The Most Crucial Gap in Politics

[Jon_Irenicus]

Picture yourself wandering into a hall within which a large, all-male crowd has assembled, each man present anxious to argue his position on the subject of wife beating. Some attendees defend their right to beat their spouse whenever she has been annoying. Others regard that stance as too permissive, asserting that wives should only be assaulted over more important matters such as, for example, family finances. Yet a third faction holds that spousal abuse is only justified in the most vital cases and only if no less onerous means can guarantee the desirable outcome: for instance, when one’s wife will not contribute as much as one believes she ought to the family’s security.

You find the proceedings quite disturbing, as you consider assaulting any other person to be immoral, even if it appears to be the only way to achieve some important and otherwise desirable end. Violence directed at another, you hold, is only just in self-defense, and then only to the extent necessary to thwart one’s assailant.

Imagine your surprise if the members of the group that advocates wife beating only in extreme circumstances declares that they are your natural allies, proclaiming that the difference between your position and theirs is a trifling matter when contrasted with the large gap separating the minimalist beaters from those more enthusiastic about the practice.

Surely, you would demur, noting that what the minimalists have in common with the rest of the assembly, the willingness to assault one’s spouse if the end it promotes is seen as being sufficiently valuable, is of far more significance than is the fact that the amount of actual beating in which the minimalists engage (say, five beatings a year) is closer to your total (zero) than it is to that of the most aggressive abusers (who might launch an assault per day).

The above situation is analogous to the one I find myself in when, for example, I am at a conference and I hear a minarchist libertarian asserting that minarchists and anarchists are separated by a narrow divide that is almost undetectable if one takes a bird’s-eye perspective on the whole gamut of political positions currently being forwarded, saying, for example: “Once we reduce the scope of the state to providing defense and protecting life and property, then we minarchists and you anarchists will have plenty of time to argue about getting rid of the state completely.”

While I am perfectly willing to cooperate with anyone who shares a political objective with me, I believe the above conception, that minarchists and anarchists are practically indistinguishable aside from a minor and practically irrelevant disagreement is profoundly mistaken. In fact, when it comes to what I regard as the most vital political question of them all, the gulf between minarchists and anarchists is immense, whereas that separating minarchists and, say, Stalinists is relatively small: Anarchists reject the notion that it is permissible to employ violence against someone who has not themselves committed an act of aggression, no matter how much one wants to get that innocent person to cooperate in forwarding one’s desired ends, and no matter how important one believes that end to be. Minarchists, to the contrary, defend their right to initiate aggression in any circumstance where they see the use of coercion as being really, really useful. The difference between minarchists and totalitarians is one of degree: the totalitarian just sees many more of his political goals as being important enough to justify threatening innocent but recalcitrant people into contributing to their achievement than does the minimal-state libertarian. A socialist may argue that providing every citizen with free medical care is so valuable a project that it calls for the use of the State’s unequaled power to coerce cooperation, while the minarchist finds no end shy of the provision of defense against non-state or foreign-state aggressors prompts him to call for compelling others to support his aims.

Nevertheless, both of them agree that, if one regards the achievement of some goal as being sufficiently worthwhile, then it is acceptable to initiate violence against those of one’s fellow citizens who don’t embrace it voluntarily, and even against those who merely value it less highly than oneself. (That the latter is true can be seen by considering that, even if two people agree that the State should maintain an army to defend against possible invasion, they still may differ about how much wealth to devote to that end. Then the one who supports greater military expenditures must be willing to employ force against the other fellow simply to compel him to increase his contribution beyond the level he would freely choose, absent any threat.)

Nothing I’ve said above implies that a minarchist, or anyone else who supports the existence of the State, is therefore necessarily a bad person. Rather, I think that for the most part probably they are basically quite decent people who simply happen to hold a mistaken idea. Indeed, some particular anarchist may be in every other respect an all-together more miserable instance of a human being than is some particular statist, despite the fact that the former happens to be right on the one issue of the State’s right to exist.

