 What if they settle their disputes or say, what if they establish some sort of procedure that in case of dispute between agencies, 111 00:16:21.320 --> 00:16:28.600 And there has to be some sort of, they established an appeals process to settle that. Murray 112 00:16:28.600 --> 00:16:34.560 Rothbard has this explicitly as a feature of the system he advocates in Ethics of Liberty, 113 00:16:34.560 --> 00:16:41.400 that there would be an appeals process. In fact, one might hold the view that an agency 114 00:16:41.400 --> 00:16:48.380 shouldn't or is obligated not to immediately resort to forcing conflict with another agency, 115 00:16:48.380 --> 00:16:55.340 that ought to try to settle the matter peaceably. Now Nozick, as I say, is very well aware 116 00:16:55.340 --> 00:17:02.340 of this. He said, well, you could have a situation where all the agencies have resolved on an 117 00:17:02.340 --> 00:17:09.060 appeals process. So you have, instead of having disputes between one another, you just have 118 00:17:09.060 --> 00:17:19.700 a number of different agencies and some particular model for some particular setup by which the 119 00:17:19.700 --> 00:17:24.460 agencies resolve their disputes through an appeals court. 120 00:17:24.460 --> 00:17:31.060 But what Nozick does, and this is, I think, a rather questionable move, is that he just 121 00:17:31.060 --> 00:17:36.700 says, well, he wants to consider that, the whole thing, namely all the agencies together, 122 00:17:36.700 --> 00:17:44.700 Plus, including the appeals process, the network of connected agencies, he considers that the single dominant agency. 123 00:17:44.700 --> 00:18:00.700 So he said, well, even if they all get together in this case, there's no one agency that always wins out and thus attracts nearly everyone in the territory as their customers, 124 00:18:00.700 --> 00:18:14.580 then we still have a dominant agency so you really so he is as I say he can 125 00:18:14.580 --> 00:18:21.220 whether is even if you I think he's probably wrong to call it a domination 126 00:18:21.220 --> 00:18:26.700 it really doesn't affect the argument all that much because the question the 127 00:18:26.700 --> 00:18:45.700 The key part of this argument is what can the dominant agency, regardless of what the internal structure of that agency, do to other agencies, protection agencies, or people who aren't in protection agencies in an attempt to defend their rights by themselves. 128 00:18:45.700 --> 00:18:47.700 This is the rest of the argument. 129 00:18:47.700 --> 00:18:58.700 Now, there is, however, one problem with this first stage of this dominant agency is that the argument could succeed too well. 130 00:18:58.700 --> 00:19:10.700 By that I mean, what we have to ask first, what is Nozick trying to, what is the conclusion that Nozick wants to come up with after I get, in other words, 131 00:19:10.700 --> 00:19:20.700 When we're supposing his argument is completely successful, when I've gone through the three stages, he wants to establish a state, or as he called it, a state-like entity. 132 00:19:20.700 --> 00:19:29.700 What is it that he wants to, what does he need, in his view, to have a state-like entity? 133 00:19:29.700 --> 00:19:47.700 Now, he says, in a state, the state has the monopoly of legitimate use of force. Only if there is use of force in the society, it must be authorized by the state. 134 00:19:47.700 --> 00:19:56.060 Say, we imagine a society in which, say, people are enforcing rights or protecting rights. 135 00:19:56.060 --> 00:20:04.340 If there's a state, this must be done with the permission of the state. 136 00:20:04.340 --> 00:20:10.980 It isn't that people will be enforcing rights just as they wish on their own. 137 00:20:10.980 --> 00:20:13.260 It's only with the state giving them permission. 138 00:20:13.260 --> 00:20:26.260 This doesn't have to be some sort of legal requirement, it just has to work out that way, that in practice they need the state's permission in order to enforce rights. 139 00:20:26.260 --> 00:20:39.260 So this is one feature that he wants to come up with, but not that the state can prevent other people from enforcing their rights without its permission. 140 00:20:39.260 --> 00:20:46.260 Now, the second feature, which I think is the one that's relevant to the point I want to make about maybe starting to go too far, is this. 141 00:20:46.260 --> 00:20:57.260 He says that the state or state-like entity will differ from a private protection agency in the free market, 142 00:20:57.260 --> 00:21:03.260 in that in a private protection agency, people pay for their protection. 143 00:21:03.260 --> 00:21:08.940 protection, you just get the protection you pay for, there's a market price for protection, 144 00:21:08.940 --> 00:21:19.080 you buy what you want according to the market rate, but in a state, the state is really 145 00:21:19.080 --> 00:21:29.320 providing protection for everybody and what it charges, what you pay in taxes, is not 146 00:21:29.320 --> 00:21:36.320 determined purely by the value of the protection to you, but the prices also will cover protection 147 00:21:36.580 --> 00:21:42.540 for other people as well. Everybody in society will be covered by the protection, so the 148 00:21:42.540 --> 00:21:49.540 price isn't a purely market price. And then we have also the not entirely unimportant feature 149 00:21:49.640 --> 00:21:56.640 that under state people have to pay. Your taxes are not a price that you choose to pay. 150 00:21:56.640 --> 00:22:03.680 the price that you choose to pay, you must pay this or you'll suffer various penalties. 