According to the Declaration of Independence, the American government's founding document, "[To] secure these rights [to life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." That passage suggests that the purpose of government is to uphold justice, since an injustice is a violation of a right. Apparently, all that's needed to uphold justice is to protect people from foreign and domestic aggressors and to enforce contracts. That implies that the purpose of government can be fulfilled by having police, courts, and national defense. If government powers are used for purposes other than upholding justice, that would seem to make government unjust. Besides, if government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, apparently government has no just powers over those who withhold consent, such as anarchists.
Didn’t Rothbard refer to Friedman (arguably another minarchist) as a “road socialist”? Amazing to me that anyone thinks that our courts, police, and army are better run by government, but I am an anarcho-capitalist voluntaryist: meaning private for me, but whatever you want for thee.
except that the State doesn't protect you from criminals (or it does in a very questionable way). Less than 40% of crimes are cleared in the USA (very likely not the worst organized country in the world). Even the serious crimes are not cleared: 50% of murders, one third of sexual assaults and with "minor" crimes the track record is just appalling: less than 10% of car theft are cleared.
If this is "protecting from criminals" the bar is really low. And it is even worse, "real" governments don't even have the legal obligation of doing "reasonable efforts" to prevent crime: see Warren vs District of Columbia, 1981
"the army, to protect you from foreign invaders"
Except that the US army has never being used for that (or maybe just once if you count Pearl Harbor as an "invasion"). While it has been used countless times to invade other countries.
"and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law."
Except that the "law" is anything but "objective" and easily manipulated by unscrupulous lawyers (a proffesion which is not famous for its "fairness" and "objectivity") and except that the courts are very dysfunctional. God protects you if you need a clear and speedy resolutions of your property and/or contractual rights!
It is amazing how, even libertarians, fail to see the difference between "theoretical governments" and "real ones". They have absolutely nothing in common. Governments are the biggest fallacy ever created. The difference between how they really work and how people think they work (even people that have zero faith in governments!) is just unbelievable ...
I think it is correct from an American perspective. However, both in Europe (especially Eastern Europe) and Latin America there are more minarchists, although they usually self-describe as “liberals” (as in classical liberals), not libertarians. I suspect most minarchists in the US are in the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, people like Sasse or Paul (and Amash). I do not have data, it is more a perception based on frequenting libertarian leaning conferences and think-tanks.
Yay! We won the Irrelevancy Games! I’m so proud of us.
More seriously, many libertarian ideas went mainstream in the Republican Party. I remember seeing an application of the two-axes chart (social freedom on one, economic freedom on the other), comparing the two parties over some number of decades. I think I saw this in the early 2000’s. Republicans had become hugely more libertarian overall, and Democrats had hugely done the opposite. So that might explain the lack of self-identifying minarchists -- they found a minimally adequate ideological home.
For those inclined to review more literature on the topic, Jacob Hornberger, of The Future of Freedom Foundation, penned a six part article, Why I Favor Limited Government, available online. There may be more detailed defenses of minarchism but I have found more scholarship defending anarcho-capitalism (voluntaryism), those being The Most Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose and The Problem of Political Authority by Michael Huemer. Both present excellent philosophical (moral) defenses of a stateless society. For a well argued defense of libertarian anarchy that goes beyond the moral arguments and demonstrates the real world viability of anarcho-capitalism while obliterating the usual attacks on anarcho-capitalism (warlords will take over, societal chaos will result, etc.) and showing why the anarchist society will yield a harmonious society see Stefan Molyneux's, Practical Anarchy, available as a free ebook at freedomain.com.
It's no wonder anarcho-capitalism “won” or more correctly, dominates. Full-on or full—stop are easy to understand. A spigot set somewhere in between is nuanced. The American education system avoids teaching nuance.
The concept that people need to have is 100% liberty. Liberty is the #1 obligation of a good government. That each person has the natural right to live, be fruitful, and keep the products of their labor is “to each according to their production or trade.”
Any breach by an individual or group is a breach of rights, of life, liberty and property. Such breaches call for mediation, adjudication, or prosecution. Anarcho-capitalists deny human fallibility and potential for evil.
Totalitarians deny the human fallibility of the leader. Americans deny the fallibility of the regulators
Liberty and freedom are not the same concept, and you can follow the trajectory of the decline by noting when freedom usurped the meaning of liberty FDR and nullified its role in the culture. We've been rolling down the slippery slope ever since. There's sure to be an immovable object at the bottom.
