Minarchy is statism. By ceding the moral high ground it makes it so you’re just quibbling on how much violence will control your society.
I meant negative liberty, which Billary has no interest in.
Brainpolice, the bulk of human history would suggest that states are natural. If we’ve reached the conclusion that states are undesirable, then what are we to do? I don’t think the situation is as simple as some make it out to be.
This is my quandary. I’ve long held Jeffersonian or classical liberal opinions about government, but have only recently started thinking more deeply on the subject. (As a tangential note, I was prompted by Ron Paul’s campaign and his statements about the Fed and the gold standard; one thing led to another, and suddenly I find myself reading Bastiat, von Mises, Rothbard, et al., and experiencing something of a metanoia.) Pursued to its logical end, individual liberty seems to demand a “private law society” where even functions like courts, infrastructure, and defense are maintained by “freely financed and competing individuals and agencies.” There are many obvious difficulties, and I simply don’t know if market anarchism would work. However, justifying a degree of coercive authority to the state as a matter of practicality (i.e. “it’s unjust, but useful”) seems rather contemptible.
I am a minarchist. I am not for or against anarchy. There is no simulation.
I am not attempting to justify it (I generally find arguing over anything normative to be useless). I’m just saying that states are like the stars: they exist, and there is no reason to believe they are going to go away in the foreseeable future. What are we going to do about them?
In some cases it does simply make more sense to pay protection money to an extortionist than it does to fight back. That doesn’t mean its right or just, but thats often how things turn out. Maybe its the same way with states? I really have no idea.
Trim it down in any way possible, up to 100% (that’s where minarchists differ)
I was once an Emerngency Medical Technician, and it was said that “Dead heroes don’t save lives.” It’s the same with the State, “Dead libertarians won’t erase the state.” That’s why we have to keep paying protection money until we attain critical mass, then we stop.
It’s not a positive liberty to say that all should receive the “benefits” of a single monopoly?
Yes, positive liberties should be limited, but they’re still necessary - otherwise you might have… ANARCHY! [:O]
Natural does not mean ordinary or consistent. Natuarl means as originated.
(To clarify, my comment about it being contemptible wasn’t directed at you, personally; I was speaking generally about my thoughts on the matter.) As for what to do about states, I agree with the previous post that we should try to limit them and make them as “small” as possible (with “100% gone” being the ideal).
Clarify: I am no uniarchist (Objectivists are uniarchists). That is, I am not for a big unified state with small government. I am a multiarchist. I support many tiny states competing against each other.
Hey. Don’t stop at the state level! Counties have governments too. Why should I be forced to live under a state AND a county government? (And of course, there are also parrishes, cities and school districts…)
Do they compete in the same geographical area? Or they expect people to vote with their feet, having each state exclusive jurisdiction over an area?
I prefer tiny dictatorial states competing against each other (when I mean tiny, I mean real tiny). That would have automatic check and balances. But I think we need an organization that would punish disbehaving states by threatening them with nuclear missiles. That organization thus have a monopoly on land (a state), since they can fly the most powerful weapons to all places that would coerce the small competing states. I am a minarchist just because I think we need such organization.
It is possible for a minarchist state to oppose taxes.
I think the current “Imperial Commander” in DC agrees with you and has already assumed that role.
I make another appeal for Truth in Labeling (as called for in the original post of this discussion). And again, I am NOT disputing your view of government, only what you are (mis)calling it.
Statism exists on a continuum ranging from TOTAL STATE (Totalitarianism) thru Communism, Fascism, Democracy, “Limited” Republic, mini-statism, micro-statism, nano-statism…but there is no MINARCHY. It is a made-up word that is devoid of sensible meaning! You either have NO government (Anarchy) or you have some government of varying degrees of severity as described above.
The general usage of the made-up word “minarchy” refers to some unspecified, presumably small, amount of government. If it means “a few rulers”, it means statism of some measure.
You cannot have “degrees” of anarchy (min-archy, max-archy, total-archy) because you cannot have degrees of NO GOVERMENT!! Anarchy means NO RULERS! ZERO, ZIP ZILCH.There is no “mini-zero” or “minzero” and there cannot be such.
Dennis
https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/disaster-statism/724
take a look at the diagram here - with supposed degrees of Anarchism - Totalitarianism on one axis that’s intersected by degrees of Socialism - Capitalism on another axis:
The diagram of “supposed degrees of Anarchism” suffers from the same nonsense as “minarchy”. My criticism applies to the diagram as well.
You cannot have “degrees” of anarchy because you cannot have degrees of NO GOVERMENT!! Anarchy means NO RULERS!
If you must think in terms of diagrams, this one is more appropriate–if you locate Anarchy as a dot ABOVE the top point:
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html
Dennis
Anarchy, means no government, where archos means ruler, and the prefix ‘an’ means none. Since the word min-archy no longer contains the prefix ‘an’, it effectively means a minimum of archos, or rulers.
Just thought of that. Seems to make sense to me.
Dennis - thanks for sharing that diagram, which is the most logical from a categorical perspective … the reality being - as you’ve been saying - that once you’ve stepped into ‘anarchy’ it’s the negation of any and all extra-authority, so that the diagram’s blocks are scale identifiers and not equal in size … with in fact ‘anarchy’ being but a line on the edge lowest edge of the ‘authoritarian scale’ (but yours puts the whole schema in correct positions, top-level. Thanks again
Fred Furash - I’d have to say your etymological breakdown seems cogent to me. And I contend that those using it do so over a term like ‘ministatist’ because it sounds more sophisticated and catchy (and let’s face it, in this post-Austin Powers era ‘mini-’ anything just puts a laser-humping diminutive guy into one’s head 
Such a self-designation sounds very Jeffersonian - as in the least amoung of government necessary - which sounds like a practical club worth considering (as in, going in the right direction, one brick at a time)
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/
In the above Econ site, in the lastest Assorted Links #1 - a related pdf file, study by one Morris Altman of U. of Saskatchewan - on Economic Freedom & GDP. A statement in the conclusion: “The level of economic freedom per se does not indicate if a particular economy has its economic freedom mix just right.” This work expounds an Economic Freedom Index and the proper mix of economic freedoms that may be required to achieve optimal growth.
Cheers, TomG
According to Wikipedia, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minarchism ) this 'minarchism" problem (as I stated it in message #1) started when the term was coined in 1970 or 1971 by Samuel Edward Konkin III, an anarchist.
Here is a sample showing WHY this term is not only unnecessarily confusing but also totally redundant with perfectly good ways of accurately saying exactly what is meant:
**
Not only is the continued use of “minarchy” unnecessary, it is TOTALLY RIDICULOUS–as in absurd, preposterous, ludicrous, even laughable that supposedly intelligent people would allow themselves to fall for and use such a deliberately obfuscating, meaningless, made-up word!
“Ministatism” and “ministatist” are each only 1 letter longer than “minarchism” and “minarchist”.
Is that such a terrible price to pay for Truth in Labeling?.
Dennis Wilson
I do not understand why “suddenly”–and for the first time ever–my most recent reply–in a discussion thread that I started–needs to wait for approval.
(and apparently THIS message does NOT need to wait)???