Rose Director Friedman, 1910-2009, was for many years a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. She was married to Milton Friedman, 1912-2006, an economist who spent most of his career at the University of Chicago and who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Econmic Sciences in 1976. Robert Nozick 1938-2002, was an American philosopher who spent much of his career at Harvard. Friedrick Hayek, 1899-1992, was an Austrian-born British economist and philsopher, who taught at the London School of Economics and at the University of Chicago. With Gunnar Myrdal, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1974.Read the excerpts from the works of these authors in Justice: A Reader, Chapter III. Together these excerpts provide an introduction to Libertarianism.Analyze these excerpts about Libertarianism. Before writing up your analysis, consider all the standard questions we will ask of all the texts we read this semester. What is the genre of the text? Who wrote it? For whom was it written? When was it written? Does the text seem to be based on other source material, such as previous documents or eyewitness testimony, or not? What seems to be the purpose of the text? What is its structure? What are its parts? How do the parts relate to the purpose of the whole? What historical inferences can you make from the text? What is claimed? What isn’t claimed? What is assumed or left unspoken? What key terms are used in the text? What seems to be the special meaning of these key terms in context? What can you infer about the social world that made the text? What can you infer about the events, individuals, or groups described in the text?In addition, for these texts in particular, consider the following. How would you state succinctly the underlying principle of Libertarianism? What are the implications of that underlying principle for the nature of government and the state? Consider also the questions raised by Sandel in his preface to the chapter, “If you accept the idea that we own ourselves, must you also accept the conclusion that all paternalist and redistributive laws are unjust? If, on the other hand, you believe that the government should tax the rich to help the poor, how do you answer the Libertarian argument that such laws are a form of coerced charity that makes every person the property (perhaps even the slave) of the majority?”