I've been an Objectivist for a long time. I have reservations about many “authorities” who integrate Rand’s work in contradictory ways. There are many terms and phrases she used, but did not define. Other ideas, she described in the negative. Attempts to question or address these confusing problems are met with pat answers and coldness. Many consider Objectivism a cult. I do not.
I consider Rand’s work as her philosophy. It needs tweaking. Aristotle’s work faced the same problem after his death.
Anarcho-capitalists do not deny human fallibility and the potential for evil. It is precisely awareness of those things that motivate the removal of centralized coercion. It's silly to make these claims about anarcho-capitalists when their works explicitly and in detail address this issue. A good example is David Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom.
Thank you for your reply. It would have been helpful if you had deigned to summarize one or two of David Fiedman’s arguments about resolution of disagreements between intractable parties. I've been reading about the subject for many years, and have not seen any solution that didn't outlaw violence as a last resort. Unless you can address that core issue, I don't have time to investigate another dead end. Sorry, this is a very old song and I'm no youngster myself. 🌈
I'm not going to take the time to try to summarize Friedman's arguments. They are not suited to a very brief summary as would fit here. If you haven't read The Machinery of Freedom, you're missing out on one of the all-time classic libertarian books. Minarchists will still appreciate most of the book.
Europe. Not a professional libertarian, but I found me mostly nodding to all the stuff Milton Friedman said: like when said he sees the optimum GDP of gov. at 10%, while young hotheads (his son David Friedman) may dream of zero. I was not aware, the kinda libertarianism I dig most is called 'minarchism'. ;) (Not that I would call me one: If the gov is mostly police and army, I see the risk of police and army taking over. Plus school-vouchers and some other acceptable ideas should easily break a 10% limit.)
I've been an LP muck-a-muck in Texas since 2007, and I think there might be something to this, but it's oddly difficult to say. Capital-L Libertarians, when we get together for meetings and conventions, spend less time discussing issues than you might think. Internal politics and "the business of the party" is far more the favored topic.
I can say this: some state parties are considered more radical than others, and the Dallas Accord is still remembered and relevant during national conventions platform debates.
I know the blow back is coming (i.e., they aren't REAL libertarians), but the Reason Foundation has quite the share of small state tolerant libertarians.
Hmm. Interesting observation. I too have noted that people describing themselves as minarchists are thin on the ground but have no context for this as that’s been the case as long as I can remember (I am not yet 40). I would probably describe my ideal politics as minarchist.
I’ve found an easy way to “de-minarchize” someone. Just ask them: “Will you throw me in jail if I refuse to pay taxes that go towards police, courts, and a military?”
9 out of 10 times, the answer is “no.”
The same logic that led them to conclude that all other government functions are done better by the market should also lead them to conclude that the “minimal functions” of the state are also done better by the market. It’s simple.
Huh. My answer to that would be: I think the question is not whether you should be punished but rather what should be done if you refuse to pay for the minimal necessary common welfare from which you benefit, given that it seems rather impossible to retain a state at all (and thus a free market and many freedoms in general) if you can’t defend against other states, and doing nothing encourages serial defection.
Probably not jail as that’s costly. Exile and ostracism seem underrated, as does outlawry (the Icelandic solution?). Looking to the polis for solutions seems apropos.
This is what is in dispute, whether a market is possible without a state, or really possible with one. For you to assume it is one way or the other is to beg the question.
Many existing states “can’t defend against other states.” Costa Rica does not have an army.
Many arguments in favor of minarchism might be true, but people often merely assume alternative approaches are impossible, some of which have actually happened and continued for centuries.
I don’t assume it, I’ve deeply considered it and I think it very unlikely that anarchocapitalist states can exist, largely because they don’t (definitionally? I kid).
We have strong evidence of lots of minarchist (relative to today, which is all I’m asking for) states existing for very long periods of time. On the other hand, disorganized nonstate regions have a long history of getting conquered and assimilated by basically anybody with an ability to organize.
Why do you think Costa Rica doesn’t need an army? I think there are two obvious reasons and it’s possible you could have no military given those reasons, but impossible you could have no state. But I’d like to know what you think.
