Busting Myths about the State and the Libertarian Alternative

V. Busting the Myths about Libertarianism

Statists are very quick to dismiss libertarianism, but few statists, if any, spend much time studying libertarian ideas in depth. It seems odd that, even when presented with the opportunity to take a fresh look at the question of the state versus the individual, a statist wouldn’t first explore libertarian ideas before reaching a definitive conclusion. It’s almost as if the statist is afraid of what he might discover.

Due to their lack of substantive knowledge about libertarianism, statists subscribe to a number of myths about this political philosophy. There is a very rich body of intellectual work underlying the libertarian philosophy which answers all of the usual questions statists pose but which, sadly, is mostly unexplored by statists (a small subset of this work is listed in the Reading Guide at the end of this book).

This section is not intended to be a treatise on how a libertarian world might operate; that could be the subject of an entire book in and of itself. Instead, this section is merely intended to try to address some of the most common myths about libertarianism, and to whet the appetite of the intellectually curious reader.

What Is Libertarianism?

For the human species to survive and flourish, man must use his body to work the earth’s physical resources to transform these resources into products that satisfy humans’ needs. However, people and physical resources are scarce relative to needs, and thus conflicts necessarily arise as to the control of these human bodies and physical resources. In fact, it is more basic than that: the only reason that conflicts arise in society is due to disputes over who has the right to control physical property (i.e., human bodies and physical objects). This is because one person’s control of physical property necessarily excludes another’s. For instance, either I can stand in this physical space or someone else can, but we both can’t; either I can decide what to put in my body or someone else can decide for me, but we both can’t; either I can control this widget or someone else can, but we both can’t.1

Given that these disputes arise in all societies, political philosophy is essentially the search for a set of principles to determine who in such disputes has the better right to the physical property in question. These principles are known as “property rights,” and, if generally adhered to, can minimize conflict by heading off disputes in advance. Different political philosophies claim to have different property-rights regimes.

To the socialist, conceptually “the people” (as one mass) own all physical property. However, when it comes to actually making decisions about what can be done with this property, a much smaller group gets to make these decisions—the ruling elite—and thus in fact the ruling elite exercises all the powers normally attached to ownership. The rest of the people are forcibly prohibited from challenging the ruling elite’s decisions.

To the theocrat, conceptually either the deity owns all physical property, or individuals can own property but subject to divine constraints. However, when it comes to actually making decisions about what can be done with this property, a much smaller group gets to interpret the deity’s desires—the priesthood—and thus in fact the priesthood exercises all the powers normally attached to ownership. The rest of the people are forcibly prohibited from challenging the priesthood’s decisions.

To the democrat, conceptually individuals can own their own bodies and other physical property. However, when it comes to actually making decisions about what can be done with bodies and other physical property, a much smaller group gets to make these decisions—the elected class and their appointed agents, through legislation—and thus in fact the elected class exercises all the powers normally attached to ownership. The rest of the people are forcibly prohibited from challenging the elected class’s decisions.2

If the description of democracy sounds like a duplication of the descriptions of how socialism and theocracy work, then that’s because it is! In a democracy, the political class—meaning the combined executive, legislature, judiciary, and bureaucracy—can tell a person (a) what he is entitled to or must do with his body (e.g., to where he can travel, what he can put in his body, what work or leisure activities he can perform with his body, with whom he must work or otherwise associate, what he can say, what he can read, who he must or can kill, etc.), and (b) what he is entitled to do with his property (e.g., what he can keep from what he earns, what he can buy and at what price, how he can use what he is allowed to keep or buy, to whom he can sell it and at what price, etc.). The only material philosophical difference between socialism, theocracy, and democracy is how the rulers are chosen: in socialism and modern theocracies, it has most often been through violent revolution; in the case of democracy, it has been through a subset of the population voting. However, the voting process in a democracy doesn’t change the fact that no one who objects to the rulers’ decisions about property usage may opt-out, and do with his body and property as he pleases.

The libertarian property-rights regime, however, is quite different from every other political philosophy. It is this: no person may initiate aggression (or threaten the same) against another’s body or legitimate property. This is known as the “non-aggression principle” or “NAP.”

Consistent with the NAP, legitimate title to non-human property can be acquired only in one of three ways: (a) by a person physically working previously unowned property using peacefully obtained means, so as to objectively evidence the earliest direct control (“homesteading”); (b) through a voluntary transfer agreement entered into by one person with another who legitimately owns the property (“contracting”); or (c) by one person seizing the legitimately owned property of another who has initiated a violent act against the first person (“restitution”).3 In none of these ways does the new owner initiate aggression against another to acquire the property: in the case of homesteading, no one yet owns the property, so there is no one from whom to take it with aggression; in the case of contracting, the current owner is voluntarily agreeing to transfer ownership; and, in the case of restitution, the current owner, through his initial commission of a violent act, is “estopped” (prohibited) from objecting to the seizure of his property, on the grounds that he who initiates aggression cannot then complain about retaliatory force being directed back at him by the victim.

While the contracting and restitution principles probably don’t require much more explanation, the homesteading principle might.4

The first thing to note about the homesteading principle is that it is based on the idea that everyone has the best claim to his own body.

If a person has the best claim to his own body, then he must surely have the best claim to anything his body physically and peacefully produces (leaving aside any voluntary agreement that he enters into to the contrary). Thus if a person works previously unowned property, then he must have the best claim to the product of that work. It would be very hard to argue that someone else has a better claim to this product, for this would imply that this other person somehow has a superior claim to the first person’s body. And if every man has a superior claim to every other man’s body, then there is the problem of circularity—A controls B’s body and yet B controls A’s body—and it would mean that no man could ever act without getting everyone else’s consent, which would be impossible to obtain. Mankind would not survive.

The second thing to note about the homesteading principle is that it invalidates the notion that individuals at the state can claim previously unowned property as “public property.”

A mere verbal claim of ownership is insufficient; the person claiming to have homesteaded unowned property must have applied material physical effort to the property, and made it obvious to others that he is in control, e.g., by constructing a fence around virgin land, by putting apples picked in the wild into his basket, etc. A mere verbal claim fails to meet the previously mentioned objective of establishing a property-rights regime which minimizes conflict. If all that were necessary is a verbal claim—which only requires a trivial effort by the claimant—then everyone could allege that they made the first verbal claim, and they could allege that their claim related to all unowned property on the face of the earth. That would increase conflict, not minimize it.

In addition, since homesteading is intended to be a peaceful means of property acquisition, the person claiming to have homesteaded property must not have used violently obtained means, for then all the things that he does with such means would be tainted. Thus if the state were to use forced labor (e.g., prisoners, conscripted draftees, etc.) to apply effort to and delineate borders around some unowned property, or to use taxes to purchase the requisite labor services and bordering materials, then this would not qualify as homesteading, because the labor and/or taxes were coercively obtained.

The third thing to understand about homesteading is to consider the consequences of what it would mean to reject this principle. If the first person to work some unowned property is not to be regarded as the permanent owner (assuming he doesn’t voluntarily transfer it to someone else, or have it seized in a restitution procedure), then who should be so regarded? There are only three other possibilities.

First, everyone in the world owns such property in common, and thus everyone’s consent would be required before anything could be done with it. However, in this case, how could any decisions ever be made about what to do with this property? It would effectively be rendered useless. Mankind would cease to exist if no decisions could be made about how to use property.

Second, the property remains unowned despite the act of homesteading, i.e., no one could ever own property. If this were the case, then the effect would be that either all property would be rendered useless, or there would be perpetual conflict over property which could never be peacefully resolved.

Third, some other person who later acts on the property is to be regarded as the owner (a “latecomer”). However, if this were the case, then ownership would only ever be temporary. A person who owns some property at any point in time would have to live with the perpetual fear that a latecomer might come along and seize the property (and it’s not clear how a latecomer could legitimately “seize” the property from the current owner). This would reduce the current owner’s incentives to apply more resources to the property (i.e., to invest in improving it), as he would be liable to lose control over it at any time, and it would truly be survival of the strongest. Imagine the state of an apartment which has no permanent landlord and is liable to be taken over by a new tenant at any time. Mankind certainly wouldn’t flourish anywhere near its maximum potential if everyone viewed property in this way.5

There is not much more to libertarianism than the above principles, but the libertarian insists that they be applied consistently to every single human being, on the grounds that all men are metaphysically equal, so there is no cogent justification for some men being entitled to live by a different behavioral code.

Thus, based on the NAP, the libertarian rejects the notions that: (a) someone can force another person to do with his body as the first person requires, which is what the individuals at the state do when they regulate people’s actions, conscript them for war, and require them to serve on juries; (b) someone can take or control another person’s existing property without his voluntary agreement or a proper restitution procedure, which is what the individuals at the state do when they tax, seize, or regulate people’s property; and (c) the individuals at the state can legitimately claim ownership of previously unowned land, water, air, and natural resources lying beneath the surface, since these are claims made over unowned property using other resources which were illegitimately acquired.6

To anticipate a statist objection, when the libertarian states that people should be able to use their body and property as they see fit, this does not mean that they may use them to initiate murder, rape, kidnap, or assault, or theft or destruction of another’s property. Those actions would themselves be a breach of the NAP, and thus would be illegitimate in a libertarian society. However, the corollary to this is that those at the state may also not initiate these actions, which therefore rules out taxation, regulation, conscription, involuntary incarceration for non-violent crimes, etc.

To anticipate another statist objection, the NAP only proscribes the initiation of aggressive actions, but does not proscribe responding with such actions in appropriate circumstances. Thus A may legitimately use force against B in self-defense, provided B initiated the violence, and C may legitimately seize D’s property as restitution or retribution for D having initiated aggression against C or his property.7 The libertarian objection to the traditional actions of individuals at the state is that, through taxation, regulation, and enforcement, they initiate the taking of the property and/or the incarceration of others when these others have not themselves breached the NAP.

Libertarianism, then, is simply a philosophy about when actual or threatened violence is acceptable. However, libertarians recognize actual or threatened violence in all areas of society, rather than giving a “pass” to those at the state, i.e., libertarianism is a universal standard, not a selective one. But, beyond this, libertarianism does not prescribe any particular behavioral norms for mankind. Those norms are left to be defined by one’s culture, ethnicity, regional customs, family traditions, religion, trade, education, etc. Accordingly, the NAP is only a minimum, and not a comprehensive, behavioral standard.

Put another way, libertarianism is a philosophy which minimizes aggression while maximizing personal freedom. What’s not to like about that?

Myth #14: Libertarians Are Utopian!

Statists like to claim that libertarians are utopian, and that libertarianism is unworkable. It’s worth exploring these concepts a little further.

The Kids Get It!

Statists reliably teach their young children two basic rules governing interaction with other children, and these rules neatly sum up libertarianism: “Don’t hit the other kids, and don’t take their stuff.”

Yet when the statist’s child is old enough to learn about politics, the statist turns his philosophy around 180° and tells his child that, provided you can get enough people to support you (i.e., get elected), you are free to effectively hit or threaten to hit others, and to take their stuff.

Thus, by their own characterization, statists start out as “utopian” teachers to their children! If they only stopped there. . .

Exactly Who Is Utopian?

A commonly accepted definition of “utopia” is a place of ideal although unattainable perfection, especially in laws, government, and social conditions.

Consider, however, what the statist believes: (a) that individuals at the state, who have an awesome monopoly on coercion in a region, will only act selflessly and will impose limits on themselves;8 (b) that, as a result, “limited government” is possible, even though, in the history of the nation-state, all that has ever happened is that the state has grown enormously; (c) that there are some individuals who are so omniscient as to be able to discern a “common good” for millions of other people, and to efficiently manage the flow of society’s resources to attain that end; (d) accordingly, with respect to any particular economy, that relying on a coercively imposed, central-planning monopoly is more likely to maximize individual consumers’ satisfaction than decentralized competition; and (e) that use of centrally directed force as the first tool to resolve societal conflicts is likely to lead to a more peaceful society.

On the other hand, libertarians accept human foibles for what they are, and believe that these foibles are inherent in everyone, without exception, and thus look to mitigate the impact of these foibles by objecting to the centralization of coercive power in any individuals. The libertarian recognizes that there is no “common good” among millions of different people (or, if there is, no human could discern it), but that each individual has his own preferences, and that since no man could produce sufficient goods to satisfy all of his preferences, he must trade with others to obtain what he cannot produce for himself. In a truly voluntary society, the norm would be that, to obtain something you want, you first have to produce something someone else wants, and then engage in an exchange, which, by definition, means that there would be mutual gain (this is not a fantasy: although we live in a statist world, millions of these exchanges occur daily). Accordingly, everyone who is compliant would be looking to peacefully “please” others as the route to their own happiness, as opposed to being able to forcefully impose their needs on others (which is what the state allows people to do). Those who are not compliant, and who initiate aggression, could still be restrained or excluded by force.

