Robert Nozick’s Political Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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• invisible-hand explanations

• more conventional minimal state

• would

• fund the production of rights protection through taxes

• if the dominant association taxes individuals—

• without their consent

• but provides compensating benefits

• in the form of protective services

• permissible

• association’s conduct

• explanations of complex orders

• emergence of the minimal state is that it is an invisible hand story

• no actual minimal state is explained or justified by Nozick’s invisible hand explanation

• committed to the view that the legitimacy of any actual minimal state that might arise will depend upon its having arisen through permissible, rights respecting activities; and this seems to be a problem

• minimal

• comes into existence when

• aggressive individuals seize control

• our judgment about the legitimacy of this minimal state should turn at least primarily on how it now conducts itself and not on the impermissibility of the actions through which this state was founded

• way in which minimal states would arise without violating rights supports

• that actual more-than-minimal states be transformed into minimal states