151 00:22:03.680 --> 00:22:12.000 So in Nozick's system, it doesn't have, as you'll see, it doesn't have this feature of taxes, 152 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:18.880 although people will be put in a situation where it's very unlikely they will not buy 153 00:22:19.760 --> 00:22:26.320 some of the protection services. But the feature that he does have in this state-like entity 154 00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:36.640 is that there's what he calls a redistributive part of the prices, the prices for protection aren't purely market prices. 155 00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:48.640 So this is where the problem I'm referring to comes up is, when I say the argument might go too far, supposing everybody joins the dominant agency, 156 00:22:48.640 --> 00:23:18.640 of Money, The Theory of Money and State, The Theory of Money and State, The Theory 157 00:23:18.640 --> 00:23:47.640 Part of the cost of protection. Everybody will be paying a market price for protection. So unless it turns out that the dominant agency doesn't cover everybody, then the rest of Nozick's process won't establish what he himself considers a state, because it won't have this redistributive aspect to its cost of protection. 158 00:23:47.640 --> 00:23:53.640 So he has to be careful that the argument, the first step doesn't succeed too well. 159 00:23:53.640 --> 00:24:06.120 Now supposing though we do get to the dominant agency just in the way he says, now we come 160 00:24:06.120 --> 00:24:12.380 to what I think is the most interesting part of the argument, how do you get from the dominant 161 00:24:12.380 --> 00:24:18.260 Agency to the State. Now here, this is unfortunately the case that the key part 162 00:24:18.260 --> 00:24:27.100 of Nozick's argument is in the fourth chapter called Prohibition, Compensation 163 00:24:27.100 --> 00:24:32.300 and Risk, and this is unfortunately because this is the most difficult 164 00:24:32.300 --> 00:24:40.860 chapter in the book, and Nozick was, when he wrote, he would not tend to write 165 00:24:40.860 --> 00:24:47.660 very systematically. He was someone who would continually throw out ideas of one 166 00:24:47.660 --> 00:24:52.380 sort or another. He would very often develop them in an extremely intricate 167 00:24:52.380 --> 00:24:59.700 way and then move on to something else. One reason for this, as Thomas Nagel 168 00:24:59.700 --> 00:25:06.820 pointed out in a very good article, it was actually a eulogy given for Nozick, 169 00:25:06.820 --> 00:25:19.820 Nozick was someone of immense critical power, perhaps the best of any philosopher among 20th century philosophers, certainly near the top. 170 00:25:19.820 --> 00:25:27.820 In his ability to find fault with arguments, he could always come up with a relevant counterexample. 171 00:25:27.820 --> 00:25:35.660 There was always a danger with him that he couldn't come up with theories that he himself 172 00:25:35.660 --> 00:25:39.660 wouldn't be able to destroy by his own counter examples. 173 00:25:39.660 --> 00:25:46.540 So what he tended to do, he was aware of that, so he tended just to stop at what he thought 174 00:25:46.540 --> 00:25:51.380 was an interesting structural argument and go on to something else. 175 00:25:51.380 --> 00:25:56.260 Because he knew that he himself would be able to come up with, if he would examine the matter 176 00:25:56.260 --> 00:26:09.260 In his book, Philosophical Explanations, he says, well, what he tries to do is come up to some interesting point and then stop. 177 00:26:09.260 --> 00:26:18.260 He doesn't carry the argument through in a very systematic way because nothing could really withstand his critical power. 178 00:26:18.260 --> 00:26:33.260 It's very hard to come up with counterarguments to his views that he himself hasn't thought of already and at least had some sort of response to even if you disagree with what he says. 179 00:26:33.260 --> 00:26:42.260 So now, but let's go on to the second step stage of the argument. 180 00:26:42.260 --> 00:26:52.580 argument. Now, what Nozick starts with is a topic that Rodrik was dealing with in 181 00:26:52.580 --> 00:27:01.140 his lecture this afternoon on punishment. Now he says, what is the appropriate, what 182 00:27:01.140 --> 00:27:09.380 we do when people commit certain crimes? Well, one obvious thing is we compensate 183 00:27:09.380 --> 00:27:16.040 the person who's the victim of the crime. Say, if someone has had something stolen 184 00:27:16.040 --> 00:27:23.120 from them, then he has to have the goods returned. So we have compensation is the 185 00:27:23.120 --> 00:27:31.700 obvious first thing we would think of in thinking of how crime is to be dealt 186 00:27:31.700 --> 00:27:37.880 with. But Nozick thinks this isn't a completely adequate