To think about these differences in another way, consider goals. The statist has very lofty goals for which he wishes to employ the state, such as “equality,” “save the planet,” “no discrimination,” “free or low-cost healthcare, housing, and education for all,” “spread democracy,” etc. To attain these goals—if any of them are actually attainable—requires complex interactions among millions of humans, in specific sequences, and at specific places and times. No one brain or group of brains is able to comprehend, never mind plan and implement, the actions that need to take place. On the other hand, the libertarian goal is entirely within the control of each individual: don’t hit anyone or take their stuff.

Now, exactly who is utopian?

The statist never really compares the state as it actually works against the few glimpses of the free market that we could find in the real world, presumably because the evidence is so dauntingly adverse to his position; for instance, what serves consumers better, our state-controlled military, healthcare/health insurance, financial, and education systems, or the private-sector iPhone and bread-supply systems? Instead, the statist imagines that the individuals at the state have super-human powers to achieve the statist’s ambitious, but wholly unrealistic, central planning objectives, and compares this to the imperfection of the decentralized free market, which is operated by mere humans. This is not utopian thinking?

The libertarian, rather than expecting utopia, simply believes that the NAP is the most just governance principle, because it outlaws (although by no means eradicates) the initiation of force, and thus violent conflict. In contrast, the statist believes that the most just way to run society is to institutionalize violent conflict by empowering those individuals at the state to initiate or threaten force.

Only “Negative” Rights (Duties) Are Workable9

Moral philosophy deals principally with the search for just principles of interaction among humans. Three minimum requirements for a just system are that the principles (a) are technically feasible, (b) are universal, and (c) promote human survival. The first requirement hopefully is self-evident; it makes no sense to argue for principles that cannot work in the real world. The second requirement simply recognizes that all men are metaphysically equal, and thus no man has any natural entitlement to special treatment (for better or worse). The third requirement recognizes that the other two are not sufficient if we are trying to sustain humanity and human interaction (if we are not, then it is pointless to try to reason out a moral philosophy!). For instance, a philosophy that advocates all men commit suicide would be workable and universal, but hardly achieves much in the way of sustaining humanity.

So how do libertarianism and statism measure up as moral philosophies?

Libertarianism’s central principle is non-aggression, which is a negative right. As such, it is a behavioral standard that, as a technical matter, can be universally applied, meaning that it is technically possible for every man to live by this standard concurrently with every other man. This is because the NAP simply outlines what one cannot do to his fellow man, namely, initiate interference with his body or property. There cannot be any conflict among men if everyone’s negative rights are respected. Everyone could live with and profit from the non-initiation of force at the same time (however, as noted earlier, but it bears repeating, the NAP is a minimum, as opposed to a comprehensive, behavioral code). Thus the libertarian philosophy provides a workable, universal standard and, as noted above, it also inherently discourages (outlaws) violent conflict, and hence promotes human survival.

In contrast with libertarianism, the statist’s philosophy has many positive rights embedded in it, meaning that it prescribes what one man can take from another’s property or require of another’s body (through taxes and regulations, backed up by the threat of force).10 The reliance on positive rights backed by the initiation of force means that statism cannot provide a workable, universal standard that promotes human survival. First, one man’s positive rights necessarily conflict with another man’s negative and positive rights. As to the positive/negative rights conflict, the person who is forced by another to give up something he owns, or do something with his body, has his negative right to be left alone violated, so the statist must necessarily argue that some men don’t have these negative rights (but why, and how are these men to be identified?). As to the positive/positive rights conflict, given scarcity, positive rights cannot be universally applied to and enjoyed by every man concurrently, as not everyone could enjoy the right to the same physical object at the same time. In fact, only one man could use any physical object at a time, so who gets to choose who prevails? Second, if the statist argues that his philosophy involves a universal principle, then he would have to argue that every man has the right to use force to take what he wants. Does that really make sense as a behavioral standard to promote human survival?

Accordingly, whereas the NAP is technically feasible, universalizable, and designed to discourage conflict, statism’s use-of-force principle is either not universal (if it implies that only some men are entitled to initiate force), or is an “all against all” principle that can only lead to ultimate societal degradation. Hence I would argue that it is statism, as opposed to libertarianism, that is not a workable moral philosophy.

* * * * *

To the extent that the statist is aware of the NAP, he often misunderstands its implication. One major criticism levied by statists is that believing in the NAP is nice, but it’s just like saying “Do the right thing,” namely, it’s apt to regularly fail, since some people would still act aggressively. However, the purpose of the NAP is not to eradicate aggression (although the more people who subscribe to the NAP, the less aggression there would be) but, rather, to allocate liability based on this principle. Libertarians fully recognize that there will always be aggression and disputes, but suggest that the NAP be the guiding principle in resolving these disputes.

Myth #15: It’s Every Man for Himself!

This is a favorite among statists. They envision the libertarian as a rugged individualist, perhaps a survivalist, who wants to “live off the grid,” on his own island, barely interacting with others. This only shows how poorly statists understand libertarianism, society, and basic economics.

There’s More to Society Than the State

In between the individual and the state, there are many voluntary forms of association. There are families, neighborhoods, businesses, marketplaces, religious groups, common interest associations (e.g., athletic groups, artistic groups, musical groups, etc.), charities, mutual-aid societies, etc. All of these groups allow humans to voluntarily interact with each other to serve their needs. Since they are voluntarily formed groups, interactions only occur because the respective parties believe that they will each benefit.11

All of these forms of association and their related human interaction would continue to exist in a libertarian world; only the state would cease to exist. Statists wrongly perceive the libertarian as being for only one thing, namely, himself. In fact, the libertarian is not for any one thing, rather, he is against only one thing, namely, the initiation or threat of force, whether by an individual aggressor or the state.

Only Individuals Have Rights

Statists misinterpret the libertarian focus on “individual rights.” This does not mean that libertarians are against groups. Rather, it simply means that, to the libertarian, rights are defined at the individual level; only individuals can have rights and be wronged. While the libertarian advocates for every individual to have the right not to be coerced, he is not arguing in any sense against the existence of, or participation in, broader societal groups (if voluntarily formed).

In contrast, the statist is category-focused. He puts each individual into one or more categories (e.g., “blacks,” “women,” “workers,” “the wealthy,” “immigrants,” etc.), regards each individual in a category as being identical to every other when it comes to advocating for state policies, and believes that rights are “group rights.”12

Libertarians regard each individual as unique and irreplaceable. Thus the libertarian is the champion of each individual as his own sovereign being, and not just as some member of a category.

Not Isolationist

The libertarian is a staunch advocate for free trade between individuals, which contradicts the notion that libertarians are isolationist.

As discussed earlier, no man could produce for himself all that he needs, and any man would be foolish to try to do so, since every man can profit from specializing in what he does relatively better, and trading with other men who do other things relatively better. This concept—the division of labor—has been one of the greatest boons to global wealth creation over the past few centuries, and is partially responsible for moving man out of a subsistence existence to where he is today.

The libertarian recognizes this, and his “individual rights” principles do not in any way reduce his appetite for specialization and trade. All libertarianism demands is that specialization and trade be voluntary, not coerced.

Only Individuals Can Act

The statist assumes that his preferred form of collectivism is superior to the so-called “individualism” that he sees within libertarianism, without really thinking too hard about what collectivism means.13

A group cannot think or act; only individuals can think and act. Thus, even within collectivism, some individual has to make and implement a final decision. That individual, as a human being, would bring to that decision and its implementation his personal biases, incompetence, and ideology.

Under statism, the ruling individual’s personal biases, incompetence, and ideology would, through his enactment or enforcement of legislation, or execution of foreign policy, be coercively imposed on everyone under his rule, whether they want to have any interaction with this person or not. In contrast, in a libertarian society, no individual’s personal biases, incompetence, or ideology would be imposed on anyone except for those who voluntarily choose to interact with that individual (assuming, of course, that such individual is not violating the NAP).

In other words, statism is really just one person’s individualism forcibly imposed on others.

Myth #16: Libertarianism = Chaos!

Statists assume that the absence of government in a libertarian society means an absence of governance, and thus that libertarianism implies societal chaos. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Market Could Provide Law and Security

Libertarianism assumes that there would be conflicts that would need to be resolved, requiring adjudication tribunals using developed bodies of law, similar to how today’s courts function. Libertarianism also assumes that there would be aggression, both from individuals and, if they exist, states, thus requiring protective services, similar to today’s police and military forces.

The principal way in which libertarianism differs from statism in the areas of law and security is that libertarianism implies that policing, courts, and defense would, like all other services, be provided by competitive suppliers who would only earn revenues from customers who have freely entered into contracts with them. Accordingly, these service-providers would have to provide ongoing value and innovation to keep their customers. Contrast this with statism, where these types of services are generally provided by a state monopoly, which means compelled revenues in the form of taxation (likely increasing over time), and ever-lower service levels.

Libertarianism also assumes that bodies of law would be developed locally from the ground up through adjudication of actual disputes, as was the case historically before states forcibly assumed legislative power (as discussed earlier). Contrast this with the arbitrary, top-down, statist legislation of today that applies to all citizens prospectively, even those not involved in any dispute.14

The statist’s argument in the area of law and security is essentially the “public goods” argument, namely, that if we don’t have a state monopoly providing these services, then these services wouldn’t be provided at all, or else only in insufficient amounts. Earlier I detailed the problems with the “public goods” argument from the historical, moral, and economic perspectives, and so will not do so again here.

However, the statist’s argument also fails because it does not acknowledge that history shows quite convincingly that, if there is demand for a product, then individuals will rise to the occasion and develop the product without the state’s involvement (sometimes as entrepreneurs, other times as end-users). Simply because the statist sitting in his living room can’t envision how this would unfold doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t get done; it just means that the statist is clearly not going to be the person who develops the solution! No one ever sat down and centrally mapped out how money or language might develop. There was a need for these two concepts, and so individuals engaged in trial and error until they found the optimal solutions (at least until money was forcibly taken over and debased by the state for its own ends). The statist cannot explain logically why the default should always be a coercive, monopoly provider simply because he cannot conceive of how something might develop differently.

It is beyond the scope of this book to go into detail about how law and security services might be provided in a libertarian society. No one could say for sure, just as no one could have predicted in advance how things such as today’s communications technologies or variety of breakfast cereals would develop. Indeed, if it were possible to specify exactly how things would be configured in the future, then that would be the best argument for statism, as then central planning might work!

There is, however, a very rich body of intellectual work that exists in this area to provide some guiding thoughts, based both on historical and current examples, and compelling logic. Drawing on this material, below I will provide a glimpse of what a libertarian law & order system might look like. I will discuss national defense separately, later.

Self-Defense

The first thing to note relates to self-protection. To minimize resistance to the state’s edicts, states typically seek to disarm their citizens through gun-control legislation. The alleged “deal” imposed coercively by the state is that citizens give up their right to arm themselves in return for the state’s protection from violent crime. Yet when the state’s police cannot realistically be at the scene of every (or perhaps any) violent crime while it is actually occurring, of what value is this “deal”?

In a libertarian world, there would be no restrictions on firearm ownership, which would significantly increase each citizen’s self-defense options.15 Of course there would be liability, as there is today, for misusing firearms to initiate aggression against others.

Policing

Beyond enhanced self-protection, in a libertarian world, instead of being forced to pay taxes to the state to fund a “one-size-fits-all” police force, individuals would choose among different “protection services” firms, and voluntarily pay them for their services. These service-providers would compete on price and service, and would offer a menu of different options. Unlike the state’s police, those providers that fail to serve actual customer demand would go out of business, and those that meet demand would make profits.16

There might be firms that specialize in residential-premises protection, and others that specialize in commercial-premises protection. Some might emphasize “feet-on-the-street,” preventive community policing, others might prefer the technology-based approach to surveillance, and still others might provide undercover policing. Some might arm their personnel with firearms, others merely with less lethal means. Some might focus on hiring certain ethnic types to provide ethnic-group-oriented services in the appropriate neighborhoods.

Unlike the state’s police, security firms would have no special immunity for their actions. Those firms that act with excessive violence when performing their services would lose customers who do not support this type of policing and, as word gets around, they might not be able to attract new customers. They might also face lawsuits from those against whom they act with excessive violence; if they lose these lawsuits, then payment of the judgments would increase their operating costs. Such companies might then try to pass these higher costs on to their customers in the form of higher prices or reduced services. However, this would cause these firms to lose customers to competitors which have lower operating costs because they are less violent, and thus could offer better pricing and/or service options.

Criminal Justice

Crime would no longer be something for which the state takes action; it would exclusively be a matter between the victim and the aggressor, and victims would be able to take action against aggressors without being stymied by state intervention.

