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Lacking much historical information and assuming (1) that victims of injustice generally do worse than they otherwise would and (2) that those from the least well-off group in the society have the highest probabilities of being the (descendants of) victims of the most serious injustice who are owed compensation by those who benefited from the injustices, ... then a rough rule of thumb for rectifying injustices might seem to be the following: organize society so as to maximize the position of whatever group ends up least well-off in the society.

— Robert Nozick Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

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Socialism

More quotes by Robert Nozick

Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights).

Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

Is there really one kind of life which is best for each of these people?

Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

What persons may and may not do to one another limits what they may do through the apparatus of a state, or do to establish such an apparatus.

Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

From each as they choose, to each as they are chosen.

Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

Is not the minimal state, the framework for utopia, an inspiring vision?

Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

All Robert Nozick quotes →

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Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children.

Martin Luther King Jr.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

Winston Churchill

In my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of socialism as the belief that Russia is a socialist country and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imitated.

George Orwell

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Robert Nozick (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.