Minarchist?? Actually ministatist is more appropriate!
When I first encountered the made-up word “minarchist”, I had difficultly understanding what it meant. It certainly was not glaringly obvious. Eventually it became clear that most writers meant a person or position advocating some form of limited state.
Yesterday while reading an article by Mark Davis at http://www.strike-the-root.com/81/davis/davis1.html I discovered what minarchists have been trying to obfuscate with their made-up word, namely that MINISTATIST is a more appropriate and exact word for their position.
Will you join me in this entirely appropriate correction and help stamp out “minarchist” [the word] wherever you encounter it?
Dennis Wilson
“Government is an UNnecessary Evil”
“The Market for Liberty” by Linda & Morris Tannehill http://www.mises.org/store/product1.aspx?Product_ID=302&Category_ID=0&
DennisLeeWilson:Minarchist?? Actually ministatist is more appropriate!
libertarian: DennisLeeWilson:Minarchist?? Actually ministatist is more appropriate! Dennis is just promoting his "minarchists are statists" propaganda.
As if they aren't.
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Of course minarchists are statists. The term statist is a label, mostly employed by anarchists, refering to anyone who supports the state to any degree. Minarchists just so happen to be "minimal statists".
If you try to trick the market, it will get its revenge.
Solreyus
Brainpolice:Minarchists just so happen to be "minimal statists".
I'd like to add: "minimal" means the least possible. The least possible might as well be zero, the problem is that most minarchists have preconceived ideas of what the market cannot do, and will not be willing to try to have private courts of private streets, for instance. Then it is not proved that it is a minimal state, but only a smaller state.
Brainpolice:Of course minarchists are statists. The term statist is a label, mostly employed by anarchists, refering to anyone who supports the state to any degree. Minarchists just so happen to be "minimal statists".
Ehh, most minarchists (such as Milton Friedman, who said he'd rather be an anarchist) only "support" states because they see no other alternative. A lot of people just don't think anarchy is really possible, so they work for better and smaller government. You can argue that their reasoning is flawed, but its not accurate to say they all support states. They simply support minimal states over the other (more statist) means they see as being available to them to preserve freedom. Or put another way, their actions reveal an ordinal preference of minarchy > leviathan, but thats it.
Didn't SEK3 make up the word "minarchist" to tease Rothbard?
Grant: Brainpolice:Of course minarchists are statists. The term statist is a label, mostly employed by anarchists, refering to anyone who supports the state to any degree. Minarchists just so happen to be "minimal statists". Ehh, most minarchists (such as Milton Friedman, who said he'd rather be an anarchist) only "support" states because they see no other alternative. A lot of people just don't think anarchy is really possible, so they work for better and smaller government. You can argue that their reasoning is flawed, but its not accurate to say they all support states. They simply support minimal states over the other (more statist) means they see as being available to them to preserve freedom. Or put another way, their actions reveal an ordinal preference of minarchy > leviathan, but thats it.
I don't see what's so hard to understand about the fact that a "minimal state" is...well...still a state. Of course minarchists support states. They ideologically believe one is either necessary are inevitable or both. If the term "statist" refers to anyone who ideologically supports a state at any level, then minarchists are statists by definition. They're just the most moderate kind of statist possible. However, when I was a minarchist I used the term "statist" to refer to "big government" in contrast to "small government", so I suppose there is a different context to the word in minarchist jargon.
Of course, these days I would argue that a minarchist state is a floating abstraction, a contradiction in terms, an impossibility, a utopia. In retrospect, my entire time as a minarchist was spent in a state of cogntive dissonance, with me accepting and spouting anarchistic principles while refusing to take them to their logical conclusion, making arguements that basically debunked the very notion of a need for a state while still proclaiming a need for a state, professing positions that worked against my own in other areas, constantly getting accused of being an anarchist and having to backpeddle and explain away an inconsistant position.
Brainpolice:Of course, these days I would argue that a minarchist state is a floating abstraction, a contradiction in terms, an impossibility, a utopia.
Totally agree. Evidence and history tells me that a minimal state is more utopic (in the negative sense) than a free market anarch (The Fully Voluntary Society)
Grant: Brainpolice:Of course minarchists are statists. The term statist is a label, mostly employed by anarchists, refering to anyone who supports the state to any degree. Minarchists just so happen to be "minimal statists".Ehh, most minarchists (such as Milton Friedman, who said he'd rather be an anarchist) only "support" states because they see no other alternative. A lot of people just don't think anarchy is really possible, so they work for better and smaller government. You can argue that their reasoning is flawed, but its not accurate to say they all support states. They simply support minimal states over the other (more statist) means they see as being available to them to preserve freedom. Or put another way, their actions reveal an ordinal preference of minarchy > leviathan, but thats it.
So other than semantics, how is the charge incorrect? I'm certain that almost ALL statists merely see, "no other possibilities" than their perfect world. If you asked Billary Clinton, I'm sure it would say that it would LOVE to be an Anarchist, but because only universal healthcare, an outright banning of guns, and state-socialism can work, well... then they're just expressing a desire for a necessary evil. Come on. Don't try to play big-brother for the minarchists, they know better, but they merely choose to refuse to accept it.
While certainly an Objectivist-anarchist, I don't necessarily think minarchism is utopian or impossible. One could argue that post-Revolutionary War America was in a state of minarchy. If anarchism is possible, then minarchism is possible because a rational process of fully decontrolling the American economy would bring us to a minarchist state briefly before finally achieving anarchism. Free-market anarchism is simply much more desirable than minarchism as well as more consistent with the application of rational ethics to rational politics.