Nevertheless, I see the anarchist/statist distinction as the most fundamental political divide. Once one accepts the notion that initiating aggression is OK under some circumstances, then the case for human liberty has been abandoned, and all that remains is to argue over what degree of enslavement is acceptable. Having ventured down that road, minarchist libertarians should not be surprised at the difficulties they encounter in resisting the expansion of their night-watchman state.

Source.

[JCFolsom]

Nice… and all too appropriate. This is actually one of the best-written pieces I have seen on the difference between minarchy and anarchy. Now, if we could only agree on what anarchy is…

[liberty_student]

Everything is a game of definitions.

[wombatron]

I agree, with one caveat: “radical minarchists”, those who belive in a government that doesn’t tax, conscript, regulate, etc. and has a free right of secession. That would, I guess, make them non-statist minarchists, and so your original point stands, but I think that it is important to distinguish those minarchists who merely advocate a smaller state and those who advocate a non-state government.

[Anonymous_Coward]

@wombatron

…but I think that it is important to distinguish those minarchists who merely advocate a smaller state and those who advocate a non-state government.

Yeah, I think we need a rule of thumb on this matter…

[meambobbo]

Jon, I don’t tend to agree with your white-washing of anarchy into a land free of coercion. Indeed, minarchism, in being monopolistic, must use coercion to secure funding. If it relied on voluntary funding, its power could easily be checked by a more market-desired power providing the same services - establishing anarchy. Yet, anarchy itself has no constraints on using coercion. If the market desires such, that’s what we’ll get. The only means to establish a free market is to take one step past anarchy, educating the market on the benefits of only supporting companies that serve to protect the free market, rather than violate it.

I am definitely in the anarchy camp. I think long-term dependence upon minarchy will follow its usual course, just like it did from 1788 to the present day. However, I believe there are only two directions to establishing anarchy.

One is revolution, although it’s hard to call it revolution when the government is acting outside its authorized limitations. This is the goal of agorists, which is but a faction of revolutionaries. There are revolutionary minarchists, and there are probably many revolutionaries who simply want control of a strong state apparatus. Some may be agents of other states. In my mind, the revolution route will not be peaceful. There will be massive collateral damage, both economically and personally. It seems the revolutionary path also is fueled by greater state power. The more tyranny there is, the more revolutionaries appear, only they may have vastly different goals. Thus, in giving input to the state, it may be more practical for revolutionaries to vote for greater state power while challenging that power in the streets. Consider bin Laden’s desires according to Michael Schuerer.

I think this route just has too much chaos. There is no guarantee the agorists will win out, although they can if they have great organization and push hard to establish public knowledge of agorism and effective replacements for government. The revolution may put a bad taste in people’s mouths, causing them to wonder what was so bad about life before the revolution, and call for a strong government to establish peace and order, with little concern for absolute justice. Only TERROR can create VIRTUE, a la Robespierre. That could be what we get, instead of a strong ability to establish justice and protect freedom.

The other path is gradualism. We can ammend the constitution to nullify it. We can vote for state-shrinkers. We can educate the public. We can establish charities and other organizations to sway people off government dependence. The basic point here is that the public can be shown the glory of anarchic freedom without blood. As you said, democracy is a good way to maintain the status quo. Well, if we work within democracy, progress will obviously be very slow, and not very outright rewarding. But if people start noticing that their lives are more enjoyable, progress can speed up.

…And there is no point to criticizing the practical results of either method. Both are young, requiring time to grow in numbers and general awareness. Both agorism and supporting Ron Paul like crack-heads have yeilded little results in changing the behavior and effectiveness of the state. But…both these movements are growing.

There is one common point that must be stressed: education. I have proposed market-based protection of a free market through anarchy to various older “institutionalized” individuals, and after rebutting their obvious initial concerns, they can’t seem to find any grounds for opposition. Both minarchists and anarchists can deliver information pointing in the same direction.

There is something we must learn, however. Compromise is the path to power. If we want to maintain a pure philosophy, resorting only to actions within this framework, we are bound to remain theoretical. Yes, it is quite unfortunate, but I would have to side with the seldom assaulters, for the example you gave. Anarchists and minarchists must “team up” to become powerful. In that we are basically both doing the same thing (spreading information), sharing virtually the same philosophy (as compared to our current state), we already are. I don’t like it, but I don’t feel this is the time to have the minarchy/anarchy debate.

