Anarchy, State, and Utopia

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The work Anarchy, State, and Utopia (German: Anarchie, Staat und Utopia, 1976) published in 1974 is a libertarian counter-draft by Robert Nozick to the egalitarian theory of justice by John Rawls . Both works together are regarded as a decisive impetus for the revitalization of political philosophy in the 20th century.

overview

Anarchy , state and utopia are structured according to the three eponymous topoi .

In the first part, Nozick explains why his investigation is based on the natural state on which Locke also bases his considerations. Then he shows how in such a social system, based purely on voluntary contracts, a state-like structure in the form of a dominant protective association develops without (thereby) violating the natural rights of individuals. He discusses which powers this agency would accrue in the natural state.

In the second part, he reviews his conclusions from the first part and describes the dominant protection agency as the minimal state . He then discusses a number of tasks ascribed to the modern state, in particular redistributive measures for social justice, on their moral legitimacy. As a result, he considers all state activities that go beyond the minimal state to be illegitimate, in particular any form of welfare state .

In the third part Nozick describes his utopia, which he called "frame scaffold for Utopias" ( framework for utopia called). According to this, different societies as voluntary associations should compete with each other for different models of coexistence. In this context, he also presents unsolved problems (up to now and also by him) that result from the fact that individuals (e.g. children) are not even allowed to make a voluntary decision about belonging to a group. Nozick's utopia is based on federal structures that were modeled on the time of the founding fathers in the USA.

plant

  • Anarchy, State, and Utopia . Basic Books, New York 1974.
    • Anarchy state utopia . Translated by Hermann Vetter. Moderne Verlagsgesellschaft, Munich 1976 (new edition: Olzog, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-7892-8098-4 )

See also

literature

  • Andrea Marlen Esser : Fair distribution or absolute protection of property? A classic alternative in the recent discussion: John Rawls and Robert Nozick. In: Andreas Eckl (Ed.): What is property? Philosophical theories of property from Plato to Habermas. Beck, Munich 2005, pp. 217-231, ISBN 3-406-52826-0 ( Beck'sche series 1652).
  • C. Roland Hoffmann-Negulescu: Anarchy, minimal state, world state. Critique of the libertarian legal and state theory R. Nozick. Tectum, Marburg 2001, ISBN 3-8288-8303-6 .
  • Peter Koller : New Theories of the Social Contract. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-06208-6 ( writings on legal theory 124).
  • Peter Niesen : The Political Theory of Libertarianism. Robert Nozick and Friedrich A. von Hayek. In: André Brodocz, Gary S. Schaal (Ed.): Political Theories of the Present. An introduction. Vol. 1. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2002, ISBN 3-8252-2218-7 , pp. 77–117 ( UTB for Science 2218 Political Science ).
  • Jeffrey Paul (Ed.): Reading Nozick. Essays on "Anarchy, State, and Utopia". Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1982, ISBN 0-631-12977-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Michael Heinig, The welfare state in the service of freedom , ISBN 978-3161496530 , page 188