The definition of “crime” would be limited to initiating aggression against another person’s body or legitimate property, i.e., there would be no victimless “crimes” arbitrarily created by state regulation. Thus the law would once again become comprehensible to everyone, and policing by security firms would be more focused and thus more efficient; these firms would only be concerned with protecting against or investigating actual violent acts against person or property.

Instead of the state’s approach to punishment—which tends to be focused on deterrence and rehabilitation (although the state’s system is woeful at achieving even these objectives)—different punishment systems would arise in different communities, based on what is acceptable in those communities. It is likely that these systems may all be based on restitution, but some might also provide for retribution.

Victims who, for ethical or practical reasons, don’t want to exact the maximum acceptable punishment on their aggressors could agree with the aggressors on lesser punishments on a customized basis. A victim who exacted more than an acceptable punishment on an aggressor would himself be liable to be sued by the aggressor for unjustified violence, which would therefore place limits on how aggressively victims act.

Adjudication of Disputes

Disputes would be adjudicated by private mediation and arbitration firms.17 Different firms would offer different types of dispute-resolution procedures, with some specializing in different subject matters, and others specializing by geography, religion, culture, or other factors.

Those “judges” who develop a reputation for fairness and subject-matter competence would garner more business, and those who develop a reputation for undue bias and/or incompetence would lose business.

Different groups—such as Catholics, orthodox Jews, Quakers, those against capital punishment, etc.—might prefer to use their own forums to adjudicate intra-group disputes, so that they could ensure that their own customs are taken into account. For inter-group disputes, the parties would have to agree on an independent adjudicator, and when successful, independent adjudicators render judgments acceptable to both groups, this would cause the different groups’ legal norms to converge.18

Enforcement

If a victim couldn’t or didn’t want to pursue an aggressor himself, then he might be able to retain an enforcement company to do this for him (or even sell this company his right to punish the aggressor).19 Perhaps the enforcement company would be entitled to a fee based on the speed of solving the crime, and/or the amount of compensation it recovers for the victim from the aggressor. Therefore, unlike today’s police, such a company would be aligned with the victim’s interests, and would be highly motivated to solve the crime, pursue the aggressor, and exact the punishment. Yet, unlike today’s police, this enforcement company would have no special immunity. Accordingly, if this company employed excessive violence in its activities, then it could face lawsuits from the original aggressors, and thus potentially incur higher operating costs, as well as develop a bad reputation, all of which could spell trouble for its business model.

If an aggressor developed a bad reputation by (a) being a repeat offender, (b) not submitting to dispute-resolution procedures, or (c) not complying with judgments against him, then, depending on societal norms, then he would risk being subject to force and/or being ostracized by his personal and/or business community, and he could be excluded from local trade or employment or, since all property would be privately owned, by the owners of local roads, stores, schools, etc.

Companies might arise which specialize in tracking such aggressors, creating easily accessible “reputation reports” like today’s credit reports; these reports would be used by the community to deny such aggressors access to all sorts of private property, employment, or trade. Thus, rather than forcibly remove these aggressors to the brutal confines of today’s state prisons, the community’s punishment might be widespread physical exclusion.

Detention

For those aggressors who are sufficiently ostracized and thus have nowhere else to go, detention companies might arise which offer room, board, and employment, provided these aggressors agree to certain behavior guidelines and supervision. If aggressors owe debts to their victims (or the victims’ enforcement companies) which they cannot pay, then these detention companies might purchase these debts, and give the aggressors the opportunity to work off their debts in the employ of the detention companies (or their nominees) while being confined as agreed.

The detention companies might offer to the aggressors to certify to the reputation-tracking companies that, once the aggressors have worked off their debts and/or maintained certain behavior standards, they are deemed “rehabilitated” and could be taken off the list of those to be shunned by society.

Unlike today’s state prisons, the detention companies might compete with each other to attract aggressors, since they could make a profit on the aggressors’ labor, and thus there would be some efforts to provide acceptable living conditions for the aggressors. If these detention companies breach their agreements with the aggressors, or employ undue aggression against them, then they could in turn be sued by the aggressors. In this type of environment, the aggressors are much more likely to be rehabilitated, and gain/maintain valuable job skills, than they are in today’s “rape factories” and “violence training camps” that masquerade as state prisons.

The Role of Insurers

As a final thought, it’s likely that individuals and businesses wouldn’t necessarily have to contract with all of these different companies separately to obtain these services. Instead, life, health, property, and liability insurers might undertake the effort to choose, contract with, pay, and monitor the various service-providers, and bundle a “law & order package” into their insurance policies.20 The benefit to the insurer arises because the insurer is the firm which would be liable to compensate a policyholder who is the victim of aggression, so if the protection services could reduce violent crime, and the adjudication and enforcement services could speed resolution of disputes, then the insurer’s costs would be lower.

In the case of a dispute between two policyholders with the same insurer, the insurer could easily direct resolution of the dispute, because the two policyholders would have agreed in advance to be bound by the law & order systems the insurer put in place.

With respect to disputes between policyholders with different insurers, insurers would be motivated to establish among themselves, in advance, dispute-resolution procedures to cover these instances. This is because (a) each insurer knows that there will be multiple such situations over time, in which sometimes their policyholders would be the victims and other times the aggressors, so they have to act fairly at all times if they expect reciprocity from other insurers, and (b) it is always less costly to resolve disputes peacefully rather than violently.21

Insurers would also be motivated to try to alter the behavior of their policyholders to reduce the incidence of violent disputes and the quantum of losses. This happens today: insurers offer reduced premiums for defensive living (e.g., for installing a burglar alarm, taking a “safe driving” course, etc.), and use deductibles to ensure that policyholders have some “skin in the game” before the insurance kicks in (to reduce moral hazard).

Myth #17: We’d Be Defenseless!

The last thing a statist will ever concede is that defense against external aggression does not have to be provided by the state. The statist just knows that this is the “public good” par excellence.

To the contrary, earlier I discussed the defects in the so-called “public good” argument in favor of state-provided national defense. There is nothing distinctive about any good or service, even national defense, that could ever justify such good or service being supplied coercively by a monopoly.

So how might this work in a libertarian society?

A Stateless World Would Have Less Conflict

In a stateless world, there would likely be much less need for collective defense capabilities against external aggression.

Much of today’s international conflict arises because one state acts aggressively towards another, either attacking that state, or provoking an attack by seeking to interfere in the other state’s operations. States do this because the individuals at the state responsible for this aggression (a) do not do any of the fighting themselves, and (b) can coercively seize their citizens’ income to pay for this aggression.

In a stateless world, very few men would travel to foreign territories at their own cost to physically fight strangers to try to conquer their territory, or stay there to try to influence their society.22 Likewise, few men would be able to afford or want to spend the billions of dollars spent today to hire other men to travel overseas to seize territory or influence another society.

Another source of conflict today is individuals at the state oppressing segments of their own population based on race, religion, ethnicity, etc. And sometimes internal oppression by state A also leads to inter-state war, as another state, state B, attacks state A to try to stop this internal oppression. Again, the individuals leading state A can engage in this oppression at minimal personal cost, because they have others both doing the “dirty work” and coercively funding these activities (so too with the individuals leading state B in attacking state A).

Imagine if these men had to engage in and/or fund the violence themselves; there would be a lot less of it.

Internal oppression is partly facilitated by the state disarming its citizens through gun-control legislation. The most oppressive regimes in history have generally preceded their program of violence by prohibiting the private ownership of firearms, often justified as necessary to reduce violent crime. However, if only the state is armed, then the group targeted for oppression is defenseless.

In a libertarian world where there would be no restrictions on firearm ownership, it would be much harder for one group to oppress another, since the target group could be fully armed too.

Widespread firearm ownership would also be a reason to expect less inter-societal conflict. If a man wanted to hire a group of aggressors to travel overseas and seize territory, then they would face an armed population fighting to defend their own families and property, which history has shown is the most difficult force to defeat, e.g., in ancient times the Greek cities holding off the Persian Empire, the Viet Cong vs. the U.S. invaders in the 1960s, and the Afghanis vs. the Soviet invaders in the late 1970s.

Another factor tending to increase conflict in today’s world of highly centralized states is that it is relatively easy to control vast amounts of territory simply by winning a state-versus-state war. In highly centralized states, a relatively small number of people and institutions control all of the internal territory, and thus an aggressor state only has to win control of the other state’s locus of power in order to gain control over the other state’s entire territory, as opposed to physically fight on each square foot of this territory.

In a stateless world, however, there would be no locus of power to seize control of. In a sense, the aggressor would have to defeat every single household, one at a time. That is almost an impossible task that would surely stretch an aggressor’s resources intolerably, particularly given that, after seizing each house, the aggressor would also have to hold it indefinitely. History has shown that the most difficult part of a prolonged war is seizing and holding more and more ground, because this stretches supply lines to the breaking point.

The final point to make relates to the importance of free trade. States often erect prohibitions or restrictions on individuals in one state trading with individuals in another state, through the imposition of sanctions, tariffs, quotas, exchange controls, regulatory distortions, etc. These trade barriers make war less costly; if individuals in state A already cannot fully and freely trade with individuals in state B, then the cost of state A going to war with state B is lower, since there is no (or less) commercial trade that would suffer.

In a stateless world, however, there would be no artificial trade barriers. Everyone would be free to trade with everyone else. This effectively increases the cost to any society of starting a conflict with another society, since such a conflict would risk damaging or destroying actual or potential customers and/or suppliers. Put another way, the more free trade that exists, the less likely is war, since it makes no sense to degrade key parts of one’s own economic ecosystem.

Libertarian Defense in a World with States

That is all well and good if there were no states at all, but what if a libertarian society existed in a world with states?

The first point to note is that a few of the above concepts would still be valid: there would be no aggressive activity by the libertarian society directed towards states, so there would be less provocation sparking conflict; an aggressor state would face an armed population in the libertarian society; and there would be no locus of power to seize to obtain control of the libertarian society’s territory. In addition, individuals in the libertarian society would be eager to trade with individuals in the existing states, and, to the extent that such trade existed, as noted above this would increase the cost to those states of attacking the libertarian society.

However, there is also reason to believe that individuals in a libertarian society would still demand some protection against potential aggressor states. Where there is demand, production is sure to follow.

Of course the general demand for protective services would be quite different in a libertarian society. Since there would be a range of services to purchase, and each individual would be voluntarily choosing whether to purchase these services and, if so, which ones, he would be a lot more discriminating than are citizens of states (who get no choice, and are compelled to pay). There would likely be little to no demand for offensive capabilities to project force around the world and interfere in other societies; demand would likely exist only for purely defensive and rescue capabilities. Indeed, some individuals might decide that, since their society is no threat to others, the chances of an invasion are low enough to conclude that it would not be worth purchasing any protection at all.

Instead of the coercive, monopolistic provider of protection that is characteristic of today’s states, in a libertarian society there would be numerous competitive providers offering different products tailored to customers’ actual needs. Such providers would have to offer value to their customers, since they would need to persuade customers to voluntarily part with their money.23

Perhaps those in coastal societies would want to pay for some water-borne defense services, but those in the middle of a large land mass might not. Those in difficult-to-reach mountainous regions might decide to forego purchasing much in the way of defense services, figuring that the terrain is sufficient protection against invasion. Those living in high-profile cities which could be likely targets might want to pay up for more protection, and those living in rural areas might want less.24 Those who live in high-risk target areas might want to purchase missile-defense protection, and, if this is too expensive, then they could either move, or try to persuade others of their fears and have them pay for such protection too. Those who travel overseas a lot might want to purchase highly mobile, skilled bodyguard and/or hostage-rescue services, while those who don’t travel much wouldn’t have any interest in spending their money on these types of forces.

Just as in any other industry, competition among defense-service firms would tend to bring (or at least hold) down prices, and increase innovation and quality. A provider of defense services that engaged in the type of aggressive activities undertaken around the globe by the U.S. government today, and/or which is constantly involved in violent conflict with states, would find its costs increasing dramatically, and thus it would have to increase its prices or cut its other services to remain profitable. If its customers were not willing to pay higher prices or accept a reduction in service, or they disagreed with the service-provider’s actions, then they would look to competing, less-aggressive, and thus lower-cost providers. Likewise, a provider that didn’t deliver adequate protection would gain a bad reputation, and would lose customers to competitors.

What if a private protective-services-provider fails in its duties? Lives are at stake. Yet this is no different from today with the state. What if the state fails? In the U.S., see Pearl Harbor, the first attack on the World Trade Center, 9/11, the Boston Marathon, etc. The difference is that, in a libertarian society, such a private provider would go out of business, whereas today the state just continues to be the monopoly provider (and in fact grows its budget with each failure to protect!).

Collective Defense

As noted earlier with respect to law & order services, it is not likely that individual consumers and businesses would have to select, contract with, and monitor each provider for each type of defense service.