Anyway, is that what we were discussing? Do you want to debate the viability of anarchocapitalism, or do you want to talk about whatever the point of this comment was that appears to be some sort of j’accuse against the idea of rule of law at all? Honestly I’m more interested in the latter although we could do either. I don’t assume anarchocapitalism doesn’t work, it just has such a monstrously high bar to clear based on the available historical evidence that I consider it pretty pointless to debate u less you have discovered a radically new history of the world that justifies calling many societies ancap.
I’ve forgotten why the participants cared about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. The dispute between minarchists and anarchists is over the legitimacy of coercion. The most obvious application is in the area of taxation.
You could object that it seems unlikely for that issue to be put to the test in real life any time soon, which is fair. But it makes a big difference in the strength of a libertarian argument. The minarchist exceptions can too easily be made to look like special pleading.
If we were all consequentialists, or better yet, experimentalists, I suppose it wouldn’t matter. Everyone could just try out their preferred flavor of society, and we could change our opinions based on the observed results.
Hi Bryan! One of the argentine presidential candidates (Javier Milei) declares himself a minarchist in the short term, but anarcho-capitalist in the long term. He is not a great theorist in this regard, but he basically argues that anarcho-capitalism would be a consequence of minarchism + free market and competition: at some point, the State would disappear without us even realizing it.
Sounds about right to me. As a 59-year old libertarian who has always favored anarcho-capitalism (well, since 1981), it does seem that most of the libertarians I know and talk to are anarchist rather than minarchist. I have a slightly different view now -- looking ahead to societies in space that can have whatever rules they like and people have to choose to enter -- but anarchism continues to seem the right destination and definitely the right direction.
Bryan, I have to add that your recent piece detailing your early libertarian history struck a chord with me. It could almost be a description of my experience, if it were moved a few years earlier. Same books, very similar progression. (My Randian phase lasted less than a year.)
According to the Declaration of Independence, the American government's founding document, "[To] secure these rights [to life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." That passage suggests that the purpose of government is to uphold justice, since an injustice is a violation of a right. Apparently, all that's needed to uphold justice is to protect people from foreign and domestic aggressors and to enforce contracts. That implies that the purpose of government can be fulfilled by having police, courts, and national defense. If government powers are used for purposes other than upholding justice, that would seem to make government unjust. Besides, if government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, apparently government has no just powers over those who withhold consent, such as anarchists.
It also implies the need for consent.
Didn’t Rothbard refer to Friedman (arguably another minarchist) as a “road socialist”? Amazing to me that anyone thinks that our courts, police, and army are better run by government, but I am an anarcho-capitalist voluntaryist: meaning private for me, but whatever you want for thee.
"the police, to protect you from criminals"
except that the State doesn't protect you from criminals (or it does in a very questionable way). Less than 40% of crimes are cleared in the USA (very likely not the worst organized country in the world). Even the serious crimes are not cleared: 50% of murders, one third of sexual assaults and with "minor" crimes the track record is just appalling: less than 10% of car theft are cleared.
If this is "protecting from criminals" the bar is really low. And it is even worse, "real" governments don't even have the legal obligation of doing "reasonable efforts" to prevent crime: see Warren vs District of Columbia, 1981
"the army, to protect you from foreign invaders"
Except that the US army has never being used for that (or maybe just once if you count Pearl Harbor as an "invasion"). While it has been used countless times to invade other countries.
"and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law."
Except that the "law" is anything but "objective" and easily manipulated by unscrupulous lawyers (a proffesion which is not famous for its "fairness" and "objectivity") and except that the courts are very dysfunctional. God protects you if you need a clear and speedy resolutions of your property and/or contractual rights!
It is amazing how, even libertarians, fail to see the difference between "theoretical governments" and "real ones". They have absolutely nothing in common. Governments are the biggest fallacy ever created. The difference between how they really work and how people think they work (even people that have zero faith in governments!) is just unbelievable ...
I think it is correct from an American perspective. However, both in Europe (especially Eastern Europe) and Latin America there are more minarchists, although they usually self-describe as “liberals” (as in classical liberals), not libertarians. I suspect most minarchists in the US are in the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, people like Sasse or Paul (and Amash). I do not have data, it is more a perception based on frequenting libertarian leaning conferences and think-tanks.
Sasse is a monarchist? I guess you mean Massie?