solution. Now he has 187 00:27:37.880 --> 00:28:07.880 has various arguments against compensation as the total solution, one sort of, I'll just mention kind of as a side argument, it's a very interesting one, it's not the main argument that he uses in the justification state, he said, well, why couldn't I say something like, suppose I said, well let me give you an example where this applies to a quite practical problem, suppose the government says to someone, we're going to 188 00:28:07.880 --> 00:28:14.600 Take your house. We need this for some highway project. But we guarantee that we'll give you 189 00:28:15.880 --> 00:28:22.520 enough compensation for this so you'll feel exactly equivalent, at least as good as you did 190 00:28:22.520 --> 00:28:29.400 before. So if we take your house, we'll get you a new house that you yourself will say is good or 191 00:28:29.400 --> 00:28:35.960 maybe even slightly better than the house we took. Would this be all right? Well, Nozick points out 192 00:28:35.960 --> 00:28:43.760 No, it wouldn't be because one thing you could do if you, if the government didn't do that, 193 00:28:43.760 --> 00:28:49.760 you could hold out, you could, why shouldn't you get the full market value of your property? 194 00:28:49.760 --> 00:28:55.960 Why shouldn't anyone who wants to take your property have to pay you what you would be, 195 00:28:55.960 --> 00:28:58.400 what you could get for it in the market? 196 00:28:58.400 --> 00:29:05.640 It isn't that just leaving someone as well off as he was before, not counting this transaction, 197 00:29:05.640 --> 00:29:10.800 is sufficient, so you can't just do anything you want and then say, well I'm compensating 198 00:29:10.800 --> 00:29:19.520 the person, I'm leaving them no worse off than they were before. Nozick uses this whole 199 00:29:19.520 --> 00:29:24.440 apparatus that Austrians reject to have been difference curves. Nozick was one of the few 200 00:29:24.440 --> 00:29:30.560 who thought you could measure interpersonal utility, but that really is a side issue, 201 00:29:30.560 --> 00:29:40.560 So I say, Nozick has a very good point against full compensation, but the central point for the justification state is something else. 202 00:29:40.560 --> 00:29:51.560 Here he asks the question, in certain kinds of cases he says, why can we have a higher penalty than just compensation? 203 00:29:51.560 --> 00:30:09.520 Let us say that a system forbids an action to a person if it imposes some penalty upon 204 00:30:09.520 --> 00:30:15.960 him for doing the act, in addition to exacting compensation from him for the act's victims. 205 00:30:15.960 --> 00:30:21.320 This is not its definition of prohibition or forbidding someone, it's just a sufficient 206 00:30:21.320 --> 00:30:22.320 condition for forbidding. 207 00:30:22.320 --> 00:30:26.640 But it's very important, this is often this one, because people think, well, what knows 208 00:30:26.640 --> 00:30:30.080 it can ask the question, why can we prohibit certain activities? 209 00:30:30.080 --> 00:30:36.440 You'll say, well, isn't it obvious if you have a right to something, then you can prohibit 210 00:30:36.440 --> 00:30:44.720 violations of that right, where they prohibit just to mean stop people from interfering 211 00:30:44.720 --> 00:30:51.120 with your right, but this isn't the main thing Nozick means by prohibition. Prohibition just 212 00:30:51.120 --> 00:30:59.580 means this extra penalty besides compensation. So he said, why can't we, why in some cases 213 00:30:59.580 --> 00:31:10.040 can we prohibit crime to not just require compensation? So what he says there is, in 214 00:31:10.040 --> 00:31:20.760 In certain crimes, compensation seems enough. Supposing I told you that I was going to smash 215 00:31:20.760 --> 00:31:28.320 your car with a sledgehammer, but I guarantee you, you would get full compensation for it 216 00:31:28.320 --> 00:31:34.880 and get a completely new car plus costs for all your inconvenience so that you would not 217 00:31:34.880 --> 00:32:04.880 be worse off. Well, remember by his earlier argument, it wouldn't be all right for me to do that, but if I did that, say, that was a penalty for, say I had the penalty for theft, that I just had to restore what the person, or damaging property, that I had to restore what I'd taken, then the person wouldn't feel, who was convinced that he would get what he was, full compensation, wouldn't 218 00:32:04.880 --> 00:32:17.880 If you feel anxious about this, say if you knew that there were thieves about, but you'd always get your full compensation, you wouldn't get upset about that. 219 00:32:17.880 --> 00:32:25.880 You would just feel, well, you'd wind up no worse off than you were in the first place. 220 00:32:25.880 --> 00:32:30.880 But no, there's some crimes that aren't at all like that. 221 00:32:30.880 --> 00:32:50.880 Supposing, he gives this example, supposing someone were to tell you he was going to break your arm tomorrow, but you get enough compensation so that afterwards you'd feel as well off as you were before you had your arm broken. 222 00:32:50.880 --> 00:32:58.240 You would feel anxious about this, even though you knew you'd get full compensation. 