[Stranger]

@meambobbo

We can ammend the constitution to nullify it. We can vote for state-shrinkers.

No we can’t. There aren’t and never will be enough of us in power to do that.

[fsk]

Consider this possibility. Suppose 51% of the population have decided that government is bad and they’re willing to vote for its immediate dismantling.

During the next election, there’s one statist candidate, who gets 49% of the vote. There are ten identical candidates saying “I promise to dismantle the State!” They all receive an equal amount of mainstream media coverage. They each get 5% of the vote.

Alernatively, suppose there is an anarchist candidate who gets 51% of the vote honestly, but the Diebold machines are programmed to register him getting 30% of the vote. Can you prove fraud occurred?

Pursuing reform by voting is a waste of time. There are too many dirty tricks that can be used.

[scineram]

Callahan, DAMMIT!!! I would have bet my wallet it was Rad Geek, Long as second choice.

[Morty]

@meambobbo

There is one common point that must be stressed: education.

Seems to me that if we could get enough people educated about liberty that we could amend the Constitution (requiring, as you surely know, a full two thirds of Congress and three fourths of the states), we could just have them engage civil disobedience and the state would collapse. In fact, we could have considerably less than that and shutdown the state.

[Jon_Irenicus]

Jon, I don’t tend to agree with your white-washing of anarchy into a land free of coercion.

“Your”? No, the article is by Callahan. I do have great doubts about the ability of political machinery to lead to anarchism.

-Jon

[Solid_Choke]

@liberty student

Everything is a game of definitions.

I tend to agree with this idea. To me, large defense companies and home owners associations are governments, but these aren’t the kind of governments I am opposed to. Also, if I own large tracks of land and set up a security firm to protect the people renting land from me and to enforce the law I am a “governor”. The difference between government and non-government is often a matter of defining terms, and not over the real content of the idea.

[meambobbo]

FSK, I have read your blog…and I as well have little faith the voting process or changing it. Morty, we will never gain that much POLITICAL power; I agree with you. Jon, I apologize for thinking you had originally written that. And yes, none of us will choose to give coercive agencies power; but in the face of radical political change and revolution without the understanding that anarchy, freedom, justice, and order can coexist, MANY will. This last point, to me, is the main goal of our efforts. Eventually, the government will fall, even if we do nothing. The dollar is doomed. Empires are doomed. Welfare states are doomed. Democracy is doomed. All government is doomed. It has trained the people into getting something for nothing, and when they run short on power to give, they will be rejected, especially as they try to escalate the coercive transfer of wealth. The real question is what will replace it.

This is a tough line to walk. Basically, my point is that we need gradual change. In this, figures like Ron Paul are great. You can get a bunch of Republicans on his side, then the media and the parties destroy him. Then these people wonder if they have any real power in democracy. Then you tell them they don’t.

Maybe the point is to use politics as an education platform rather than a sincere attempt to gain political power. It seems to me that’s what the LP is all about. Like, when you go to vote, you see Michael Badnarik (L), and wonder - who the shit is that? Then you go put some emails on the internets, and the pipes send you back the Libertarian Platform. A lot of people like to rag on the LP, because they are not “pure,” but many libertarians wouldn’t have gotten here philosophically without it. Our best approach is multi-faceted.

So…to put it bluntly, I don’t think we have enough philosophic power (which I will now define as popular support for a philosophy) or market power to establish an orderly, just, free anarchy anytime soon. Any looming revolution will probably be a regression. I think we are better off pushing the collapse back rather than escalating it forward. This is why I’ll probably vote for Barr, rather than vote for Obama (escalation of gov’t power) or not vote. Simultaneously, I don’t go around telling mainstream folk I want anarchic market-based provision of protective services. I tell them I support Ron Paul. After beating some common rebuttal’s down, I weigh it up - if an individual has an open mind and wants to actually talk about anarchy, then I’ll do it. But there are philosophic stepping stones that must be followed, with a different order for different people.

I am not anti-agorist, and I don’t think we will have massive progress inside the political system. Yet, the fact that it exists and many, many people believe in it means that we can’t simply avoid it or fight it.