Ooops, yes, sorry, I meant Massie. And I see you use the same spell-check I do, keeps changing the word into “monarchist” :)
Yes, and it changed Massie to Massive as well.
I had to correct that
Yay! We won the Irrelevancy Games! I’m so proud of us.
More seriously, many libertarian ideas went mainstream in the Republican Party. I remember seeing an application of the two-axes chart (social freedom on one, economic freedom on the other), comparing the two parties over some number of decades. I think I saw this in the early 2000’s. Republicans had become hugely more libertarian overall, and Democrats had hugely done the opposite. So that might explain the lack of self-identifying minarchists -- they found a minimally adequate ideological home.
For those inclined to review more literature on the topic, Jacob Hornberger, of The Future of Freedom Foundation, penned a six part article, Why I Favor Limited Government, available online. There may be more detailed defenses of minarchism but I have found more scholarship defending anarcho-capitalism (voluntaryism), those being The Most Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose and The Problem of Political Authority by Michael Huemer. Both present excellent philosophical (moral) defenses of a stateless society. For a well argued defense of libertarian anarchy that goes beyond the moral arguments and demonstrates the real world viability of anarcho-capitalism while obliterating the usual attacks on anarcho-capitalism (warlords will take over, societal chaos will result, etc.) and showing why the anarchist society will yield a harmonious society see Stefan Molyneux's, Practical Anarchy, available as a free ebook at freedomain.com.
It's no wonder anarcho-capitalism “won” or more correctly, dominates. Full-on or full—stop are easy to understand. A spigot set somewhere in between is nuanced. The American education system avoids teaching nuance.
The concept that people need to have is 100% liberty. Liberty is the #1 obligation of a good government. That each person has the natural right to live, be fruitful, and keep the products of their labor is “to each according to their production or trade.”
Any breach by an individual or group is a breach of rights, of life, liberty and property. Such breaches call for mediation, adjudication, or prosecution. Anarcho-capitalists deny human fallibility and potential for evil.
Totalitarians deny the human fallibility of the leader. Americans deny the fallibility of the regulators
Liberty and freedom are not the same concept, and you can follow the trajectory of the decline by noting when freedom usurped the meaning of liberty FDR and nullified its role in the culture. We've been rolling down the slippery slope ever since. There's sure to be an immovable object at the bottom.
I've been an Objectivist for a long time. I have reservations about many “authorities” who integrate Rand’s work in contradictory ways. There are many terms and phrases she used, but did not define. Other ideas, she described in the negative. Attempts to question or address these confusing problems are met with pat answers and coldness. Many consider Objectivism a cult. I do not.
I consider Rand’s work as her philosophy. It needs tweaking. Aristotle’s work faced the same problem after his death.
Thank you for asking this question.
Anarcho-capitalists do not deny human fallibility and the potential for evil. It is precisely awareness of those things that motivate the removal of centralized coercion. It's silly to make these claims about anarcho-capitalists when their works explicitly and in detail address this issue. A good example is David Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom.
Thank you for your reply. It would have been helpful if you had deigned to summarize one or two of David Fiedman’s arguments about resolution of disagreements between intractable parties. I've been reading about the subject for many years, and have not seen any solution that didn't outlaw violence as a last resort. Unless you can address that core issue, I don't have time to investigate another dead end. Sorry, this is a very old song and I'm no youngster myself. 🌈
I'm not going to take the time to try to summarize Friedman's arguments. They are not suited to a very brief summary as would fit here. If you haven't read The Machinery of Freedom, you're missing out on one of the all-time classic libertarian books. Minarchists will still appreciate most of the book.
So be it.
Europe. Not a professional libertarian, but I found me mostly nodding to all the stuff Milton Friedman said: like when said he sees the optimum GDP of gov. at 10%, while young hotheads (his son David Friedman) may dream of zero. I was not aware, the kinda libertarianism I dig most is called 'minarchism'. ;) (Not that I would call me one: If the gov is mostly police and army, I see the risk of police and army taking over. Plus school-vouchers and some other acceptable ideas should easily break a 10% limit.)
I've been an LP muck-a-muck in Texas since 2007, and I think there might be something to this, but it's oddly difficult to say. Capital-L Libertarians, when we get together for meetings and conventions, spend less time discussing issues than you might think. Internal politics and "the business of the party" is far more the favored topic.
