Per Bylund Commentary

In a recent blog post I elaborated a little on the fundamental philosophical difference between minarchism and anarchism. I also claimed the two philosophies, even though they often go together as distinct parts of the same movement, are really not two different expressions of the same fundamental conviction – they are parts of different philosophical and political paradigms.

The interesting thing about paradigms is that there really is no way of being part of both – the existence of paradigms is generally a situation of mutual exclusivity. Simply put, paradigms are “either–or” – not both. So you cannot really be part of both ways of thinking, you have to belong to one of them, and that will make you quite unable to understand the other point of view.

Another interesting thing about paradigms when applied on statism vs. anarchism is the fact that statism is very obviously normality. No one, at least in the western world, is born anarchist – we are all born in statist societies with statist people having nothing but statist agendas. So movement between the two paradigms, which might be called “individual paradigm shifts” (or rather: cross-paradigm travel), is necessarily from one to the other – not the other direction.

Of course, we shall not claim there is no one who is now minarchist but used to be anarchist. Those people do exist, and they might for all I know be many (it is just that I haven’t met very many), but following the fact that they were born in a statist society, presumably by statist parents, they must have traveled from statist to anarchist first. Traveling back isn’t half as difficult as taking the first step, at least I don’t think it is.

What this really means in the minarchist vs. anarchist debate is that there really are no minarchists who can fully understand the anarchist position, while every anarchist presumably has been a minarchist!

This should not be interpreted to mean that I claim minarchists cannot possibly fully understand the anarchist position (even though it is unlikely), and it also doesn’t mean that all anarchists understand the minarchist position. It is however less unlikely that any random anarchist libertarian would fail to understand the minarchist position in such a way that this failure exceeds the failure of any random minarchist to understand the anarchist position.

We need thus assume that it is more likely that any random anarchist would understand the minarchist position better than any random minarchist would understand the anarchist position, than the opposite. This is a very interesting conclusion – especially if we use it as a tool for analyzing a political-philosophical discussion between an anarchist and a minarchist. What do we get?

Well, the first conclusion we must come to is that the frequent misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and misconceptions between a minarchist and an anarchist should be mainly the result of minarchist ignorance. It is highly unlikely that the anarchist in such a discussion would be totally misunderstanding the minarchist position – the probability of the anarchist failing utterly to understand the minarchist’s use of terms and concepts must, judging from the arguments supplied above, be much, much less than the probability of the minarchist doing the same. Thus, most misconceptions and misunderstandings are likely the product of the minarchist not being able to understand the anarchist position.

What does this teach us? Except for the many deep problems of paradigmatic differences in philosophy, it doesn’t really tell us much. We cannot claim the anarchist is automatically right and the minarchist automatically wrong, but we can safely assume that the misunderstandings that are so common in anarchism vs. minarchism debates are mostly the result of the minarchist being unable to change mindset from the statism into which he (or she) was born rather than the inability of the anarchist to understand his own former position.

What you should learn from this is not for me to tell you, but one should be able to draw quite a few conclusion based on this preliminary analysis. I believe it should be somewhat comforting for the libertarian anarchist, while the minarchist might want to consider a more humble approach.

This should be one of the most frequently discussed issues in the world libertarian movement. It is one of a few “great divides” in the movement, and correctly so. This divide, however, is much greater philosophically than it is practically or politically, even though it is not often recognized as such. Instead, minarchists and anarchists tend to often agree “more or less” on the goals and how to get there.

But the difference between minarchism and anarchism lies not in the details, the real difference is in the very tenets of the philosophy: how one sees man, society, and how liberty is valued.

I was recently attacked (yes, “attacked” is really the right word for it) by an objectivist who claimed to analyze an article of mine on his blog (in Swedish only). The analysis is the worst kind of crap one can ever think of within the category “analysis.” It is completely based on a strawman, and the interpretations of my viewpoints are nothing but far out, to put it mildly. As a matter of fact, he fails utterly to understand my perspective, and even though I took the time to respectfully comment on his “analysis” he would not back down. Contrarily, he claimed, cheered by the objectivist readers of his blog, my questions were either insults or attacks on him (rather than his ideas).