223 00:32:58.240 --> 00:33:04.960 You'd feel certain kinds of activity, certain kinds of threats, arouse fear. 224 00:33:04.960 --> 00:33:14.640 It isn't only, though he doesn't confine this to physical fear, he mentioned this passage, I think, at page 70, he says here, 225 00:33:14.640 --> 00:33:25.640 But one should not leap to the conclusion that when it is known that compensation will be paid, only physical injury or pain is feared in view with apprehension. 226 00:33:25.640 --> 00:33:34.640 Despite knowing that they will be compensated if it occurs, people also may fear being humiliated, shamed, disgraced, embarrassed, and so on. 227 00:33:34.640 --> 00:33:49.140 Elsewhere he mentions, say, this will come in later, say if someone knew he was going to jail or might be subject to hard labor to pay off a debt, that might arouse this kind of fear. 228 00:33:49.140 --> 00:34:00.640 So Nozick suggests, well, because of this kind of fear, we would be justified in having an additional penalty besides compensation. 229 00:34:00.640 --> 00:34:06.140 would be justifying his use in prohibiting certain kinds of crimes that arouse these fears. 230 00:34:06.140 --> 00:34:14.640 Now, there's an obvious response to this that, of course, he's aware of, is, well, if certain crimes arouse this kind of fear, 231 00:34:14.640 --> 00:34:27.440 why couldn't that be included in part of the compensation, so that the person wouldn't be compensated for whatever fear he felt, 232 00:34:27.440 --> 00:34:33.240 as well as the material damage to him done by the crime. 233 00:34:33.240 --> 00:34:36.360 So, Nozick says, oh, there's a problem here. 234 00:34:36.360 --> 00:34:44.800 Supposing that, say, you know that there are murderers or people 235 00:34:44.800 --> 00:34:50.840 who are apt to commit violence who are in the particular area. 236 00:34:50.840 --> 00:34:55.160 And supposing you also knew that if someone committed violence 237 00:35:25.160 --> 00:35:54.160 No one considers, as he typical with embarrassed complication dislike, maybe anyone who was afraid could get claims against a particular person, but there'd be problems with that, is that some of the fear would stem not from one identifiable or few identifiable suspects, but from the general fact that there were a number of people who were likely to commit crimes. 238 00:35:54.160 --> 00:36:02.160 So you wouldn't be able to trace fear to particular people and demand that they pay for causing this fear. 239 00:36:02.160 --> 00:36:17.160 So, Ludwig said, well, this justifies for certain crimes having a certain penalty that these penalties that will try to prevent these, deter these crimes, 240 00:36:17.160 --> 00:36:26.440 will themselves arouse, are supposed, designed to arouse fear among the prospective perpetrators of crime. 241 00:36:26.440 --> 00:36:35.960 Say, if you know, for example, that you're going to be put in jail for a very long time or possibly executed for committing murder, 242 00:36:35.960 --> 00:36:41.640 that might make you fearful of doing it, so you wouldn't do it. 243 00:36:41.640 --> 00:36:46.940 Now, you might say, well, what does all this have to do with deriving the state? 244 00:36:46.940 --> 00:37:07.240 And it's this last part that is where you have a justification for the extra penalties that Raoult's fear is where the key is the key point in his second step derivation of what he calls ultra-minimal state. 245 00:37:11.640 --> 00:37:29.280 all right now you remember from what happened I didn't didn't work wait I 246 00:37:29.280 --> 00:37:38.200 did some which one oh good it worked I actually got something right I can't 247 00:37:38.200 --> 00:37:48.200 All right, so you remember from, I mentioned he's assuming that most people observe the moral constraints. 248 00:37:48.200 --> 00:38:07.200 So we'll know that each agency that applies these punishments to people will use a reliable decision procedure in trying people for crimes. 249 00:38:07.200 --> 00:38:13.960 Crimes, say, we won't find cases, say, where, supposing someone's committed murder, we won't 250 00:38:13.960 --> 00:38:20.400 find cases, say, where a protection agency will say, well, we're going to read tea leaves 251 00:38:20.400 --> 00:38:27.640 to say who, whether the suspect is guilty. We'll have, each agency will follow a reliable 252 00:38:27.640 --> 00:38:35.040 procedure and there'll be some, there'll be some general consensus on what the reliable 253 00:38:35.040 --> 00:38:44.400 Reliable Procedure. However, here's the crucial point. Nozick thinks there can be differences 254 00:38:44.400 --> 00:38:53.080 of opinion on what reliable procedure is. Some people, say, one agency might say, just 255 00:38:53.080 --> 00:38:58.240 as an example, this is not one he gives, some agencies might think, say, you should have 256 00:38:58.240 --> 00:39:07.480 A jury that has only 9 out of 12 people required, juries required for conviction, others might 257 00:39:07.480 --> 00:39:15.080 demand a unanimous verdict, so say the jury where you have only 9 out of 12 will be more 258 00:39:15.080 --> 00:39:18.760 likely to convict people than otherwise. 