Is Politics Insoluble?

The Case for the Minimal State I 53
It will be noticed that the political problem is twofold. It is
not only to find what the best arrangements would be for
choosing or changing political leaders or their powers, but for
assuring that these arrangements are adhered to. This is one
of the chief reasons (if not the chief) why the political problem
has almost nowhere been better than temporarily solved. The
ambition of men for political power has immemorially led
them not only to demagoguery and deceit, but to force, war,
and murder, to achieve and increase it. It is because of this
that I have elsewhere raised the question whether the princi-
pal problems of politics are in fact solvable. ("Is Politics In^QV
uh\e?" Modern Age, Fall 1976.)
This is not on its face an encouraging quest. But the
answer is so important for the future of mankind (let alone
the immediate future of our own country) that we are bound
to extend every effort to try to get as near to a workable solu-
tion as we can.
One promising procedure is to examine the answers that
have been offered historically by the great political thinkers of
the past to try to determine where they went wrong or what
important problems they neglected to answer. We could do
this chronologically beginning with the earlier answers, but I
think it would be more interesting if we began with one of the
latest answers and tried to find whether it satisfied us, and if
not, why.
So I shall begin by examining the answer offered by Pro-
fessor Robert Nozick of Harvard in 1974 in his book A^iarc/iy,
State, and Utopia. This book has attracted more attention
than any other in the last five years that attempted to solve
the problem of the proper province of the state. It won the
National Book Award in 1975.