Even though this might sound like a very unimportant point (which is true), the “analysis” and following debate in the comments section really, at least implicitly and – probably – unknowingly, hits the bull’s eye. It is straight to the point, even though this particular objectivist really had no clue he was this close to the truth.

What is so interesting here is not the arguments and comments back and forth, even less interesting were the rather obvious misinterpretations of standpoints. The points of interest here is really the fact that there were misinterpretations, and that they were of such magnitude (read: far off).  This fact tells us a lot, even though we should understand that some of the misinterpretations were in part results of a need to satisfy the objectivist audience and in part the limitations inherent in being “true” to the objectivist lingo.

But nevertheless these misinterpretations along with the obvious unwillingness to understand contra-arguments tells us something: there is a huge difference between minarchism and anarchism. This difference is philosophical as well as political and practical.

So how can we bridge this difference between the two factions? How can we understand “both sides” and through it conduct a real, neutral analysis of the differences in assumptions and arguments?

The problem here is that the two views are of different paradigms – one is radical yet stands firmly on statist ground (minarchism), the other (anarchism) has gotten rid of all mental ties to government and the need for its monopolized services. The question is thus not how to understand the arguments, but how to communicate across the boundaries of paradigms.

In this world we are all, at least in the western world, born statists. This means we all set out on life’s journey with a mind fixed in the tenets of statism: that people cannot take care of them selves fully, that chaos will doubtlessly arise if there is no exterior power making people respect each other and each others’ rights.

This is a basic assumption in statist theory – that a market, a society, a family, any group of people will degenerate into a Hobbesian “war of every man against every man.” There is always, the thinking goes, someone who will use the fact that there is no superior power to punish evil deeds, and thus whoever can forcefully claim power will do so – in his or her own interest.

Many classical liberals and minarchist libertarians would probably not agree that their philosophical view of man and society is based on Hobbes. But the inherent threat from other people is an underlying fact in most of the questions asked, like in the most frequent question of all: how would it work? Or rather: how could it work?

Would this question be this interesting if individual liberty was really the number one priority? No. Man’s liberty is a fundamental principle, a guiding such, that should not be subjected to practical matters – the choice is liberty or force, not exactly how liberty “would function.” Asking how it would function means the principle of liberty is subjected to practical details, and focuses rather on the political structure of society rather than whether it is truly free.

What is demanded by minarchists when asking this question is really a structure. The emphasis in this question is not on “structure,” but on “a.” Somehow any explanation of competing “systems,” decentralized protection of rights, and a market solution to justice is disqualified. Whenever the anarchist tries to answer the structure question the minarchist responds with asking for the guarantees of the system. Yet again a system is assumed as the only possible outcome.

How so? Why would liberty only be able to exist in an environment consisting of one standardized system?

The reason must be that minarchism is statist, if not in many (or most) of its policies at least in a fundamental sense: there has to be a system.

Minarchists wouldn’t (ever) admit that this is so, and they might be right in claiming so. But that does not explain why the questions asked – and the “solutions” demanded from anarchists – all seem to imply a need for A System. Minarchists simply have a lot to explain if they are not to be, by anarchists that is, identified as statists or archists. For one thing, why automatically disqualify competing systems of justice, i.e. a market solution for justice protection, while the market obviously is advocated as the superior solution to any other problem?

The blogger mentioned above makes the exact mistake explained here – he demands (as if he was in a position to do that) answers: how would you (i.e. me) make sure this or that is secured and guaranteed? The obvious anarchist response is “I wouldn’t,” but that is hardly convincing for a minarchist – just as it isn’t convincing to liberals, conservatives, or socialists. Power (used in a certain way) is not only asked for and “demanded,” it is a fundamental assumption – a given – in the philosophy of statists.

This is just a premier identification of statism, I do know that I do not offer any convincing arguments that minarchists are really nothing but statists. But a lot of minarchists tend to think they have traveled far on the political map and thus left everything called statism behind, while they are fundamentally assuming a state and thus an exterior guarantee to whatever scheme they wish to uphold. Why is this so?

I will return to the study of anarchism and minarchism in a future blog post, but this identification will suffice for now. Please do comment on my thoughts.