259 00:39:18.760 --> 00:39:28.200 So what Nozick suggests is that if an agency uses a procedure it considers reliable, but 260 00:39:28.200 --> 00:39:47.200 say, other people don't, other people regard it as unreliable, then this will arouse fear among people that they might be unjustly convicted of one of these crimes and subject to one of these punishments. 261 00:39:47.200 --> 00:39:55.960 Now, because if an agency uses an unreliable procedure, then remember it's an unreliable 262 00:39:55.960 --> 00:40:01.840 procedure from the point of view of not from the point of view of the agency appliance, 263 00:40:01.840 --> 00:40:12.600 from the point of view of clients of another agency, then there's a risk that some action 264 00:40:12.600 --> 00:40:17.600 that will generate fear of the kind I've already described. 265 00:40:17.600 --> 00:40:28.600 So because agencies might use unreliable procedures in this special sense, then we have extra fear generated. 266 00:40:28.600 --> 00:40:30.600 So what happens then? 267 00:40:30.600 --> 00:40:43.600 What Nozick thinks that, and remember, anyone has the right to prohibit someone else from 268 00:40:43.600 --> 00:40:51.600 applying a risky decision procedure to himself or if it's an agency to its clients. 269 00:40:51.600 --> 00:40:55.840 Remember what Nozick, and one thing that is crucial in Nozick's derivation, he isn't 270 00:40:55.840 --> 00:41:01.440 He isn't assuming that anyone has special rights that other people don't have. 271 00:41:01.440 --> 00:41:07.760 He isn't going to say, well, the dominant agency has more rights than other agencies 272 00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:08.760 or other people. 273 00:41:08.760 --> 00:41:15.160 Say, sometimes you get philosophers who do it in the most common, say, way of justifying 274 00:41:15.160 --> 00:41:20.680 the state by non-libertarians, will be to postulate special rights for the state. 275 00:41:20.680 --> 00:41:36.680 For example, Elizabeth Anscombe in a famous essay said, well, we need in a society to have some agency to settle disputes, and the need generates rights to that agency that other people don't have to settle the dispute. 276 00:41:36.680 --> 00:41:47.680 No, it has nothing like this. It says everyone has the right to prohibit unreliable decision procedures, but there's a catch to it. 277 00:41:47.680 --> 00:41:58.680 Other people don't have to accept your view of what an unreliable decision procedure is. 278 00:41:58.680 --> 00:42:05.680 So you could have a situation in which, and you will, according to Nozick, have a situation in which, say, 279 00:42:05.680 --> 00:42:11.680 supposing an agency that is not part of the dominant agency, not one of the dominant agency, 280 00:42:11.680 --> 00:42:16.680 uses a procedure the dominant agency considers unreliable. 281 00:42:16.680 --> 00:42:25.200 The dominant agency will prohibit that agency from using that procedure. 282 00:42:25.200 --> 00:42:29.780 From its own point of view, that agency will say, no, the procedure is perfectly reliable, 283 00:42:29.780 --> 00:42:34.960 but each agency can rely on its own view of the matter. 284 00:42:34.960 --> 00:42:42.780 So the dominant agency, since it is the agency that wins fight, will be able to prevent these 285 00:42:42.780 --> 00:42:50.560 These other agencies from using unreliable decision procedures on its clients, so according 286 00:42:50.560 --> 00:42:58.020 to Nozick then this will, when the agency does that, it will prohibit, it will turn 287 00:42:58.020 --> 00:43:10.680 out that it emerges as the only agency that will be able to deal with its own clients. 288 00:43:10.680 --> 00:43:18.600 Other agencies won't be able to try clients of that agency without getting the approval 289 00:43:18.600 --> 00:43:24.360 of the dominant agency for what doing so. 290 00:43:24.360 --> 00:43:29.720 Because the agency is dominant, its decisions on what the risky decision, what procedures 291 00:43:29.720 --> 00:43:40.520 are unduly unreliable will be the ones that dominate. 292 00:43:40.520 --> 00:43:47.680 So it will come about that there will be only a single agency that's really in effect controlling 293 00:43:47.680 --> 00:43:55.720 everything because no one else can apply decision procedures that that agency, that dominates 294 00:43:55.720 --> 00:44:00.520 the things that are unreliable. 295 00:44:00.520 --> 00:44:05.600 I think there are some problems with this. 296 00:44:05.600 --> 00:44:26.600 First of all, Nozick himself says that if an agency uses a procedure that's in what he calls in the neighborhood of the reliable procedure that the other agency had, the first agency couldn't prohibit it. 297 00:44:26.600 --> 00:44:35.600 It's just that the decision procedures have to be markedly unreliable from that agency's 298 00:44:35.600 --> 00:44:38.600 point of view to justify prohibition. 299 00:44:38.600 --> 00:44:45.000 But Nozick hasn't given us any reason to think that there'll be such a divergence of opinion 300 00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:53.480 on what are the reliable decision procedures, why should we just take for granted that all 301 00:44:53.480 --> 00:45:03.080 Other agencies besides the dominant agency will use unreliable decision procedures from the standpoint of the dominant agency. 