For instance, developers of residential communities, and owners of industrial parks, office buildings, hotels, malls, roads, etc., might purchase defense protection for their properties for the benefit of their residents/tenants/customers. Such owners could build the cost of this protection into the fees that they charge for use of their properties. Indeed, even these owners might not have to purchase defense protection individually; they could form associations or federations across a broader region to purchase such protection as a group.

However, it is more likely that life, health, and property insurers would purchase defense protection for their policyholders. Since these are the insurers that would have to pay out on claims if someone were killed or injured or their property damaged by an external aggressor, these insurers would be motivated to purchase the most efficient form of protective services for their policyholders. Also, since insurers are in the business of assessing and pricing risk, they could charge different premiums for different risk profiles; this would ensure, for instance, that those who choose to live in higher-risk locations would pay for that choice. Further, since insurers aggregate the interests of millions of policyholders, they would have the economies of scale and financial clout to purchase large-scale defense protection.

What About the Really Expensive Stuff?

How would a libertarian society pay for certain defense products that today are very expensive, e.g., a nuclear arsenal, a submarine fleet to guard the coastline, an air force, etc.? There are several responses to this.

First, part of the reason that these products are so expensive today is that the buyer is the state and the seller universe is restricted by state licensing rules.

As a buyer, the state doesn’t have the same pricing discipline as private citizens do. This is because the individuals at the state are not paying with their own funds, and thus have no financial incentives to bargain for lower prices, and may even be motivated to overpay, if the defense vendors are cronies who could provide other benefits to the relevant state personnel. In a libertarian society, the buyers would all be private, expending their own funds, and thus they would be much more demanding of sellers; sellers would have to compete, including on price, to accommodate buyers’ preferences.

On the sell-side, the state only permits certain vendors to operate in the defense industry, using excuses such as “security clearance” to restrict the number of sellers. In a libertarian society, there would be no coercive restriction on the number of sellers, which would tend to put downward pressure on pricing through the impact of greater competition.

Second, it’s not clear that the really expensive products would actually be in demand in a stateless society. It’s not a valid question to ask how, in a libertarian society, we could afford the national defense the state provides today, because, as discussed above, in a libertarian society the defense protection demanded might be very different.

Third, as also noted above, the likely involvement of insurers would enable the efficient pooling of expenditure on behalf of millions of policyholders, which could be directed towards expensive defense products which are in actual demand.

Fourth, the private sector might develop innovative ways to enable the purchase of the most expensive defense products. Defense-product vendors or the capital markets might provide financing options to buyers, so that payments could be made over time, instead of upfront. Large businesses (or associations of smaller businesses) might figure that it’s worth voluntarily contributing to the defense bill, because if potential customers were killed or their property destroyed, then that would be bad for business. People might make voluntary contributions over and above their contractual payments, just because they believe that this is the right thing to do (like tipping a cab driver or waiter, even though you might never see them again). Wealthy philanthropists might feel inclined to establish charitable foundations to contribute.

Myth #18: There Goes the Environment!

Statists assume that the environment would go to hell if we don’t have the wise custodians at the state looking out for us (and Mother Earth). Their incorrect assumption is that, in the absence of centralized, coercive regulations, there would be no regulation at all of human activities.

The shortcomings of state regulation of the environment were discussed earlier. I’ll provide below some ideas of how environmental regulation might work in a libertarian society.

Rely on Private-Property Rights

What the statist line of thinking misses is that environmental problems are nothing more than property disputes: A’s activities cause damage to B’s body or property, for which B could take action against A to stop the activities (through an injunction), or to be compensated for his losses (through an award of money damages). This is no different from any other property dispute in society.

Thus, in a libertarian society, these issues would be properly resolved as property disputes. For instance, if A’s activities emit pollutants which cause B to lose some enjoyment of his property, or damage to B’s body, then, subject to one exception, A would have initiated aggression against B’s property, and would be liable.

The exception relates to homesteading. If A were engaging in these activities on his own land which was adjacent to some unowned land, and subsequently B homesteaded the unowned land, then A would be regarded as having homesteaded the right to continue these activities before B homesteaded the unowned land, and thus B would acquire a property right in this land subject to A’s right to continue with his prior level of activity. In other words, B could not complain about A’s activities if he moved in and these activities were already going on. However, if A increases the volume of his polluting activities, or changes their nature, then A would be liable to B, as A would not have homesteaded the right to these increased or different activities.

Conversely, if B homesteaded the land before A commenced these activities, then B would be deemed to have homesteaded the right to a pollutant-free enjoyment of his property, and A’s subsequent initiation of these polluting activities would render him liable to B.

Any subsequent purchasers of either A’s or B’s land would purchase these plots of land with whatever homesteaded rights the seller (A or B) had.

In all cases, either party would be free to approach the other to try to negotiate a different set of rights. Unlike what happens under statist regimes—whereby regulations are made without taking into account the preferences of the respective property owners (instead, the preferences of those at the state and their lobbying interests are imposed coercively)—such a private negotiation would enable a true expression by the parties of their relative value preferences for continuing to pollute, or for clean air, as the case may be.

For instance, if B had the right to stop A from polluting, then A could do one of several things: (a) pay for technology and processes to reduce or eliminate the pollution; (b) offer to pay B sufficiently for B to install protective features on his property to reduce or eliminate his losses; or (c) offer to buy B’s property outright. Whether A chooses to do any of these things would reflect how valuable he regards his polluting activities, and whether B agrees to (b) or (c), and for what price, would reflect how valuable he regards remaining in place free of pollution.25

If an environmental group took a different view from B regarding what is acceptable on his property, and thus, regardless of B’s views, wanted to reduce A’s polluting emissions further, then that group would be free to do one of several things: (x) offer to buy A out of his land, and then shut down his factory; (y) offer to pay for A to reduce his emissions to the level that the group feels is acceptable; or (z) offer to buy B’s property, and then sue A as the new adjacent-property owner. How much the environmental group would be prepared to pay for each of these options would reflect how valuable they regard the reduction of emissions.26

Private vs. “Public” Property

One of the main environmental issues with statist regimes is that a lot of land and waterways are publicly owned.27 This has three ramifications.

First, no one maintains property as well as the actual owner who has his own financial capital invested; look at the state of public housing and public parks, compared with private housing and private parks, respectively.

Second, when the state owns property, at best it tries to balance the interests of different groups, and generally ends up satisfying none or few of them; if one of these groups owned the property itself, then it could protect its interests more vigorously.

Third, what often happens is that the most aggressive lobbying group ends up effectively controlling the property through getting state regulations written in its favor, and thus it coercively “buys” the property at a huge discount (it really only has to pay the lobbying costs), compared with what it would have had to pay in the free market.

Contrast this with the libertarian world in which all property would be privately owned (unless unowned). Consider the case of a privately owned river. The owner would have invested effort and financial capital in homesteading the river, or buying it from a prior, legitimate owner, and therefore would have the best incentive to keep it pollutant-free, either for his own use, or because he wants to supply clean water to his customers (e.g., local residents or businesses). The standard of cleanliness of the river would be much higher when privately owned than when controlled by the state, where no one has any vested interest.

If the river owner contracted with local customers to supply them with clean water and fails to deliver such water, then he would lose customers and could be sued. He would therefore have a strong incentive to take remedial or preventive action against upstream polluting factories (or other bad actors). The downstream users wouldn’t have to get involved with the factories to determine who was responsible; their grievance would be directly against the river owner.28

Air pollution would be dealt with in a similar manner. For instance, all of the roads would be privately owned, so if someone living adjacent to a road (who has homesteaded a right to clean air) suffers from air pollution, then he wouldn’t have to worry about which cars caused this pollution; instead, as noted earlier, his cause of action would be against the road owner. The road owner would thus have the incentive to manage the traffic on his road to ensure that impermissible levels of pollution were not emitted; for instance, he might require inspections of vehicles before granting them permits to drive on his roads.

The Roles of Insurers and Pollution Consultants

Note that it is likely in the above examples that the river owner, the road owner, and the factory owner would all have liability insurance. The relevant insurers would require or financially motivate these owners to take appropriate preventive action to minimize the risk of environmental lawsuits. These insurers would bring current “best practices” from their portfolio of similar clients, so in this way those methods that were most effective would spread among different regions, but be tailored to the specific circumstances in each case, and be updated in real time as circumstances change.

Contrast this with the centralized regulations imposed by the individuals at the state, which are “one size fits all,” typically lag market or technological developments, and are written based on input from lobbying interests, as opposed to what is most effective.

The insurers would not necessarily be expert in matters such as measuring pollution, determining causation, assessing pollution-control technology, and compliance and monitoring. In a society in which such services would be in demand from insurers, businesses, and litigants, it is likely that expert firms—call them “pollution consultants”—would arise to provide these services. Unlike today’s state regulators, who purport to serve as expert consultants but are really coercive monopolists lacking proper financial incentives, in a libertarian society the pollution consultants would have to compete to win customers. Those that develop a good reputation would garner more business, and those that provide shoddy services would lose business.

Myth #19: Somalia Disproves the Case for Libertarianism!

Prior to the 1990s, Somalia operated under a repressive statist regime, and then in 1991 this regime was thrown out, and the country operated without a central state at least up until 2006. Somalia has always been desperately poor and dangerous, both when it had and did not have a central state. Statists love to point to Somalia and ask “Is that how a libertarian society would look?!” However, this is an intentionally disingenuous rhetorical question.

Comparisons Should Be Apples-To-Apples29

When comparing libertarianism to statism, it is unreasonable to compare this across different cultures. Each culture has a different set of norms, propensities towards violence, respect for others, capital stock, etc. The libertarian is not suggesting that libertarianism would cleanse a rough culture of its inherent characteristics; he is saying that, for a given culture, a libertarian society would be more peaceful, just, and prosperous than the statist version. In other words, it is unreasonable to compare Somalia without a state to the U.S. with a state; the latter may still be a better place to live because of its preferable inherent characteristics. The more reasonable way to approach this is to look at Somalia without a state compared with Somalia with a state.

As it happens, there is some research that has been conducted on this point. The paper summarizing that research suggests that living standards improved once the state was eliminated.30 Per the conclusion in that paper, “[T]his paper’s main contribution to the literature has been to compare Somalia’s living standards to those of 41 other sub-Saharan African countries both before and after the collapse of the national government. We find that Somalia’s living standards have generally improved and that they compare relatively favorably with many existing African states. Importantly, we find that Somali living standards have often improved, not just in absolute terms, but also relative to other African countries since the collapse of the Somali central government.”

The Danger of Centralization

In a culture where violence is widespread, the worst political configuration is to have one group in central control of the state, visiting its violence on the population as a whole with no limiting factor. This is particularly so where the state has first disarmed the population through gun-control legislation. In these situations, the cost of such violence to those at the state is minimal.

This has been a big part of the problem in some of the most despotic parts of Africa, including Somalia. In these situations, it would be better to have (a) no central authority, but rather a range of competing warlords, each of whom acts as a countervailing force to the others, and/or (b) a fully-armed population. Then the cost of violence to any would-be overlord would be much more significant.

Culture Is Key to Outcomes

Statists irrationally fear that a place like the U.S. would become Somalia if we didn’t have a state. However, a culture which is relatively non-violent, and relatively respectful of individuals’ rights, is likely to remain so in the absence of a state, simply because those cultural norms are inherent in each individual. In other words, a place such as the U.S. is not likely to devolve into Somalia if we moved to a stateless society, because that is not how people operate in the U.S. today when they have some degrees of freedom to act.

To elaborate, in the U.S. today, the vast majority of people peacefully accept temporary rule from the political party which obtains a majority in any election, even if they don’t agree with that party’s policies and legislation. Statists who voted for the opposition generally don’t go around killing people who voted for, or who are part of, the winning political party; they wait until the next election to try to elect their preferred party. If that is the culture we have now, then it doesn’t make sense to worry that if the U.S. were to become a stateless society—where each group could voluntarily choose its own policies all the time, instead of waiting for the next election—then we would descend into depraved, inter-group violence.

To put it a different way, if Americans are not particularly violent when living under the opposition’s ruler, then they’re not likely to become more violent when they don’t have to live under any ruler.

Myth #20: Libertarians Are Shills for the Powerful!

Statists typically assume that the libertarian’s advocacy of the free market means that the libertarian is for the interests of big business, and against the interests of the “little guy.” However, it is actually the case that libertarianism is the only philosophy that is for the “little guy.”

Statism is characterized by special-interest groups renting the state’s coercive powers to benefit themselves (i.e., crony capitalism). Whether it is big pharmaceutical companies, big agricultural companies, big oil companies, defense companies, alternative energy companies, labor unions, Wall Street, the environmental lobby, etc., the groups that do best under statism are those that lobby most intensively for state support, through subsidies, favorable regulations, patents, tariffs, quotas, eminent domain, money supply expansion, etc. This has happened throughout all of history whenever there has been a state; it is not unique to any time period or region.