I seems though that, in your case as well as in mine and many others, libertarian anarchists were classical liberals, then Objectivists, then they became lured by anarcho-capitalism. It seems the intellectual movement to anarchism from liberalism mirrors the probable real-life movement (if one existed) from a mixed economy to anarchy.
Hard_Money:While certainly an Objectivist-anarchist, I don't necessarily think minarchism is utopian or impossible.
While certainly an Objectivist-anarchist, I don't necessarily think minarchism is utopian or impossible.
Of course not! But only because it's a relative position.
HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL YYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH
It is a little absurd to say minarchy>leviathan, if one actually knows what Hobbes meant by his leviathan. The leviathan is simply a state powerful enough have the right of death and life over a given territory, for Hobbes the state has to be powerful enough that people will be able to make genuine contracts and because of his conception of nature the state has to keep them in awe like a god. But essentially the function of the night watchman state is the same, while people like Locke had a sunnier view of human nature, their solution is functionally similar to Hobbes' leviathan. Both support an agency with the monopoly on the use of force, to allow contracts to be enforced, but there is just a difference in calculation of the state power required for the task. It is important to note that Hobbes was not for "big government" in any contemporary sense of the term, his view of the raison d'etat is simply to allow for self preservation of each individual, and thus enforcin contracts.
Minarchists are statists, just a particular kind as has been said numerous times already in this thread.
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Brainpolice:I don't see what's so hard to understand about the fact that a "minimal state" is...well...still a state. Of course minarchists support states. They ideologically believe one is either necessary are inevitable or both.
Yes, they support minimal states over the other means available to them. This doesn't indicate any sort of absolute support for the state, so they cannot be said to "support states" any more than a slave who chooses the kindest master is said to "support slavery".
Niccolò:So other than semantics, how is the charge incorrect? I'm certain that almost ALL statists merely see, "no other possibilities" than their perfect world.
Its the goals of Billary and the minarchist that differ. Minarchist libertarians support states over other options because they believe minimal states are the best way to preserve liberty. Billary just wants power, or at the least doesn't give a damn about liberty.
All I'm saying is that any faults in the logic of libertarian minarchists are positive in nature, not normative. It may seem odd to believe that using a dash of tyranny is the best way to get a lot of liberty, but there are many intstances where peope must make odd compromises to get desired results in complex systems. Honestly, the idea that academics can understand entire societies to the point of being able to dream up how "anarcho-capitalism" (or a constitutional republic, for that matter) would function seems incredibly arrogant to me. I don't think those sorts of efforts have ever succeeded in the past. I'm not saying such things aren't worth trying (I think they are), but just that those people who believe market anarchism would be unstable aren't so clearly wrong. No one will know what would happen in market anarchy until its really tried. I personally believe that there will always be states (extortionists) to some extent, but that market anarchy will create far fewer of them.
Most minarchists I know either just lack imagination, or are more focused on short-term results, not caring about some far-off political change.
Grant:Its the goals of Billary and the minarchist that differ. Minarchist libertarians support states over other options because they believe minimal states are the best way to preserve liberty. Billary just wants power, or at the least doesn't give a damn about liberty.
No, I don't think you're right. Billary wants liberty, but also understands that liberty cannot be maintained in anarchy and that, though the government is evil it's a necessary one.
Niccolò: No, I don't think you're right. Billary wants liberty, but also understands that liberty cannot be maintained in anarchy and that, though the government is evil it's a necessary one.
As we are all creeping inside Billary's head... I think Billary would love to see liberty, but she thinks she knows better than everyone and central planning is great. Liberty would just get in her way to do what's best for all of us.
I quote:
"The other day the oil companies recorded the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits. And I want to put them into a strategic energy fund...
-- Hillary Clinton
"State" is an abstraction. There is a difference between government, which arises naturally in all human organizations (neighborhoods, churches, sports teams, businesses...) and "the state" which pursues goals that a more propositional and ideological in nature.
Minarchy (by my reckoning) is a naturally-arising measure of government within the smaller denominations of social groups. It is natural and therefore legitimate. The trouble begins, however, when minarchies begin to cluster, then pursue the fancies of the inevitable dreamers within their midst.
Jefferson invented the idea of "ward-republics," influenced in no small measure by the autonomous town structures of southeastern woodland Native American tribes, to force (if I may use that word) Virginian localities to remain local. Of course, this remained on paper and never went into practice; ergot, the American Leviathan. There is also in many cultures is a centralizing tendency (the Bible discusses this in the Tower of Babel narrative) that believes collective arrangements to be the surest means of survival and prosperity -- a notable exception being the Native Americans (there are probably others).
Ah yes, the old government vs. state distinction.
Even if I accept such a distinction, I cannot bring myself to agree with the claim that minarchy is a "government" but not a "state", let alone that it is naturally arising. Minarchy is the idea of a minimal state. It still has the fundamental attributes of a state, not some kind of "private government". It is neither natural or legitimate, since it still violates the individual's sovereignty on a fundamental level. If the institution does not violate the individual's sovereignty, then it would do away with both the taxing power and all unjust claims of territorial monopoly. At such a point, it would cease to be a "state" and would be nothing more then a private institution that must compete on its own merits. Call it a "government" if you like, but this is basically a private institution in a market anarchy. But if the institution still has such powers, it is a state by definition. And I would argue that a minarchy is not natural, nor is it possible. Show me one example in history of a truly minimal state that fits the criteria for a minarchy. I don't think any such example exists, because by its own terms minarchy is a floating abstraction, a self-contradictary notion.
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