302 00:45:03.080 --> 00:45:10.080 This is, unless it turned out that way, they wouldn't be able to prohibit these procedures. 303 00:45:10.080 --> 00:45:20.280 So what Nozick has done is just come up with a particular case in which, except if one accepts his assumptions, 304 00:45:20.280 --> 00:45:50.280 The dominant agency will be able to stop other agencies from applying unreliable decision procedures to its clients, but there's no reason to think that that's going to be a likely case, so I would think if you have to have a justification for the state, you have to come up with not just some bare possibility in which you could have a state arising through rational self-interest. 305 00:45:50.280 --> 00:45:57.720 by Observing Libertarian History, you'd have to think this is somewhat likely to happen. 306 00:45:57.720 --> 00:46:03.280 You wouldn't take a case where there's just some remote chance this could happen from 307 00:46:03.280 --> 00:46:09.760 ... You wouldn't say you've justified the state just because you could show there's 308 00:46:09.760 --> 00:46:16.560 some remote chance you could have a situation that Nozick suggests. 309 00:46:16.560 --> 00:46:25.000 Now, here's a further and perhaps more serious problem is that all that Nozick's argument 310 00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:32.080 would show is that if it works is that the dominant agency would be able to stop other 311 00:46:32.080 --> 00:46:40.960 agencies from applying unreliable decision procedures to its clients. 312 00:46:40.960 --> 00:46:49.480 It wouldn't stop the agencies from applying reliable decision procedures, taking reliable 313 00:46:49.480 --> 00:46:55.200 to mean ones that the dominant agency accepted as reliable to the clients of the dominant 314 00:46:55.200 --> 00:46:56.200 agency. 315 00:46:56.200 --> 00:47:03.040 It's just a restriction on procedures that the non-dominant agency could use. 316 00:47:03.040 --> 00:47:12.880 Nozick, I think, really gives away his whole argument on 104, where he says here, considering 317 00:47:12.880 --> 00:47:20.480 a case where a non-dominant agency has applied a penalty to a client's dominant agency, he 318 00:47:20.480 --> 00:47:28.160 says, less straightforward is the protective agency, meaning the dominant agency, appropriate 319 00:47:28.160 --> 00:47:38.800 Action After a Penalty Has Been Inflicted. If the punishers procedure was a reliable one, the agency does not act against the punisher. 320 00:47:38.800 --> 00:47:56.600 So he's admitting there that as long as the non-dominant agency uses a procedure that's on the list of the ones the dominant agency considers reliable, 321 00:47:56.600 --> 00:48:11.000 The dominant agency can't stop it from acting, so there's no reason what happens if, say, the non-dominant agency uses a more reliable procedure than the dominant agency does. 322 00:48:11.000 --> 00:48:21.300 There's no particular reason to think that the dominant agency will always have, from its point of view, the most reliable procedure. 323 00:48:21.300 --> 00:48:32.100 In fact, we could come up with an argument to the contrary that people who thought they 324 00:48:32.100 --> 00:48:39.220 might be victims of violent crime would want defendants, people who have been accused to 325 00:48:39.220 --> 00:48:45.580 have a good chance of conviction, they wouldn't want procedures that were the safest possible 326 00:48:45.580 --> 00:48:47.540 for the ones who were accused of these crimes. 327 00:48:47.540 --> 00:48:54.900 They might want one's procedures that would, if they were assaulted or victimized, they 328 00:48:54.900 --> 00:49:01.060 would find that the ones who had committed the crimes would be likely to be put away 329 00:49:01.060 --> 00:49:02.860 or dealt with. 330 00:49:02.860 --> 00:49:14.700 And as you see, this whole raises a related problem for the argument, is that when this 331 00:49:14.700 --> 00:49:21.140 This whole Nozick is assuming, when he says, well, these risky decision procedures, the 332 00:49:21.140 --> 00:49:26.140 possibility of unreliable decision procedures, will arouse fear. 333 00:49:26.140 --> 00:49:33.180 There's a risk of fear being that, just when he says there's a risk of fear, this justifies 334 00:49:33.180 --> 00:49:34.180 prohibition. 335 00:49:34.180 --> 00:49:44.700 We have to ask, who is going to be feeling the fear of possibly being, say, being caught 336 00:49:44.700 --> 00:49:47.180 in one of these unreliable decision procedures? 337 00:49:47.180 --> 00:49:53.980 It would be only people who thought they might be accused of one of these violent crimes, 338 00:49:53.980 --> 00:50:01.100 which we would suspect is not all that many people, most people, even in systems where 339 00:50:01.100 --> 00:50:06.660 So we have an unjust court system, a court system that uses unreliable decision procedures, 340 00:50:06.660 --> 00:50:18.660 don't fear being hauled before the court and being subject to some kind of unjust punishment. 341 00:50:18.660 --> 00:50:20.740 Punishment will arouse fear. 342 00:50:20.740 --> 00:50:26.900 These kinds of punishments, remember, just come up with these special crimes of violence. 