However, the one group that does not and cannot lobby as effectively as the above interest groups is the group of individuals often each described as the “little guy,” or the “average Joe.” As noted earlier, the interests of this group are too diffuse to organize, and the benefits to these individuals from lobbying on any particular issue are outweighed by the costs of doing so, even though the benefits from lobbying on all issues together would be enormous.

As an entrepreneur, the “little guy” has to try to make a living navigating through the horrendous and costly maze of state regulations which special-interest groups (a) help write, to make it harder for the “little guy” to compete, and (b) have much less trouble complying with. The “little guy” takes whatever portion of his income the state allows him to keep after the myriad of taxes levied—which the special-interest groups can avoid through structuring, or minimize by hiring expensive tax advisors—and tries to support his family or reinvest in his business or career.

As a consumer, the needs of the “average Joe” are left to be satisfied by products that (as discussed earlier) are more expensive and less available than they would be absent the state’s interference. Unlike special-interest groups which rent the state’s coercive powers, his life is simply subjugated to these powers.

Similarly, as a potential employee, the “average Joe” faces higher-cost and lower-quality education, and fewer sustainable employment opportunities, than would be the case if the state did not interfere in the market.

In advocating for the free market, libertarians are simply asking that everyone, big and small, play by the same rules, namely, whomever best pleases the voluntarily purchasing customer will succeed. Libertarians should therefore be understood to be pro-market—which really means pro-consumer—and not pro-business. Libertarians believe that the sole purpose of economic activity is to organize scarce resources to best satisfy consumer preferences, and not to safeguard any particular businesses or interest groups, nor to privilege those who want to rely on coercion.

Indeed, as Austrian economist Don Boudreaux has noted, it is the notion of robust private-property rights—the hallmark of libertarianism—which eliminates the distinction between the “powerful” and the “weak.” While some may be wealthier than others in a free-market society, no one exercises power over others, in the sense of being able to force them to act against their wills. The wealthiest individual cannot (without legal consequences) take the poorest individual’s property unless the latter sells or gives it to him, or tell the poorest individual what he must or cannot do with his body. Only the state does these things, either directly, or through those who rent its coercive powers.

As libertarian historian Tom Woods has noted, statists don’t appreciate the irony that often the most vigorous opponents of the free market are so-called “capitalists.” In the free market, businesses would face intense competition every single day; however, if they can get the state on their side, then this makes things much easier for them. Thus we have the paradox that businesses—big businesses in particular—may be against the free market, while libertarians are very much for the free market.

That’s difficult to reconcile with the notion that libertarians are shills for the powerful.

Myth #21: Libertarians Don’t Care about the Poor!

Statists pejoratively ask of libertarians “How would the poor survive in a libertarian society?” The implication is that it is only through the state that the poor can be clothed, fed, employed, etc. There is a lot to unpack here.

Free Markets Rescue the Poor

The statist shows a remarkable lack of appreciation of economic history. Poverty has been the default, the natural state of man, for all of history. It was only the advent of (nearly) free markets, as first embodied in the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries (but which then ultimately took hold in the U.S. and other countries), that lifted the common man out of his dire straits. When the state’s influence was at its minimum—meaning there was sound, commodity-based money (generally gold and silver), and the ability to freely exchange private property and freely associate without interference from the state—man was able to dramatically increase his living standards. He did this by specializing in his labor, and by deferring some consumption to provide pools of savings to be invested in developing new technologies and processes, thereby increasing worker productivity.

Importantly, almost every consumer-oriented business that has been successful has achieved this success through constant innovation to bring down the price of goods to make them accessible to the masses; it is much harder to achieve success on a grand scale by selling only to the rich. Thus the poor in the U.S. are able to afford things like wide varieties of food, clothing, and shelter, color televisions, air conditioning, refrigerators, flushing toilets, cars, and air travel, not to mention the ubiquitous mobile device (even in the most poverty-stricken neighborhoods). As noted earlier, the poorest members of free-market-oriented societies live better now than royalty lived a couple of hundred years ago.

We can also see this effect in the U.S., even using government statistics. The so-called “poverty rate” declined dramatically over the course of the 20th century in the midst of a relatively free-market regime, until the massive expansion of the state in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of the launch of President Johnson’s “War on Poverty.” At that point, however, the poverty rate flattened out, and has declined much less since, despite trillions of dollars having been spent by the state in this faux war.31

Looked at another way, where would you prefer to be poor: in freer markets such as the U.S., or in less-free markets such as Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela? If more freedom is better for the poor, then why is total freedom not the best?

Statism is really just central planning, which surely has been repudiated by the implosion of the Soviet Union and the desperate statuses of Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela, to name a few examples. The only difference economically between those regimes and the statist U.S. is the amount of central planning: in those countries, every industry was or is completely centrally planned; in the U.S., every industry is partly centrally planned.32

If central planning as a concept does not work, then why tolerate any of it? Statists believe that there is a “correct” amount of central planning, and that only they know this amount, but they will never tell you what this amount is definitively. Generally it is defined as whatever amount they are proposing at any one point in time. This just strains credulity.

There Are Plenty of Non-State Resources to Help the Poor

What about the statist’s perennial favorite, namely, that leaving everything “to the market” wouldn’t help those who “fall between the cracks”? There are several ways to respond to this.

One way is to note that “the market” is not some impersonal machine but, rather, millions of individuals interacting voluntarily on a daily basis. Likewise, “the state” is not an impersonal machine, but also comprises (unfortunately!) millions of individuals. When the statist claims that the state is superior to the market in preventing some people from “falling between the cracks,” he is implying that only those at the state have the awareness, compassion, and ability to help these people. On what basis could we conclude that the millions of people not working for the state are not concerned to help their neighbors in need, and that this concern is held exclusively by the millions of people at the state?33

Moreover, even if this were true, in a libertarian world these millions of people now working for the state would still be around—just not as part of a state—and thus they could still express and act on their concerns, and the poorest could still benefit from their magnanimity.

Another response is that (as noted earlier) civil society comprises many parts: the individual, families, neighborhoods, religious groups, charities, mutual-aid societies, self-help organizations, businesses, trade groups, and the state. In a libertarian world, the only one of these societal parts that would be missing is the state. Is it not possible that for the few who might “fall between the cracks,” there might be some part of what remains of civil society, absent the state, that could help these people? One of the shortcomings that statists suffer from is the “tyranny of the present.” What this means, in this context, is that they assume that a libertarian world would look exactly like the present world, minus the state’s welfare programs. To the contrary, many aspects of society would be very different. For instance, it is highly likely that, at a minimum, institutions of civil society that once existed, but which have been crowded out over time by the expanding welfare state, would have room to flourish, perhaps growing again to the prominence they once had in helping the neediest, before the state’s role exploded in the 1960s.34

In fact, if the statists in civil society who elect the state into being do so primarily to help the neediest, then presumably they would still care about the neediest in the absence of the state. Are statists claiming that they themselves would become less interested in helping the neediest if there were no state?

Boiling it all down, both a libertarian society and a statist society would comprise all the same individuals, and all the same social institutions bar one: the state. Thus the only difference between a libertarian society and a statist society is the ability to coerce others. The statist is effectively saying that he cannot envision marshalling sufficient resources to help the neediest through his own actions and persuasion, and thus must rely on force.

The statist must hold a very dim view of his fellow citizens; one wonders why he would even want to live among them. Nevertheless, this does not justify the immorality of one man coercing another.

There Would Be Fewer Poor

Another example of “tyranny-of-the-present” thinking is the statist’s implicit assumption that, if the state ceased to exist, then we’d have (at least) the same number of poor as we do now (however one counts them). Yet in a libertarian world with the free market, we would expect that there would be fewer destitute people.

As discussed earlier regarding the free market, without a state there would be: (a) more and better-paying jobs, since, absent taxes and regulations, the cost of employing workers would be lower, there would be more capital equipment available per worker to increase each worker’s productivity, and workers would be free to make their own risk/reward trade-offs when accepting employment; (b) more opportunities for entrepreneurs to pursue, freed from the costs and restrictions placed on them by taxes and regulations; and (c) more goods in the market, at lower prices, as the costs of production and the range of permissible products are freed from the impediments imposed by taxes and regulations.

In addition, one of the key insights of Austrian economics is that the state’s central planning of the money supply and interest rates, and control of the banking system—primarily through the actions of the state’s central bank—have major, adverse consequences for the economy. The key state action in this respect is causing and/or facilitating the artificial expansion of the money supply, which causes both the artificial suppression of interest rates, and effective (even if not always visible) economy-wide price inflation over time. There are three main consequences of such state action, all of which hit the least well-off particularly hard, and none of which would occur in the free market.

First, economy-wide “boom-bust” business cycles are caused by the artificial manipulation of interest rates, and the downturn portion of these cycles has a more significant, adverse impact on the least well-off than it does on others.

Second, when new money is created and injected into the economy, the resulting price inflation impoverishes the least well-off relative to those who are the closest cronies of the state. This is because the new money is not injected uniformly, but typically first goes to the “connected few,” who therefore get to spend it before prices rise, and it is the least well-off who get the new money last, well after prices have risen.

Third, due to the artificial suppression of interest rates and effective price inflation, everyone is pushed to take on much more risk in saving for retirement than they would otherwise, and the least well-off can least afford to take these risks. In the free market, one could build up a reasonable retirement fund through the low-risk methods of simply accumulating money in a checking account (or holding it as physical cash), and/or lending money to a bank through the use of a savings account bearing a decent interest rate. The value of such money would actually grow over time, due to the general price deflation we would see in the free market (as more goods are produced with very little increase in the money supply), and, in the case of savings accounts, the interest income earned. However, in today’s low-interest-rate, positive-price-inflation world, those methods would lead to a real decline in wealth (i.e., after adjusting for price inflation), and so individuals now feel compelled to speculate in the securities markets, real estate, or other high-risk endeavors.

More broadly, societal prosperity is directly linked to the amount of “stuff” produced to satisfy consumers’ wants. The amount of “stuff” produced is, in turn, directly linked to the number of man-hours devoted to appropriate, productive activities. When there is a state, a significant number of man-hours are devoted to activities that have nothing to do with satisfying consumers’ wants. These man-hours include: the time spent by individuals who work for the state in either creating or enforcing regulations; the time spent by individuals in lobbying the state to rent its coercive powers; the time spent by individuals who have successfully rented the state’s coercive powers in producing “stuff” otherwise than in accordance with what would be produced in the free market; and the time spent by individuals in complying with the state’s regulatory whims. Then there are the man-hours devoted by individuals trying to avoid the state’s whims.

Imagine all of the additional prosperity we would have if all of the aforementioned people, time, effort, and resources were instead engaged in appropriate, productive activities.

Finally, the state incarcerates in cages thousands of potentially productive individuals for victimless “crimes,” which substantially and probably permanently impairs the earning power of these individuals—never mind the destructive effect this has on their lives and families—likely condemning many of them to impoverishment. Without a state, these individuals would be free not only to better their own lives, but the lives of those with whom they enter into voluntary exchanges.

Freedom of Movement

Another aspect of the state that adversely impacts poverty is the state’s regulation of immigration.

Many of the world’s poor would have much better lives—better job prospects, more goods and services available to purchase, and at lower prices—if they were free to move to places with more liberty than where they live today. States create and enforce artificial national borders, and establish category-based immigration restrictions (based on geography, ethnicity, family ties, etc.). All of these restrictions prevent the poorest individuals from moving to places where they could better flourish.

In a libertarian world, these centrally imposed restrictions would not exist. All property in use would be privately owned, so whether someone from another region could move here would be based on the individual decisions of transport-providers and local private-property owners. Businesses would be free to invite, host, and employ immigrants from other regions, as would relatives, ethnic associations, charities, etc. These decisions would be made on an individual basis using privately established criteria, and it is likely that more of the world’s poor would be able to more easily move to where the opportunities lie.

The statist who advocates both for the poor and for state-based immigration barriers is essentially saying that his concern for the poor only extends to those located inside an artificially created geographic area. However, why should the plight of someone inside this area be more important than that of someone outside this area? It certainly makes sense that people feel more compassion for those in their immediate neighborhood, as they live with and see these people all the time. But by what logic should a statist in New York feel more strongly about a poor person in Seattle than a poor person in Toronto? He knows neither personally, and the poor person in Toronto is actually geographically closer to New York than is the poor person in Seattle. It is as if the U.S./Canadian border possesses some magical, anti-compassion feature.

Why should anyone allow the individuals at the state to define which poor people in the world they are allowed to be concerned about?

