The State versus Liberty
Most people, writes Murray Rothbard, including most political theorists, believe that once one concedes the importance, or even the vital necessity, of some particular activity of the State — such as the provision of a legal code — that one has ipso facto conceded the necessity of the State itself. The State indeed performs many important and necessary functions: from provision of law to the supply of police and fire fighters, to building and maintaining the streets, to delivery of the mail. But this in no way demonstrates that only the State can perform such functions, or, indeed, that it performs them even passably well. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (15)
RogerM
"The crucial point is that in the Utopia of limited government and laissez faire, there are no institutional mechanisms to keep the State limited."
In the utopia of anarchy, what mechanisms will keep the people from choosing socialism if they decide they prefer it?
Published: July 13, 2007 5:07 PM
Renato Drumond
"there are no institutional mechanisms to keep the State limited"
I would say that there are no institutional mechanisms to keep the State non-existent. How about that?
At least the classical liberals tried to develop the institutional mechanims to keep the State limited.
What instititutional mechanisms the anarc-cap developed to abolish the State?
Published: July 13, 2007 5:52 PM
Peter
In the utopia of anarchy, what mechanisms will keep the people from choosing socialism if they decide they prefer it?
The laws of nature. If (some) people want to try socialism, nothing's stopping them - why would you want to? - but it won't work, of course.
Published: July 13, 2007 11:26 PM
P.M.Lawrence
RogerM, "the people" never can choose socialism because they do not - in that sense - exist at all. What can happen, and has happened, is that some group claiming to act on behalf of that fiction imposes socialism on everyone within reach. (Read up on how the Bolsheviks got that name as against the Mensheviks sometime.)
Within a mature and going concern anarchy - leaving aside how to get there from here - the institutional part would be an engineering out, not a providing of some alternative mechanism that could itself go sour. There would not be the levers of power around for the power hungry to grab in the first place, and the customary practices would act like good gardeners keeping weeds - levers of power - from developing in the first place. It would no more be possible to have a power grab than to become King of the Cats.
Renato Drumond, you are getting at how to get there from here. But the one way that is guranteed to fail is to defeat the object, to fight that sort of fire with that sort of fire. If you put in distinct and enduring institutions to defeat the ones that make up the present order, you get another set. Sure, they might not be oppressive straight away, but it's like cutting off the frayed end of a rope. You just get a new end that isn't frayed yet, and your buying time that way leaves you less rope.
So whatever the trick is - and it might not always be available, i.e. we might have to wait until an opportunity comes along rather than being able to do anything ourselves - it will have to involve buying time, using it, and all in an ad hoc way without setting up anything of a regular sort. I am impressed by the word picture John Bellairs paints of how things are in his fantasy novel "The Face in the Frost", and how they got that way, in the prologue. It is actually based on a free reworking of parts of European history and myth.
Published: July 13, 2007 11:35 PM
Anthony
"At least the classical liberals tried to develop the institutional mechanims to keep the State limited."
And yet it failed. Does this not signify that we ought to try something else? Sometimes I cannot believe the logic of minarchists. At the very least, it should be obvious by now that democracy and minarchy are incompatible.
Published: July 14, 2007 5:43 AM
Yancey Ward
I would actually modify RogerM's question to this:
In anarchy, what mechanisms will keep some people from imposing government?
I think this is where the anarchists really fail. Note that it doesn't even require a majority of the population of a given area to impose government, just the force and willingness to use that force. What counters this force? If it is any form of collective action, then we are back to the fundamental question of how to restrain this type of collective action towards undesired goals. I really have a difficult time differentiating anarchists from minarchists. I don't think the former really exist.
Published: July 14, 2007 9:25 AM
RogerM
P.M.Lawrence: "What can happen, and has happened, is that some group claiming to act on behalf of that fiction imposes socialism on everyone within reach."
That's not what happened in the US. The founders intended the Constitution to keep government limited, but the people, that is, the majority of voters, wanted socialism. Judges and politicians decided to violate the Constitution and give the people (the majority of voters) what they wanted. I think Rothbard makes this clear in his histories, especially the one about Spooner. No one has imposed socialism on the US; the American voters demanded it and still demand it. Some anarchists seem to think that politicians tricked the voters and forced a socialist government on them when the voters really wanted anarchy.
So my question is what will prevent citizens of an anarchist system from becoming persuaded of the moral superiority of socialism as have the American people? For even in anarchy, the judges will respond to popular opinion just as American judges have. If the citizens become convinced of the truth and superiority of socialism, independent judges will open the door for the establisment of a state and socialism. Unless, that is, anarchists think that anarchy will somehow make judges wiser and less corrupt (transform their character) than they were under limited government.