343 00:50:26.900 --> 00:50:32.140 So, probably people wouldn't feel the sort of, generally wouldn't feel the sort of fear 344 00:50:32.140 --> 00:50:41.460 that Nozick is relying on as a reason for an agency prohibiting others from using unreliable 345 00:50:41.460 --> 00:50:42.460 decision procedures. 346 00:50:42.460 --> 00:50:47.260 Remember, he's assuming, which I think perhaps he hasn't taken all together seriously as 347 00:50:47.260 --> 00:50:55.020 he should in this stage of the writing, that most people observe the correct moral principles, 348 00:50:55.020 --> 00:51:04.080 So we won't have all that many crimes of violence to begin with in the situation he's postulating. 349 00:51:04.080 --> 00:51:12.840 Now one thing when he points out is, in the way he's considering this prohibition of 350 00:51:12.840 --> 00:51:20.420 unreliable decision procedure, he said, well, he thinks that what happens if, say, an agency 351 00:51:20.420 --> 00:51:27.380 does apply an unreliable decision procedure, then if it turns out that the person is innocent, 352 00:51:27.380 --> 00:51:33.780 say the person is retried by the dominant agency, comes out innocent, then of course 353 00:51:33.780 --> 00:51:40.060 the person who is the innocent person will get compensation and the non-dominant agency 354 00:51:40.060 --> 00:51:45.060 that applied the unreliable procedure will be punished, but knows it goes further. 355 00:51:45.060 --> 00:51:54.660 He said, well, what happens if the person is guilty, and he's tried by an unreliable decision procedure? 356 00:51:54.660 --> 00:52:04.860 Some people think that if you're guilty, well, then you really don't have any rights to be tried in a particular way. 357 00:52:04.860 --> 00:52:24.860 But Nozick thinks that still the dominant agency can prohibit the non-dominant agency from applying the procedure, get this extra penalty, even if it turns out that the person turns out to be guilty. 358 00:52:24.860 --> 00:52:33.020 In part, this is because knowing that people know this procedure is going to be applied, 359 00:52:33.020 --> 00:52:38.020 this will generate this kind of risk that I've taught about people become fearful. 360 00:52:38.020 --> 00:52:41.620 Remember, I've challenged that, but he thinks people become fearful. 361 00:52:41.620 --> 00:52:48.140 But he thinks even if it doesn't, say the non-dominant agency punishes guilty people 362 00:52:48.140 --> 00:52:53.620 only very rarely, and you don't have this kind of fear, he thinks the dominant agency 363 00:52:53.620 --> 00:52:59.500 could still punish the non-dominant agency for this particular kind of punishment just 364 00:52:59.500 --> 00:53:06.500 as a deterrent against it supplying it the punishment if people turn out to be innocent. 365 00:53:23.620 --> 00:53:52.620 Well, I'm not finding the passage I want, but take my word for it. It's there. 366 00:53:52.620 --> 00:54:11.620 Just one point here is important. When Nozick arrives at all these principles on when you can punish appropriately, what about risk, he's operating on a largely intuitive basis. 367 00:54:11.620 --> 00:54:20.620 He has certain kinds of intuitive judgments on what seems to be plausible. He doesn't have any kind of general theoretical argument. These are the correct principles. 368 00:54:20.620 --> 00:54:28.340 There are sometimes people who have interpreted differently, for example, Eric Mack in a very 369 00:54:28.340 --> 00:54:39.700 good article on Nozick's notion of unproductive exchange thinks that the reason the dominant 370 00:54:39.700 --> 00:54:44.940 agency can punish these other agencies for applying unreliable decision procedures has 371 00:54:44.940 --> 00:54:53.940 This has something to do with a particular section of the book called productive and unproductive exchange, but it really doesn't. 372 00:54:53.940 --> 00:54:59.940 This is just a notion that goes off on side issues very readily. 373 00:54:59.940 --> 00:55:09.940 This really isn't relevant. The productive and unproductive exchange section, although it's very important in other contexts, isn't really a crucial part of the argument here. 374 00:55:09.940 --> 00:55:36.940 Now, there's, however, so we have an ultra-minimal state. Now, is this a state by what knows it standards? Well, no, it isn't, because in it, everybody's paying, who is a client of the agency, pays for protective services, is just paying a market price for protection, whatever the agency charges. 375 00:55:36.940 --> 00:56:06.940 and the agencies prohibiting other people from enforcing their, using unreliable decision procedures, but it isn't extending them any protection, so we don't have any kind of this redistributive feature that I mentioned before as part of the concept of the state that knows it's attempting to justify, but there's a third step, and this is where we get to the middle, 376 00:56:06.940 --> 00:56:26.740 Now, remember, in the ultra-minimal state, the dominant agency is prohibited. 377 00:56:26.740 --> 00:56:36.900 People are not parts of the agency from other agencies and independence from using unreliable 378 00:57:06.900 --> 00:57:13.700 procedure, legitimate activity, namely protecting themselves or their clients. 