Anarchy, State and Utopia

Demoktesis means “ownership by the people” in Ancient Greek. Nozick introduces the term to describe an imaginary process wherein individuals join a collective enterprise and start selling their rights over themselves, leading to a situation where everyone owns the rights of everyone else. For Nozick, this is a chaotic and unjust situation that resembles contemporary democracies.

A dominant protective association is the primary agency that enforces the protection of rights and the resolution of disputes in a geographical area. This entity emerges in a state of nature as the most effective and powerful organization for providing security and legal services, absorbing other protective associations. Nozick views this evolution as a natural progression toward a minimal state, where the dominant protective association assumes the role of a legitimate government, albeit with strictly limited powers.

Nozick introduces the concept of the invisible-hand explanation as a process through which social phenomena and institutions emerge in an unplanned manner from the actions of many individuals, rather than from deliberate design or planning. Nozick uses this concept to support his argument for a minimal state, suggesting that such a state could arise spontaneously as a product of individuals seeking to protect their rights, without the necessity for a central, organizing authority.