I can say this: some state parties are considered more radical than others, and the Dallas Accord is still remembered and relevant during national conventions platform debates.
I know the blow back is coming (i.e., they aren't REAL libertarians), but the Reason Foundation has quite the share of small state tolerant libertarians.
Hmm. Interesting observation. I too have noted that people describing themselves as minarchists are thin on the ground but have no context for this as that’s been the case as long as I can remember (I am not yet 40). I would probably describe my ideal politics as minarchist.
I’ve found an easy way to “de-minarchize” someone. Just ask them: “Will you throw me in jail if I refuse to pay taxes that go towards police, courts, and a military?”
9 out of 10 times, the answer is “no.”
The same logic that led them to conclude that all other government functions are done better by the market should also lead them to conclude that the “minimal functions” of the state are also done better by the market. It’s simple.
Huh. My answer to that would be: I think the question is not whether you should be punished but rather what should be done if you refuse to pay for the minimal necessary common welfare from which you benefit, given that it seems rather impossible to retain a state at all (and thus a free market and many freedoms in general) if you can’t defend against other states, and doing nothing encourages serial defection.
Probably not jail as that’s costly. Exile and ostracism seem underrated, as does outlawry (the Icelandic solution?). Looking to the polis for solutions seems apropos.
“thus a free market”
This is what is in dispute, whether a market is possible without a state, or really possible with one. For you to assume it is one way or the other is to beg the question.
Many existing states “can’t defend against other states.” Costa Rica does not have an army.
Many arguments in favor of minarchism might be true, but people often merely assume alternative approaches are impossible, some of which have actually happened and continued for centuries.
Remember, democracy was considered refuted for centuries after Athens fell. And perhaps if you define democracy narrowly enough, it was true.
I don’t assume it, I’ve deeply considered it and I think it very unlikely that anarchocapitalist states can exist, largely because they don’t (definitionally? I kid).
We have strong evidence of lots of minarchist (relative to today, which is all I’m asking for) states existing for very long periods of time. On the other hand, disorganized nonstate regions have a long history of getting conquered and assimilated by basically anybody with an ability to organize.
Why do you think Costa Rica doesn’t need an army? I think there are two obvious reasons and it’s possible you could have no military given those reasons, but impossible you could have no state. But I’d like to know what you think.
Anyway, is that what we were discussing? Do you want to debate the viability of anarchocapitalism, or do you want to talk about whatever the point of this comment was that appears to be some sort of j’accuse against the idea of rule of law at all? Honestly I’m more interested in the latter although we could do either. I don’t assume anarchocapitalism doesn’t work, it just has such a monstrously high bar to clear based on the available historical evidence that I consider it pretty pointless to debate u less you have discovered a radically new history of the world that justifies calling many societies ancap.
In the UK, among young people under 25s, libertarians are overwhelmingly minarchists, I can think of four Ancaps, two of which have since switched.
Does it make any difference? To me it seems pretty much like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
I’ve forgotten why the participants cared about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. The dispute between minarchists and anarchists is over the legitimacy of coercion. The most obvious application is in the area of taxation.
You could object that it seems unlikely for that issue to be put to the test in real life any time soon, which is fair. But it makes a big difference in the strength of a libertarian argument. The minarchist exceptions can too easily be made to look like special pleading.
If we were all consequentialists, or better yet, experimentalists, I suppose it wouldn’t matter. Everyone could just try out their preferred flavor of society, and we could change our opinions based on the observed results.
Hi Bryan! One of the argentine presidential candidates (Javier Milei) declares himself a minarchist in the short term, but anarcho-capitalist in the long term. He is not a great theorist in this regard, but he basically argues that anarcho-capitalism would be a consequence of minarchism + free market and competition: at some point, the State would disappear without us even realizing it.
Sounds about right to me. As a 59-year old libertarian who has always favored anarcho-capitalism (well, since 1981), it does seem that most of the libertarians I know and talk to are anarchist rather than minarchist. I have a slightly different view now -- looking ahead to societies in space that can have whatever rules they like and people have to choose to enter -- but anarchism continues to seem the right destination and definitely the right direction.
Bryan, I have to add that your recent piece detailing your early libertarian history struck a chord with me. It could almost be a description of my experience, if it were moved a few years earlier. Same books, very similar progression. (My Randian phase lasted less than a year.)