379 00:57:13.700 --> 00:57:23.820 So what Nozick suggests is that if there's a situation where someone is conducting risky 380 00:57:23.820 --> 00:57:34.340 activity as part of some other activity that's justified, then the person whose activity 381 00:57:34.340 --> 00:57:45.020 is Prohibited has to be compensated in some way if he's disadvantaged. Say the person 382 00:57:45.020 --> 00:57:50.660 who can't use these risky decision procedures, then the person is left unprotected. Now supposing 383 00:57:50.660 --> 00:57:59.140 the person can't afford to buy protection from the dominant agency at the rates it's 384 00:57:59.140 --> 00:58:05.380 Charging, and the person is at a disadvantage because he can't protect himself, so the 385 00:58:05.380 --> 00:58:13.220 agency then has to offer him sort of a cut rate policy, and when it does that, it will 386 00:58:13.220 --> 00:58:19.860 charge its regular clients more to pay for the cost, so you have then this redistributive 387 00:58:19.860 --> 00:58:27.020 feature, you get to the state, you had previously the ultra-minimal state, you had the feature 388 00:58:27.020 --> 00:58:57.020 where the Domineer Agency is really the only agency able to protect other people. No one can use force without its permission, but it has to, now, if it's disadvantaged people, it has to compensate them by giving them a cut-rate policy, and you see, although they don't have to take it, they can refuse to pay for the cut-rate policy, it'd be very much their advantage to 389 00:58:57.020 --> 00:59:02.020 take it because otherwise they won't be protected, so we have sort of the equivalent of taxes. 390 00:59:02.020 --> 00:59:11.500 I think there are some severe problems with this step is that you remember what the compensation 391 00:59:11.500 --> 00:59:20.620 is for is just for not being able to use unreliable decision procedures. 392 00:59:20.620 --> 00:59:25.840 That doesn't, as I mentioned before, it doesn't prevent people from protecting themselves. 393 00:59:25.840 --> 00:59:32.340 They can use procedures that are reliable according to the dominant agency. 394 00:59:32.340 --> 00:59:39.920 So it's not clear that people would have to be compensated at all, so you wouldn't get 395 00:59:39.920 --> 00:59:50.360 to this minimal state at all from the ultra-minimal state, because the independents would still 396 00:59:50.360 --> 00:59:58.440 will be able to protect themselves even against clients of the dominant agency as long as 397 00:59:58.440 --> 01:00:00.800 they use a reliable procedure. 398 01:00:00.800 --> 01:00:07.520 So Nozick really hasn't established a case for compensation, and if that's right, the 399 01:00:07.520 --> 01:00:09.120 argument fails. 400 01:00:09.120 --> 01:00:18.600 Now, I think Nozick tends here a bit to confuse prohibiting a risky decision procedure from 401 01:00:18.600 --> 01:00:35.280 Prohibiting something altogether. He seemed to take it as if the particular decision procedures in agency were somehow essential to the agency, so that if you ban those, you're banning the whole agency, but I see no reason to think that's true. 402 01:00:35.280 --> 01:00:47.280 Now, one point also, and this he was well aware of, that if, say, the system worked the way it wanted, you had an ultra-minimal state, 403 01:00:47.280 --> 01:00:58.280 then clients of one independent agency could still act against clients of another agency, non-dominant agency. 404 01:00:58.280 --> 01:01:08.780 The state wouldn't be able to stop even one non-dominant agency from dealing with another non-dominant agency. 405 01:01:08.780 --> 01:01:14.780 So you could say, well, it doesn't have a monopoly of force, so it doesn't work on those grounds. 406 01:01:14.780 --> 01:01:19.780 But Nozick's answer to that, and remember he practically always has an answer, 407 01:01:19.780 --> 01:01:49.680 Every state should follow that policy, as long as people want to settle disputes among themselves, why shouldn't they be able to do so, and I think he makes a good case for that, but I think there's one point he's overlooked, is that if his argument is right, then one independent agency could try to ban what it considers the unreliable decision process, 408 01:01:49.680 --> 01:02:19.680 and the procedures of another independent agency. So we could have, if this argument succeeds, we could have more than one state-like entity emerging in the same territory, and that one of these, say, you have three agencies, dominant agencies, or the second agency, one that's least in power, so the second agency might be able to exercise state-like functions over the third one, and then this would seem like Nozick 409 01:02:19.680 --> 01:02:31.680 So he didn't really have the sort of monopoly system that he wants, that the second agency would also be able to exercise state-like functions against the third one, although, of course, not against the dominant agency. 410 01:02:31.680 --> 01:02:40.160 I see I'm a bit out of time now, and I would just conclude, although I just agree very 411 01:02:40.160 --> 01:02:47.540 much with the argument, I think this is definitely one of the great works of 20th century philosophy, 412 01:02:47.540 --> 01:02:50.440 so everyone should try to study it closely. 413 01:02:51.440 --> 01:02:53.440 Thank you very much.