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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.
First of all I have to say that I agree with you on your major points. The philosophical difference between minarchists and anarchists is large in principle but small in practice, since we won’t be in the position of deciding whether or not a state should exist in any foreseeable future. The state may disappear in ten, twenty, a hundred or a thousand years but we all know that it won’t disappear tomorrow. A separate question is if there are some historical tendencies that will liquidate the state by necessity. I believe that there aren’t, but this doesn’t mean that the state couldn’t be liquidated nonetheless.
I, as you know but other readers might not, fall pretty neatly between the two categories in the sense that I don’t advocate many of those tasks into the realm of the states as most minarchists do. I do believe that the only absolute necessarily operations for a functioning society are a minimalist constitution and a collectively decided military budget. All matters between individuals can be dealt within private courts, with private law, private judges and private punishment.
In the end I’m of course a minarchist. I also do admit that minarchism is based on statism, since it demands that the society is fundamentally designed in some way from above or else it wouldn’t function. My main (and only) objection to anarchism is that an anarchistic society can not defend itself from outside forces. If a small anarchist society is neighbouring a large militant society (e.g. the Soviets) where the people don’t restrict the political power of the state virtually by anything via public opinion, the militants can take over a minarchistic society rather easily, since there is no army to meet them, there are only small defensive companies that are not prepared to a war against armored cars and tanks and missiles. Also, while states accept each others existence (and generally get into conflicts with one another) they view anarchistic societies as war zones or freely available land which sits there waiting for a grabber. When the US attacked Iraq there was a huge international community to blame them, since this move was illegal under international law. But when the US attacked Somalia, no-one said a word, since Somalia really wasn’t a state.
In contradiction to most minarchists, I wouldn’t mind waking up one day in an anarchistic society. That would be a dream comes true in the sense that I wouldn’t have to spread libertarian ideas and could do something more enjoyable with my time instead. The only issue is that anarchistic societies tend to be very unstable. Somalia didn’t last for too long, since it had both outside grabbers and inside warlords that wanted to force it into a state under their own regime. During Somalia’s time spent in anarchy it became of course a very productive society with before unseen rising in the standard of living. The same analogy goes for medieval Iceland. It had a great living standard despite the fact that Iceland is an island of rock, but it also ended rather quickly when the Church stepped on its soil. For some reason anarchistic societies are week in up keeping their legal a-systems, because they don’t provide adequate defences against unexpected outer threats. It’s not that anarchism couldn’t work in a priori economic theory – it does. It’s just that anarchism doesn’t seem to work in practice. The a priori theory isn’t wrong and it describes reality rather neatly, the a priori theory just doesn’t describe human psychology and when this is added on top of economic theory this seems to topple the a-system into a minimalist state in practice. This is an empirical fact (and empiricism shouldn’t be a part of economic theory but it is a fact of life).
I however do disagree mostly on your discussion on paradigms. The only way two humans couldn’t understand or reach each other is if their paradigms (in here minarchism vs. anarchism but another equally good example would be deism vs. atheism) would be based on feeling or the gut that x has to be as they claim, other vice this mental gap is reachable. While I do believe that politics (and religion) are among the most deeply rooted opinions men have, I still believe that they are based on empirical observations or mathematical/logical understandings and not feelings (which may play a part in the sense that many men may hang on certain opinions even if they know that they are false just because they want to believe that they are true). As you know, I haven’t read that much anarchistic literature, but I have read enough to understand the main arguments. I do not think that there’s anything fundamentally wrong with anarchistic theory, it’s just that thousands of years of empirical data shows that anarchism is unstable. Of course the only way to achieve liberty up to 100% is thru anarchism but as it empirically doesn’t seem to hold we ought to stick with the second best alternative with (around) 99% liberty and 1% statism.
Thanks for your interesting response, Stabu. I think there are a lot of things I can argue as a response to the points you make. But I will limit this comment to two of the major ones: defense and empirical facts.
I think your comment on the inability of anarchist society to defend itself from state attackers is somewhat misplaced. What you are really saying is that the attacker seeks power over the territory that is inhabited by anarchist antisystems. But the very essence of antisystems is that they cannot be “taken over”, which makes it very difficult to occupy and claim power over such a territory.
Let’s consider an all-state example. State A attacks State B with the purpose to increase its territory, power, population or whatever. The purpose of war throughout history has always fallen into one or many of these three categories. “Liberate” is not a real purpose of war, since what you are really doing as an attacker is “liberating” your own population from freedoms and monies – and the attacked from their lives.
Total destruction is not a real purpose of war – if it was, then e.g. China would already have attacked Taiwan. The reason they haven’t done so is that they want power over the economy. (The reason for not going to war often proposed in some literature, that the US has offered its support to Taiwan, is not a real explanation – it fails to correctly assess the real state of power distribution in south east Asia.) China doesn’t bomb the shit out of Taiwan simply because then there would be nothing interesting left to exercise power over.
The same logic applies to non-state territories: neighboring states will not attack for the sole purpose of destroying anarchist society. But the expected prosperity of a freed society should infuse leaders of state with a lot of “want” – want of power over the wealth of the free society. So what they really would want to accomplish with an outright military attack is increase in power.
But such increase in power is only possible if there is either (1) a power structure that can be seized, or (2) likely that such a power structure can be enforced. Now ask yourself, in which category would anarchist society fit best? There would be no power structure, no leaders, no government – and thus no structure to seize. So there would also not be anyone with the right or power to officially surrender – how do you “win” a war on such an enemy?
The only way of winning such a war is to create and enforce such a power structure, i.e., to create a state in a state-less society. But what makes you think people will accept it. In a true anarchist society, where there are no leaders, a foreign power cannot ever control the citizenry. They may establish a certain kind of rule, but they will also face neverending attacks from insurgents not accepting the newly established rule.
Thus, I think it is reasonable to assume a state occupying anarchist society would cause nothing but chaos. Such chaos is not rulable, and thus such an attempt would effectuate enormous costs on the attacking state. It is likely such a state would leave after a period of attempting to stifle insurgents.
As for empirical findings, I think you are completely wrong. You cannot simply compare “anarchism” with “statism”. Anarchism isn’t a system – it is a nonsystem. And statism is a set of systems. What we have seen throughout modern history is not a rule of The State – but numerous periods of state rule. The states have always been different. For instance, the democratic welfare state as we know it (the kind of state people nowadays simply identify as “the state” as if there was only one kind) has not even existed for a century.
It is true that absolute monarchism existed for a longer period of time, but I think you will find, if you research this, that the more invasive a state the shorter time period it will exist. The modern welfare state is already falling apart, and it will likely be replaced with another kind of state (probably even more oppressive, and thus with an even shorter life). It is not only technological advances that make the state’s life shorter – this is especially an effect of the real intrusion in the private lives of people.
So comparing anarchism, which is a nonsystem, with “system” (statism) is wrong. You will need to compare anarchism with one of the systems. If you do, you will find that anarchism is the normal state of human society. The state is a modern aberration.
But let’s get back to the issue of anarchism vs. minarchism. As I argue above one will need to, in order to make a sound analysis, compare anarchism with one of the failing state systems, not simply “state”. Where do you find minarchism as a stable system in history? You might argue that the United States was a minarchist state from 1776, but that should have ended already in the 1790s! Minarchism simply isn’t a historically viable alternative.
(Your comparison with Somalia is somewhat misplaced, since Somalia hasn’t been anarchist after colonization – only Somaliland has been. But this is not important for the argument thus far.)