I'm reading Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia . He was a man who defied categorization, however, as anarchists loved him just as much as Friedman.

"A former member of the radical left who was converted to a libertarian perspective as a graduate student, largely through his reading of conservative economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, Nozick was never comfortable with his putative status as an ideologue of the right.

In a 1978 article in The New York Times Magazine he said that "right-wing people like the pro-free-market argument, but don't like the arguments for individual liberty in cases like gay rights - although I view them as an interconnecting whole. ..."

"He explained his approach in the article cited above: "It is as though what philosophers want is a way of saying something that will leave the person they're talking to no escape. Well, why should they be bludgeoning people like that? It's not a nice way to behave."

I tend to disagree. . . :D

<a href='http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/01.17/99-nozick.html' target='_blank'>http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/0.../99-nozick.html</a>

Good article

Nozick's book was very entertaining, though not for mass consumption. He tackles very complex philosophical ideas and does a poor job of explaining the problems with the ideas he attacks.

His rubric is personal freedom should not be violated, the right hereto is primary as the article states. However, Nozick fails to reconcile how personal freedom is to be maintained when someone cites personal freedom in order to violate the rights of others, which is inevitable in any society.

What I got from the book, consequently, is that Nozick failed to account for a sound social theory without getting into ethics and moral ideas. He seems to assume at times that everyone will do the right thing and be respectful of others' rights.

In many ways his minimal state resembles the European middle ages.

As the article said, his Anarchy, State and Utopia was a reaction to his colleague John Rawls' A Theory of Justice (which is an incredible bore).

Folklore says the two men shared offices separated only by a hallway. During office hours the two would argue from desk to desk with their doors open, and students seeking a consultation were scared away at the level of argumentation.

Folklore also has it that the two men had beers together at a local pub almost every weekday afternoon.

I'm through the first two chapters. It's a good read, so far. Why do you think the right claimed him? And do you have any anarchists' books you would recommend?

Have you got into that spooky, invisible-hand bullcrap yet?