The only way to discuss the social evil is to get at once to the social ideal. We can all see the national madness; but what is national sanity I have called this book “What Is Wrong with the World?” And the upshot of the title can be easily and clearly stated. What is wrong is that we do not ask what is right.
G. K. Chesterton, What Is Wrong with the World, London, 1910, ch. 1
The libertarian goals—including immediate abolition of invasions of liberty—are “realistic” in the sense that they could be achieved if enough people agreed on them, and that, if achieved, the resulting libertarian system would be viable. The goal of immediate liberty is not unrealistic or “Utopian” because—in contrast to such goals as the “elimination of poverty”—its achievement is entirely dependent on man’s will. If, for example, everyone suddenly and immediately agreed on the overriding desirability of liberty, then total liberty would be immediately achieved.
Murray Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, 1982
A valid utopianism is distinguished from an invalid one by the fact that the former allows an evaluative assessment of real social phenomena.
Carlos Santiago Nino, The Constitution of Deliberative Democracy, New Haven, 1996, p. 10