The Morality of It All

The argument that the state is necessary to help the neediest is a utilitarian argument. Such an argument is, in effect, saying that the statist believes that if he perceives some people as being in need, then he is justified in coercively taking resources away from others he perceives as not being in need, because the ends are worthy. The statist does not, or at least cannot, deny that his means involve coercion (nor that the definition of “in need” is entirely subjective).

On the other hand, the moral perspective looks at the means used. As noted earlier, it is immoral for one man to initiate force against another. Thus, in the case of state-managed welfare, the fact that the objective is to help the needy doesn’t alter the fact that the proposed use of coercion is immoral. In a libertarian world, all welfare would be voluntary, and thus the means would be moral as well as the ends being worthy. And, as discussed earlier, there are many non-coercive alternatives for aiding the poor.

One final point. If the utilitarian argument is to prevail over the moral argument, then why not just cease treating robbery as a crime and allow the neediest to freely rob the well-off directly? Why bother using the state as a middle-man to engage in this robbery, with all of its overhead costs and the complicating personal incentives of those who work at the state?

Myth #22: Libertarians Are Pro-Prostitution and Pro-Narcotics!

The statist believes that if he regards an activity as undesirable, then the state should prohibit it. Accordingly, statists also believe that if libertarians are against the state prohibiting an activity, then libertarians must be for the activity itself, either personally, or as a statement of values that “society” ought to hold.

To pick on prostitution as an example, the myth runs as follows: since the libertarian does not believe that the state should forcibly throw people into cages for voluntarily purchasing and selling sex, the libertarian therefore likes to use prostitutes, wants to be a prostitute, or believes that society should endorse prostitution.

This myth suffers from two fallacies.

First, as discussed at length previously, libertarianism is simply about the appropriateness of the initiation of force in personal dealings. Being against the use of force says nothing about how one evaluates the merit of the personal dealings in question. Staying with the prostitution example, it is not inconsistent for the libertarian to believe that if two people want to engage in consensual sex involving payment, then they should be free to do so, while at the same time not wanting to personally engage in this type of activity nor wanting his loved ones to do so.

The libertarian believes that the question of whether a voluntary activity which doesn’t breach the NAP is a virtue or a vice should be answered for each person through privately developed standards, and not through centralized legislation backed up by force. However, the statist’s first thought whenever he wants to “suggest” a set of values for society is to use the coercive powers of the state. But the state is the bluntest possible instrument to use, not only because it relies on force, but also because whatever solution it resolves on would be a “one-size-fits-all” solution.

Second, in suggesting that we need the state to enforce (purported) societal values, the statist is conflating society with the state.35

However, society is not the same as the state; society is much more extensive. As noted earlier, society comprises many different voluntary institutions, as well as the state (e.g., families, neighborhoods, religious groups, charities, mutual-aid societies, businesses, etc.). To the libertarian, one of the key roles of these non-state institutions, as has always been the case historically, is to create and promote local norms, values, and ethics to help people lead “better” lives (however defined).

Thus for the statist to claim that, without the state’s use of force, things like prostitution and narcotics would run rampant in a stateless society is to shortchange the role and impact of these non-state institutions. Both history and logic suggest that, compared with the brutality of imprisonment, these institutions could be very effective in developing norms to discourage self-destructive activities, promote healthier practices, and allow for a more open, humane, and effective way of dealing with those who engage in these activities.

Again, it’s critical to be clear about what libertarianism is and is not. It is not a statement of personal values. It is simply a philosophy about when the use of force is justified.

Myth #23: If It’s so Good, Then Why Hasn’t It Ever Been Tried?

Statists believe that there are no historical or current examples of libertarianism in practice. However, there are plenty of examples of societies or segments of societies which have interacted, or are currently interacting, on a truly or mostly voluntary basis. Statists read but they do not comprehend; they see but they do not observe.

History

There are a number of historical examples of stateless societies, as well as “low-state” societies, i.e., those without the coercive control of a large, centralized, all-pervasive, professionally administered state.

At the outset, the most basic point to note is that the concept of the civilized world comprising only large, formal nation-states really only began in the 17th century with the Treaties of Westphalia. Before then, societies were organized in numerous different forms. Some societies were stateless (e.g., clans, tribes, and feudal societies), others had a “low-state” form, such as monarchies existing in parallel with private society (with well-defined boundaries between the two) and the ancient Greek and Renaissance Italian “city-states,” and of course there were also the large, ancient empires (e.g., Egyptian, Persian, and Roman). In many of these societal forms, unlike with today’s nation-states, there was no abstract “state” which was regarded as separate from the persona of its ruler(s).36

There is significant scholarly work noting that a substantial portion of medieval Europe was anarchistic, in the sense not only of being stateless or “low-state,” but being anti-state, meaning that societies (supported by bodies such as the Catholic Church, guilds, universities, and towns) were fiercely opposed to the centralization of political power in, and legislative edicts issued by, large sovereign states.

The development of the “law merchant” in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is a very good example of individuals voluntarily developing their own legal system and customs. The law merchant was based on what was generally perceived to be fair, and to work effectively, to facilitate peaceful trade among a highly mobile population across different regions. Within this merchant community, the threat of being ostracized by one’s trading partners was the most important reason to accept adverse judgments rendered by the private courts.

In terms of other stateless legal systems, medieval Iceland and Ireland operated with purely voluntary conflict-resolution regimes, and in the U.S., the development of the West initially operated quite efficiently and peacefully before the federal and state governments got involved (it turns out that the “wild, wild West” was not so wild after all).37

In addition, in Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the small region known as Moresnet operated peacefully and prosperously as a “low-state”, neutral zone for about one hundred years. And, as noted earlier, contemporary Somalia, while no stateless paradise, saw a measurable improvement in living standards when it was stateless in the 1990s and 2000s relative to when it had a central state.

More generally, as noted previously, every single function that is carried out by the modern nation-state—including defense, policing, courts and law, roads, education, etc.—was at one time carried out by private parties on a non-coercive basis until the state took it over for its own purpose. Most importantly, many of these functions are still carried out privately today in different parts of the world.

The International Community

The most obvious and significant current example of libertarianism is the international community: vis-à-vis one another, the various nation-states exist in a condition of political anarchy. There is no “world state” coercively governing all nation-states. Accordingly, many aspects of what a libertarian society would look like domestically are in operation today internationally.38

For instance, taking the collection of nation-states as a single society, there are competing protection forces, courts, bodies of law, currencies, approaches to regulation, etc. There is no group of central planners taxing and/or subsidizing nation-states, handing out special privileges to crony nation-states, or dictating which nation-states may produce what, at what price goods must be sold, etc.

The NAP is generally respected among nation-states, in the sense that no nation-state asserts the right to coerce another.39 The individuals working at each nation-state interact with individuals working at other nation-states on a completely voluntary basis.

In some sense, the homesteading principle is also respected. Nation-states have delineated boundaries of property that they control, which they claim as their own, and these boundaries are, for the most part, accepted by other nation-states. Similarly, when a nation-state peacefully declares borders around ocean-based “economic zones,” and portions of outer space for their satellites, this homesteading is generally respected too.

If one nation-state trespasses onto the claimed property of another, then the right of self-defense is well recognized.

The most acceptable form of interaction within the international community is not through coercion but, rather, via voluntary agreements (treaties) and voluntary associations (such as the United Nations, World Trade Organization, NATO, etc.). Each such association freely decides on which nation-states may join and which may not; if some nation-states are not invited to join a particular association, then they are free to set up a competing association. If invited, a nation-state is free to join and financially support an association, but is also free to leave. Yes, there are wars and other conflicts (just as there is within a nation-state), but these constitute the minority of the millions of interactions that happen daily among nation-states.

As discussed earlier, it’s noteworthy that the individuals at a nation-state are content to live in a libertarian existence relative to their contemporaries at other nation-states, but they are not prepared to live this way among their own citizens, whom they prefer to rule by force.

Local Communities

At the smaller-unit level, today we have cruise ships (which are essentially floating, stateless societies), private residential communities, the private cities of Columbia in Maryland, Co-Op City in New York, and Reston in Virginia, Walt Disney World, shopping malls, corporate campuses, hotels, kibbutzes, etc. They each have their own civic goods (i.e., roads, parks, waste disposal, security, etc.) and regulations and customs (or “law”), and they operate efficiently and fairly without state-style coercion.40

In fact, every voluntary association is a case study of libertarianism: people come together (and may leave) voluntarily, make their own rules of interaction, financially support the objectives on a voluntary basis (and may similarly withdraw such support), and for the most part interact peacefully. There are no implied or actual threats of incarceration at gunpoint for failure to carry out or finance these groups’ stated objectives.

One objection that statists might raise to the applicability of these examples is that these voluntary groups only operate on a relatively small scale, and thus voluntarism may not be an appropriate form of interaction for a nation-size population. That might be true, but this objection would be another example of “tyranny-of-the-present” thinking, and would miss the point. In a libertarian world there wouldn’t be any nation-states, so there would be no need to find forms of interaction that work at the national level.

Even in a world with nation-states, as we have today, a small-scale group with shared interests, where the governors and governed are very close, is the most natural, accepted, and therefore effective method of ordered association. Thus, even within large regional populations, voluntarism could work well to provide order if the governance model were a mosaic of many small, voluntary, shared-interest groups (and any individual might belong to a multitude of such groups).

On the other hand, nation-states—where the rulers are distant, the populations large, and interests diverse—necessarily try to create unnatural, less accepted, and thus less effective large-group interactions, which therefore require force to implement. Thus, by its very nature, the nation-state governance model is doomed to ultimately fail.

But Even If These Examples Didn’t Exist . . .

As relevant and illuminating as these examples are, even if these examples did not exist, it would not weaken the case for libertarianism. Just because a particular form of governance hasn’t existed yet doesn’t mean that it couldn’t arise in the future, and that it couldn’t be superior to what came before it.

Notwithstanding this logic, statists often argue that if there hasn’t been an enduring stateless society, then that must prove that such a governance form is not technically feasible, and/or is inferior.41 But by this logic, the present form of any idea is always the evolutionary end point. Framed that way, I’m sure not even the most ardent statist would agree; in fact, most statists are always arguing for changes to the state’s form (mostly to increase its powers). Imagine if, before the first modern democracy arose, a monarchist had pointed out that the idea of democracy died in the ancient world, and thus it must not be technically feasible, and/or is inferior to monarchy. Should that have been conclusive as to the feasibility of democracy, or the desirability or probability of democracy arising again? In addition, since statists believe that modern democracies are an improvement over the pre-existing monarchies, how can they honestly argue that it is impossible for societal governance to evolve again in a positive direction (and into a very different form)? Is it possible to reach the end of history?

In that respect, a quick survey of history would show that societal governance has never been static, but continually changes, and, from the perspective of individual liberty, zigs and zags, sometimes changing for the better, and sometimes for the worse. For instance, the European continent has had clan-based societies, democracies, republics, empires, feudal societies, stateless societies, highly fragmented, anarchistic-tending societies, city-states, monarchies, communist dictatorships, fascist dictatorships, and modern nation-states, just to name a subset.

Finally, consider the abolitionists in the U.S. in the 19th century trying to make their case against slavery; at that time, slavery was and always had been ubiquitous. Are we to believe that the abolitionists had no valid case to make, because there had never been a world without slavery?

Myth #24: Libertarianism Is a Futile Endeavor!

Statists often criticize libertarianism on the basis that it is unrealistic, and that libertarians are too idealistic. We are told that a stateless society has never existed and never will exist, so why bother believing in it and pursuing it as an organizing principle?

There are a number of ways to respond to this, both in terms of principle and in practice.

Principles

First, by the above metrics, statists are idealistic too. For instance, they would desire a world without murder, yet none has ever existed or will exist, but statists still try to educate others as to why murder is wrong and try to reduce it where possible.42

If “idealistic” means advocating for something different from the current state of affairs, then who isn’t idealistic?

Second, as noted earlier, political philosophy and the organization of society have been evolving for thousands of years. Who is to say that such evolution is over?

When the Roman Empire was at its zenith, ruling much of the known world, it might have been difficult to conceive that an alternative would one day emerge; likewise when monarchy was the prevailing system in western Europe. In the 18th and 19th centuries, when slavery was a global institution in the so-called “civilized” countries, it might have been very difficult to conceive that one day most of the world would recognize its abhorrence. For those living under eastern European communism in the 20th century, it might have been very difficult to conceive that one day they would be living free of that yoke.

Political organizational forms change over time, and it seems that, as time goes on, the changes happen more rapidly, perhaps because new technologies allow new ideas to spread more rapidly. So who is to say that it is impossible that growing numbers of people could reject the idea of the state, and form stateless mini-societies?

