Nozick v Miller

I spent a lot of time over the years reading philosophy. In summation:



Otto: Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not "Every man for himself." And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.


One of the philosophers who was playing Otto from the inside was a dimwitted chap named Robert Nozick. He made up a thought experiment about people paying an extra 25 cents to watch Wilt Chamberlain that would let old Wilt collect an extra $250 grand for a season of basketball.

This was published in 1974. It was the quite possibly the single stupidest thing ever written about sports economics, and the timing was impeccably bad. While Nozick was painting by numbers, Marvin Miller was completing the last supper.



As best I can tell, Nozick never looked at what collective bargaining found under the rocks and said "OMG! I had no fucking clue!"

Worse yet, his book was a big hit, and none of the major criticisms were centered around his stick figure view of a chiarusco world.

It gives one pause.