Published: July 14, 2007 9:52 AM
Kevin B.
It is all about education. It is about people setting their goals further into the future and getting it through their thick skulls that voluntary cooperation is good and coercion is bad. When humanity reaches that point (I'm not holding my breath), then they will have minarchy or possibly even anarchy.
As long as the next generation is taught the same foolishness, expect the State of some sort.
Published: July 14, 2007 12:36 PM
Jason
The great illusion of the day is that the state, democratic republic or monarchy can some how stay the tide of the masses they exploit. The second illusion of the day, is that the masses can somehow violate natural law, and remake reality to suite their desires. The only thing standing in the way of anarchy is public opinion, but at the same time public opinion is not sovereign, only God is sovereign. Thus if opinion does not change, then we still have won because reality will hit home and correct their ideas.
The State is not inevitable. It is not the result of education either. True education is the result of liberty. Do not mistake education for indoctrination. A change in education for the masses will not change the situation, unless people already have the a priori knowledge that they are free. That is the foundation that must be built on. This is a battle for something higher.
Published: July 14, 2007 1:22 PM
Kevan Huston
No, the state is not inevitable but the tendency for it for emerge and then expand is a constant. In answer to the question what institution exists in anarchy to prevent the emergence and then growth - nothing but the willingness and ability of individuals to defend themselves and their property consistent with the self-ownership imperative and the NAP. The defense of liberty is red in tooth and claw, an unassailable fact yet bitter pill for most to swallow. To the extent that man may live in anarchy depends upon his willingness to defend what is by natural right, his and his alone, pursuant to natural law and lockean homesteading. Lock and load, as it were.
Published: July 14, 2007 3:47 PM
Niccolò
"In the utopia of anarchy, what mechanisms will keep the people from choosing socialism if they decide they prefer it?"
What institutions should prevent people from choosing socialism if they decide they prefer it?
Let me give you a hint... None.
Published: July 15, 2007 2:27 AM
Niccolò
"No, the state is not inevitable but the tendency for it for emerge and then expand is a constant."
There's an entire series on this very site by Hoppe dedicated to showing people that the state in the beginning took a VERY long time to actually arise.
The lectures are all located here.
http://mises.org/media.aspx?action=category&ID=66
Suffice to say, no... A state is not inevitable. Is it inevitable that a penny will fly from my fingers into a fountain? No. But I promise you that it happens.
The existence of something does not mean that it is a necessity or an inevitability.
Why people fail to understand this, I'm not sure. True, we have a war we must fight and true, it will be a hard if not bloody and vicious one, but if and when we win, the idea that a state is automatically going to arise without further blood and tears shed, in a mere ten years is an absurd one that has absolutely no logical foundation.
Published: July 15, 2007 2:30 AM
TLWP Sam
It's interesting to ask at what point does 'State' and 'natural hierarchy' differ? Is it like 'welfare' vs 'charity', where one's voluntary and the other isn't? To the receiving poor all they see is money for nothing. Similarly, it's interesting to wonder whether people at the bottom of society aren't really going to care whether a Monarch is the descendant of bandits who enslaved self-employed farmers or a self-made farming family who hired farm workers over the ages and simply expanded their business empire? Would the disappearance of 'the State' really mean 'natural leaders' will take their place? When you hear of Libertarians such as Lew Rockwell speaking of 'natural hierarchies' and love of the traditional Catholic Church then probably yes.
Published: July 15, 2007 2:54 AM
Stranger
A state cannot be created by force. The privileged monopoly over law cannot be taken. It must be given. The people must willfully abdicate their rights to a ruler for him to achieve this power. Only ideology can accomplish that. From then on, it is possible for a state to conquer another state by force, but not to submit a free people. The U.S. army has been trying to do so in Iraq for four years and gone nowhere.
Since the state can only be given, it follows that it can also easily be taken away. All that is necessary is for a group of people to come together and refuse to obey any longer. Without the cooperation of any individuals of that group, the state will be powerless to respond.
Published: July 15, 2007 8:56 AM
Pellinore
Regarding the question of how anarchy would protect against new impositions of state or state-like power: obviously, it wouldn't. A moral anarchist surely could not attempt to impose his anarchic beliefs on another person who preferred, say, dying by the millions at the hands of a new Mao. What would prevent that imposition from effecting the anarchist itself would be violent resistance by the anarchist.
It's odd how many non-anarchists feel that the idea is flawed simply by virtue of the fact that it doesn't produce an ideal society for all, given that no other system in history has done so.
Pellinore
Published: July 16, 2007 12:52 PM