Third, if you believe that a particular principle for organizing society is just—in this case, the NAP—then even if you cannot hope to immediately attain 100 percent of your ultimate goal—in this case, a stateless society—how could you work to move society towards that goal until you first set that goal? In other words, you first need to know your destination before you can set out on your journey. You don’t need to magically appear instantly at your end destination to achieve success (although that would be nice!); you could set your destination, and then continually take incremental steps towards it.

Libertarians believe in the moral superiority of a stateless society and, by setting this as the destination, it becomes very clear which policies in today’s society to oppose and which to support. It means having a guiding principle, as opposed to just going by “gut,” or blindly following a political party or personality.

Practical Steps

Even in today’s overwhelmingly statist world, it is not true that libertarians have no means to advance our cause. There are a number of meaningful things that libertarians can do and are doing to promote libertarianism.

Pursue and Promote Alternative Education. As discussed earlier, the state can only exist with the acquiescence of the majority of the population, because the individuals in the private sector vastly outnumber the individuals at the state (as large as that number is). Thus, educating people about the true nature of and problems with the state, and the fact that there is a real alternative to the state, must surely be a first step in turning that acquiescence into skepticism, if not outright opposition.

Historically, the state has had a huge advantage in influencing the content taught in schools and at college, given the all-pervasive, purposeful control of education by the state and the intellectuals who support it. However, with the advent of the Internet and powerful mobile devices, alternative content is now easily within the reach of those who want to learn about different political philosophies, whether at home or on-the-go. And there is a growing array of homeschooling and self-study resources available at one’s fingertips. Thus there is good reason to be optimistic in this regard.43

As the societal conflicts caused by statism grow more extensive and more intense, and as more national crises cause people to question whether the current system is the best we can hope for, many people—particularly the young—are looking for new ideas. The libertarian should not only keep improving his own understanding of libertarian principles but, even more importantly, should provide those who are looking for an alternative with guidance on how to find the rich body of libertarian educational resources that exist.

Refrain from Participating in Elections. Of all the arguments for the state, the statist’s favorite is that elections indicate the consent of the population to the state and its policies. The state gleefully uses voter-turnout figures to claim that there is a post-election mandate for this or that, and that “The people have spoken.”

Thus, to do his part to reduce voter turnout, the libertarian should refrain from voting, and try to convince others to do the same. To the statist, the fewer the votes cast, the weaker the mandate coming out of an election. If a weaker mandate means less state activity, then that is generally a good thing for the cause of liberty.

Note also that, based on probability, voting is a waste of a citizen’s time. Statistically, the chance of a single vote determining the outcome of an election, and then of that outcome leading to implementation of the voter’s desired legislative or executive policy, is infinitesimal.

Another way to think about elections is that, in the grand scheme of things, they don’t change anything material; all that happens is that a different team is put at the helm of the destructive vessel that is the state.44 What really changes society is public opinion: the abolition, women’s-suffrage, civil-rights, and gay-rights movements all preceded state legislative or judicial action. Thus, instead of investing the time to work on a candidate’s campaign, or to research candidates or vote, the libertarian might consider a better use of his time to be working to change public opinion through whatever means he prefers.45, 46

Ridicule “Public Service.” Statist’s laud “public service”—meaning working for the state in either a civilian or military role—as a very honorable activity.

The libertarian should do what he can to persuade family, friends, and colleagues to avoid joining the state’s apparatus, by illustrating how working at the state is actually something to disdain as immoral, rather than something to revere. In this way, the libertarian can not only do his part to reduce the size of the state, but also to keep more people in the productive and moral private sector, which is ultimately better for societal prosperity.

Promote Nullification. Nullification simply means rejecting the legitimacy of a piece of legislation, and therefore refusing to comply with it. Peaceful nullification can be pursued in two main ways in the U.S.: by state governments, and by jurors. I’ll deal with each of these in turn.

First, state governments can nullify federal legislation which they believe is unconstitutional, based both on historical precedent and the structure of the Constitution.47 In general, this is implemented by passing state-level legislation to the effect that no state-government personnel, or resources, will be permitted to assist the federal government in enforcing the relevant federal legislation within the state. This can be a very effective means of constraining the power of the federal government, since it often relies to a large extent on the cooperation of state governments.

This has gained currency in recent times, as evidenced by various initiatives at the state level to restrict or negate such federal-government programs as deporting illegal immigrants, spying on citizens by the National Security Agency, gun control, Obamacare, the “War on Drugs,” and the Common Core education curriculum. While the libertarian has no greater affinity for state governments than for the federal government, the libertarian should support and encourage one arm of the state (broadly defined) taking on another arm if the net effect is to reduce the overall state activities.48

While state nullification is an effective way to oppose the federal government, it doesn’t have any impact on the unjust activities of state governments. As a practical matter, it is of course entirely open for local governments to try to use the same strategy against state governments. However, as a matter of constitutional structure, local governments do not really have this option.49

Second, with respect to jurors, they can vote to acquit a defendant whom they believe is guilty of a “crime” where they believe that the “crime” itself is based on unjust legislation, in the sense that the legislation is not legitimate pursuant to the NAP.

For instance, even if the facts supported the case that the defendant had not paid his taxes, if a juror believes that taxes are an immoral act of robbery by the state, then he could vote to acquit that defendant, and no court could question the juror’s decision. The juror would not only be judging the facts, but also the legislation.50

This can be a powerful act of defiance against not just federal-government legislation, but also state- and local-government legislation. It is one of the few times in which private citizens can have a meaningful, peaceful, oppositional impact. It could even impact the prospective decisions of law-enforcement personnel, who might decide, in the face of continual jury nullification of certain victimless “crimes,” to cease trying to enforce or prosecute them (which might lead legislators to repeal such legislation).

There is actually a history of impactful jury nullification in the U.S.: in the mid-19th century, juries in northern states refused to convict under the federal Fugitive Slave Act, as an act of opposition to slavery; and in the early 20th century, juries refused to convict under the federal Prohibition legislation.

Today there is a growing libertarian movement to make jurors more aware of the concept of jury nullification, despite the state’s attempts to obfuscate this principle.

More generally, nullification can be pursued more effectively as a societal strategy once enough people are educated in libertarian principles. At that time, each act of nullification would reinforce each other act, and the groundswell of active opposition would become quite obvious to statists. It would then become harder to argue that there is acquiescence to the state.

Support Non-State, Alternative Products. There are situations in which the state has not yet fully prohibited citizens from using non-state alternatives to products that are provided, privileged, and/or regulated by the state. Libertarians should try to use these alternative products where possible, and encourage others to do the same.

Examples of this include using: private mediation and arbitration services, instead of the state’s courts; private schools, home-schooling, and online courses, instead of state-provided schools; private residential communities, instead of public towns and villages; private mail services such as FedEx, instead of the state’s mail service; new transportation services such as Uber, and new accommodation services such as AirBnB, instead of state-regulated taxi services and hotels, respectively; and alternative currencies such as Bitcoin, gold, or silver, instead of state-mandated money. In addition, as there is increased traction around the world for “special economic zones” and seasteading—which are stateless or “low-state” communities carved out from existing states—individuals and businesses could choose to relocate to these physical areas.

Some of these are more expensive options, since (a) the state can price its products without worrying about making a loss, and (b), through taxes, one is forced to pay for the state alternative, even if one chooses additionally to pay for the non-state alternative. However, to the extent that the libertarian can afford to choose these options, it would enhance the private-sector’s ability to compete with the state, and withdraw some legitimacy from the state’s claims that it must be a provider or regulator of these products.

Using these options could be regarded as a “partial secession” from the authority of the state.

Advocate for Secession. Full-blown secession on the political level is the act of one political entity declaring its independence from another political entity. When one entity formerly governed by another secedes, politically it moves from being a subservient entity to a peer entity. In this way, the power of coercion is removed from that relationship, and the two entities must now deal with each other in a state of political anarchy, i.e., on a purely voluntary basis. This can be one of the most dramatic yet peaceful ways for people in a given region to escape the power of larger state.51

Indeed, there is an elegance to secession as a solution to escaping an overlord entity. While land is fixed, jurisdictional boundaries are not. Secession doesn’t involve moving the land, the citizen, or the overlord, but rather simply the boundaries of the prior overlord’s rule.

Secession also initiates a logic train that can lead to the dismemberment of political authority. If one region secedes from a larger entity, then that larger entity could not reasonably object when a second region seeks to secede, and a third region, etc. Similarly, if a region B secedes from a larger entity A, then region B could not reasonably object when a smaller region, C, seeks to secede from region B; if that happened, then nor could region C reasonably object when a still smaller region, D, seeks to secede from region C; and if that also happened, then nor could region D reasonably object when a still smaller unit, perhaps a household, seeks to secede.

Accordingly, states have always vigorously fought secession attempts at any level, because they understand where the logic train may lead.52

Within the U.S., state-level secession has excellent historical and constitutional underpinnings.53

As a matter of history, in 1776, the original 13 American colonies seceded from Great Britain, and in 1781, these independent states formed a union under the Articles of Confederation. However, in 1788, a subset of these states seceded from this union, and established a new union under the United States Constitution (subsequently, all existing states joined this new union). Then, in 1861, a subset of these states seceded from the United States of America, and formed the Confederate States of America under a separate constitution.54

There were also secession events within individual states: Kentucky seceded from Virginia, Tennessee from North Carolina, and Maine from Massachusetts.55

Turning to the constitutional perspective, it was the colonies—organized as states—that set up the federal government under the Constitution as their agent, to carry out specific tasks. Just as with any principal/agent relationship, the principal (the states) can always fire the agent (the federal government) and withdraw from the relationship. Statists often claim that the American “Civil War” settled once and for all the question of whether there is a right to secede, but that is a specious argument, because the outcome was based solely on violence. As libertarian historian Tom Woods likes to note, if a bully on the playground mugs another child and takes his lunch, then would anyone seriously conclude that the bully’s right to that lunch is settled once and for all? Sure, he has the lunch now, but he got it illegitimately.56

However, the right to secede doesn’t rest just on historical precedent and constitutional principles. There are strong moral and logical grounds too.

In terms of the moral grounds, if all men are metaphysically equal, so that no man can rule another without his consent, then every man must be able to secede from any political authority once he withdraws his consent, since that political authority is nothing more than a group of other men.

In addition, since a state always “acquires” its property through coercion—such as through war, seizing private property owned by citizens, or physically claiming unowned property using income confiscated from citizens to fund its operations—none of this property is legitimately held by the state. Likewise, a state’s control over citizens within its declared borders is based on coercion. Accordingly, the individuals at the state have no moral grounds to object if citizens want to break away from the state’s control, and assert their right to reclaim or homestead “state property.”

In terms of logic, to reject secession means to assert that a particular political entity, such as a nation-state, is the precise, God-given size that it needs to be, and it absolutely cannot be one inch smaller! Of course this makes no logical sense.57

Secession is also a concept much favored by libertarians because it reduces the size of states (note that both the new state and the remaining “rump” state will individually be smaller than the previous combined state). For the libertarian, “small is beautiful” when it comes to states (or, rather, small is the least ugly form).

The smaller the state, the less militarily powerful it is likely to be—in the sense that there are fewer human and other resources within its territory to commandeer—and thus the less able it would be to wage war on other states or act provocatively around the globe. This means that it is less likely that its citizens would suffer all the terrible consequences of war. We can see this principle in operation today, whereby there are many small, relatively prosperous states which don’t seek to exert any global power, and which are left alone by the larger states, even though it would be relatively easy for the larger states to conquer them. Examples include Andorra, Costa Rica (which has no armed forces at all), Liechtenstein (ditto), Luxembourg, Monaco, and Singapore.58

Moreover, the smaller the state, the more intimate are the personal relationships between citizens and those at the state, and thus there is less that the individuals at the state can get away with, e.g., you can see your mayor at the local diner and complain to him that the garbage is not getting picked up on time, but it’s a lot harder to have this conversation with your state governor, or the president. In addition, each individual is more significant in a smaller state than in a larger state, and thus there is less likely to be an emphasis by elected officials on mass-marketing or sloganeering, and more attention paid to individuals’ concerns.

Further, to the extent that there could be any commonality of interest among a group of people—whether in terms of culture, language, religion, or economics—it is much more likely to occur within a small village than within a county, state, or country, e.g., the views on immigration in a small, Texan village on the Mexican border are likely to be more homogeneous than the views of everyone in the U.S. Thus, it is more likely that a smaller state’s actions would better reflect any shared interests of its citizens than would be the case with a larger state, where the interests are much more diverse.

In addition, smaller states are at greater risk than larger states of losing their citizens to competing, neighboring states. The smaller the state, the less costly it is for a citizen to move to a neighboring state, in terms of distance from his family, employment, preferred culture, preferred climate, etc.59 Smaller states are also more sensitive than larger states to losing their citizens. With fewer resources to begin with, smaller states would feel the loss of any citizens and their financial capital more acutely than would larger states. Thus, smaller states must be much more careful than larger states about overreaching in their coercive actions against citizens. In addition to curtailing their coercive activities domestically, smaller states are also likely to prefer open, free trade across borders (both in terms of financial capital and goods), since the smaller the state, the less self-sufficient it can be, and hence the more important imported financial capital and goods would be to the well-being of its population.

