Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) is one of the books about political philosophy most frequently assigned to college students. Fifty years after its publication, I’d be surprised if you could walk into a reasonably well-stocked Barnes & Noble anywhere in the English-speaking world without finding a copy.

This level of success is, in some ways, well-deserved. Nozick is an excellent writer, combining stylistic flair with a high level of rigor in most of his arguments. It’s a pleasure to read, even if (like me) you deeply abhor his conclusions.

Nozick was, when he wrote it, a hardcore libertarian. He thought any distribution of wealth whatsoever was acceptable as long as it came from letting the chips fall where they may in a free market. The only justifiable state would be a “night-watchman state” that would be “limited to protecting persons against murder, assault, theft, fraud, and so forth.”