Utopians assume that the particular society they describe will operate without certain problems arising, that social mechanisms and institutions will function as they predict, and that people will not act from certain motives and interests. They blandly ignore certain obvious problems that anyone…
Catalog
Robert Nozick
We may distinguish three utopian positions: imperialistic utopianism, which countenances the forcing of everyone into one pattern of community; missionary utopianism, which hopes to persuade or convince everyone to live in one particular kind of community, but will not force them to do so; and…
But one cannot determine in advance which people will come up with the best ideas, and all ideas must be tried out (and not merely simulated on a computer) to see how they will work. And some ideas will come only as we are (post facto) trying to describe what patterns have evolved from the…
Utopia will consist of utopias, of many different and divergent communities in which people lead different kinds of lives under different institutions.
No state more extensive than the minimal state can be justified. But doesn’t the idea, or ideal, of the minimal state lack luster?