Reading the "Public Use" clause

[RJLipkin at aol.com]

I don't recall the  criticism on p. 74, and I don't have the book with me at 
present. But the  importance of the criticism depends upon whether Nozick 
criticized Rand for not  sharing what I believe would be taken as libertarian 
goals, namely, government  is limited to defense and enforcing contracts. The 
issue is what justifies  governmental coercion.  For both Rand and Nozick 
governmental coercion is  not justified in redistributing wealth to help the poor or  
disadvantaged. So the question is not whether Nozick was a Randian.  I  never 
said that. The question is rather whether they shared the two grounds of  
governmental coercion.
 
        As I intimated earlier, I  am not an economist and don't know whether 
Hayek and Friedman are "real  libertarians." Further, I'm not sure how to 
identify "the mainstream of what is  usually regarded as the libertarian 
intellectual tradition" without first  invoking conceptually the fundamental values of 
libertarianism which include the  grounds for governmental coercion. Not only 
does it risk incoherence to include  without argument minimal redistribution 
as one of the fundamental values of  libertarianism, but more importantly, I 
would think, it obscures the moral  clarity of libertarianism as Rand and 
Nozick state it.  Again, I  suppose anyone can call themselves libertarians--I've 
even once come across the  notion of "socialist libertarianism" without the 
explanation of how these terms  cohere," calling oneself a socialist libertarian 
is unhelpful in the extreme in  identifying a political philosophy whose 
policy implications we can  assess.  Similarly, the idea of "safety-net 
libertarianism" fails, in my  view, to specify a political philosophy whose policy 
implications we can  evaluate. If that means Hayek and Friedman are not 
libertarians, well that means  we've learned something about so-called "mainstream 
libertarianism." 
 
Bobby
 
Robert Justin  Lipkin
Professor of Law
Widener University School of  Law
Delaware
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