Accordingly, to the libertarian, a world with an increasing number of smaller and smaller states is a very positive trend. Thus, libertarians should be in favor of every secession movement, of which there is an increasing number these days.60 As the idea of secession gains currency, it is entirely possible that small, libertarian communities would be able to break away and live on a purely voluntary basis.

Engage in Low-Level, Civil Resistance. As large as the modern state is, it has simply passed too many regulations for it to effectively enforce them all against everyone. Much to their chagrin—but proving that scarcity is a fact, even for the state—the individuals at the state run up against the constraint that they have limited time and resources, and have to allocate how they use them to selectively enforce regulations. This creates the opportunity for libertarians to simply ignore (and ridicule) the state’s regulations when they are not aligned with the NAP. If this type of civil resistance grows over time, then it is possible that, in certain areas, the state might have to rethink whether its regulations make sense, given the obvious erosion of the public’s acquiescence which is necessary to sustain the state.

Obviously the degree of risk one is comfortable taking is up to the individual, but there are many lower-risk ways to ignore the state’s unjust rules: when practicable, transact using physical cash, gold, or anonymous crypto-currencies, to ensure transactions remain untrackable by the state; when turning 18 years-of-age, refuse to register with the Selective Service System, to avoid providing information helpful to the state if it decides to use military conscription to fight its wars; employ and/or provide sanctuary for illegal immigrants; if desired, consume alcohol and narcotics even if prohibited by legislation; ignore occupational-licensing regulations when running a small business; refuse to recycle as commanded by the state; when appropriate, ignore speed-limit legislation; refuse to obtain the state’s zoning approval when making small improvements to one’s property; and support businesses which are obviously ignoring the most ridiculous state regulations.

It’s worth noting that a casual survey of society would show that many statists routinely act in these ways and, what is most amusing and revealing, this includes many individuals who work for the state itself. Often times the retort from statists who are caught in the act is “But I wasn’t hurting anyone!”

Exactly.

Perhaps it is innate in all humans to judge rules by the standard of the NAP, even if not everyone can articulate this as clearly as libertarians can.

• 1All references to the “state” in this book include all arms of the state: the legislature, executive, judiciary, bureaucracy, agencies, etc. While they each have different functions, substantively they are all funded in the same manner, they all have the same inherent characteristics, and they are all responsible for appointing one another and/or working together. The differences between these different arms of the state are trivial compared with the differences between how the state acts and how private citizens act, which is one of the key points of this book.
• 2In this book, when I talk about “moral acts” and “morality,” I am referring only to an evaluation of inter-personal behavior, and not to the evaluation of any actions only involving oneself, which might be better described as “virtues” and “vices.”
• 3I still believe that there is a role for utilitarian analysis, but not the one that is usually cited. If economists believe that a particular outcome would lead to greater benefits (however defined) than the outcome that would result from individuals acting based on their own preferences, then these economists should publicize their analysis and use it to try to persuade individuals to change their decision-making processes. The real problem with utilitarian analysis is that it is used by statists to justify forcing individuals to make different decisions, instead of merely trying to persuade them.
• 4The last term refers to Murray Rothbard, who was the libertarian historian, economist, and philosopher who really ignited modern libertarianism in the 20th century.
• 5Just checking that you were paying attention.
• 6In the case of resisting prison labor, the punishment would be a longer sentence than would otherwise be the case.
• 7If you want a pithier and more articulate version of this idea, read libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick’s piece, “The Tale of a Slave” in his book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia.
• 8Lest there be any confusion, for the remainder of this book I will use “coercive” to mean using or threatening force against those who don’t agree with the state’s existence or actions. Obviously the state is not seen as coercive by those who accept the state’s legitimacy in any particular instance under discussion.
• 9As the saying goes, under this way of thinking it would be reasonable for two wolves and a sheep to vote on what’s for lunch.
• 10The argument would be similar within a U.S. state with respect to that state’s constitution.
• 11As libertarian attorney Stephan Kinsella has put it, it’s as if statists are saying that only the first generation had the freedom to make a choice, but no subsequent generation had or will have this freedom.
• 12This is not an entirely fair analogy, since it is conceivable that Customer Service representatives might be paid to retain customers, and thus they might try to be helpful when you call. On the other hand, Supreme Court justices are appointed for life, regardless of how helpful or destructive their decisions might be to the cause of liberty.
• 13In the U.S. (although this is likely true elsewhere too), as populations have grown substantially, the increase in the number of elected representatives has not kept pace, thereby increasing the number of people “represented” by each elected official well beyond what might have been considered reasonable originally. For instance, the Constitution specifies a minimum House of Representatives district size of 30,000; today, the average is over 730,000 (put another way, were the House of Representatives to operate at that original ratio, there would need to be over 10,000 members). This severely further diminishes any notion of “representation” of any individual voter’s interests by his elected member of Congress.
• 14To renounce U.S. citizenship is not easy, fast, or cheap. One must fill out a number of forms, participate in several interviews with the state, pay a fee of over $2,000, obtain a certificate of renunciation, and pay an “expatriation tax” on one’s entire wealth. The relevant legislation also requires publication of one’s name in the Federal Register, meant to “shame” those who expatriate, and expatriates can be barred from re-entering the U.S. if the state determines that they expatriated to avoid U.S. tax legislation (generally the main reason for most!). Moreover, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has the power to direct the U.S. State Department to revoke or not renew a citizen’s U.S. passport if the IRS claims that the citizen owes more than $50,000 in back taxes (note, the IRS does not have to prove this, just allege it).
• 15One way to effect this governance separation would be through secession, which I discuss in more detail later.
• 16The astute reader will note that the state is no different from the Mafia in this respect.
• 17It would be a circular response for a statist to retort “Because the Mafia is criminal but the state is legitimate.” We are here asking why the state is legitimate when it does exactly what the Mafia does.
• 18Other renditions include for the “general welfare” or the “public good.”
• 19Note that it is possible for a group of people to contractually agree to a common objective, such as in a homeowner’s association. But that is a voluntary arrangement in which each member explicitly consents to the definition of the objective, in contrast to the state, which forces a definition upon everyone, whether they agree to it or not.
• 20To the statist who responds that it is impractical to have continuously changing definitions of the “common good,” and that once an election cycle is the best we could hope for, I would respond that this is precisely an argument for the stateless society. In that society, each individual could continuously change and acquire his preferences at his own pace, regardless of what others want, without coercing others into his regime nor being coerced by others into theirs. Just because the statist cannot imagine a better system doesn’t mean such a system cannot exist.
• 21In addition, as explained by the public choice theory branch of economics, it’s not even clear that the majority view prevails in political deliberations. The sequence in which proposals are put up for debate and vote, and the framing of those proposals, impact the actual outcome, which does not necessarily match the alleged preferences of the majority. The individuals who control the proposal process have a huge degree of influence.
• 22As libertarian economist and philosopher Walter Block has noted, there are over 30,000 deaths each year on state-managed roads. Imagine if there were this many deaths on private properties, such as in malls, parking lots, or department stores. There would be public outrage, a loss of confidence in the managers of these properties, and calls to do something about it. Yet there is virtual silence from the public about the state’s appalling road management.
• 23Perhaps by one of the Tooth Fairy Theories?
• 24Not to mention (but I will) the fact that since those at the state can prohibit peaceful individuals from doing relatively mundane things with their person and property, such as opening a business, renovating a house, etc., state personnel can and do extort favors from private individuals in return for not enforcing these prohibitions.
• 25Strictly speaking, there are private-sector security firms and arbitration tribunals operating in parallel with the state’s police and courts, respectively. However, taxpayers have to pay for the state’s provision of these services even if they choose to use private-sector alternatives. Thus the total cost to a taxpayer of using these alternatives is significantly higher, making for an uneven playing field (and only the well-off can afford to use the generally better private-sector alternatives). The state also coercively limits the activities of private-sector security firms.
• 26Imagine how much success an underperforming private vendor would have if he tried to increase his pricing!
• 27Of course those statists who subscribe to one of the Tooth Fairy Theories would object to this characterization, but that rejection practically indicts itself.
• 28Statists may respond that state personnel sometimes do get regular feedback from polls. However, polls group individuals into artificial categories rather than treating them as individuals, so they don’t reveal individual preferences. Also, polls suffer from sample size and bias issues. Most importantly, however, individual preferences are only revealed through purchase decisions, not answering surveys; the former has a real financial cost, whereas the latter is costless to the respondent.
• 29Another contributing factor to the police using excessive force in the U.S. is the fact that the police are increasingly recruiting or being trained by former soldiers who previously prosecuted the state’s brutal “War on Terror,” and are also using surplus military equipment from that conflict. Treating civilians like enemy combatants and the streets like battlefields, with the aid of military equipment and tactics, can only lead to bringing the brutality of war to our towns and villages.
• 30Note that these war activities mostly cause death, injury, and destruction to foreigners, for which state personnel are rarely held liable. Yet there is no cogent, logical principle which argues that death, injury, or destruction is excusable if the victim of a state’s violence is not currently under that state’s territorial control; that victim is still another human being.
• 31This thesis is laid out methodically in Hoppe’s book, Democracy—The God That Failed. Note that Hoppe is not suggesting that a monarchical state is acceptable, only that it exhibits characteristics that make it preferable to a democratic state. Hoppe’s thesis has been challenged in at least one academic article: see Jacek Sierpinski’s work, “A Critique of Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Thesis on Lesser Harmfulness of Monarchy than Democracy,” Res Publica Revista de Historia de las Ideas Politicas, Vol. 19 Num. 2 (2016): 521–559.
• 32In using the term “democracy” here, I am using it loosely to describe any political system without hereditary rule in which the broad population elects government officials in periodic elections, where such officials are drawn from the general populace and serve for limited terms. Technically, however, “democracy” refers to a specific political system in which, among other things, there is unlimited majority rule and direct self-governance. Contrast this, for instance, with the U.S., which is not technically a democracy but, rather, a constitutional federative republic, because (a) there are elected representatives, and (b) in order to protect the minority, the majority is theoretically limited by a fundamental written law (the Constitution) and the system’s structure (different horizontal and vertical branches of government). However, for all purposes going forward I will treat the U.S. as a democracy, since the key point is to distinguish it from monarchies.
• 33Whereas war between monarchs was not ideologically motivated, but, rather, a limited dispute over specific property, democratic states make war on broad, nationalistic lines, and seek cultural, linguistic, and/or religious domination of the vanquished population. In addition, democratic states make “total war,” as will be discussed later.
• 34These trends in democracies are empirical, and, as with all historical events, it is difficult to use these observations alone to definitively conclude that this shows causation, as opposed to mere correlation. Thus one needs a plausible theory to explain the different types of decision-making and officeholders in democracies compared with monarchies, which is what Hoppe has attempted to do in his work.
• 35Although it should not be overlooked that dictatorships are states too, and in fact dictators sometimes come to power through elections or, once in office, hold elections as a means to justify remaining in power. While one may be skeptical about elections in dictatorships—due to claims of voter fraud, intimidation, and suppression, and limitations on opposing candidates—those issues are regularly cited as issues in democracies too! In any event, when we include dictatorships, the number of citizens or other subjects killed by their own state totals over one hundred million in just the 20th century alone (this excludes the millions of people killed in wars, which are also initiated by states of all types).
• 36While Germany was a totalitarian state by the time the German government invaded Poland in 1939 at the beginning of World War II, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party colleagues were duly elected into office in 1933 as in any other democracy. While the Nazi Party did not initially hold a majority of seats in the Reichstag (parliament), Hitler was appointed by President Hindenburg as Chancellor to head a ruling coalition. Subsequently, Hitler was given emergency powers by Hindenburg according to the Weimar Constitution, and the Nazi Party then won a majority in a general election (in which the Socialist and Communist Parties were banned and their voters intimidated). Hitler’s Enabling Law, which gave him vast power, was passed through a vote by the Reichstag, although members of the Reichstag who would presumably have voted against this legislation were not allowed into the Reichstag building at the time of the vote. This is when Hitler began his totalitarian takeover of Germany, and the vestiges of democracy began to disappear.
• 37The “War on Drugs,” like Prohibition, should really be called the “War on People Who Believe That They Own Their Own Bodies.”
• 38Note that, in many of these conflicts, the U.S. government was joined by the governments of other democracies (such as Australia, Canada, France, and Great Britain).
• 39For a chilling and thought-provoking discussion of drone aggression waged by the U.S. government in recent times, see Laurie Calhoun’s book, We Kill Because We Can.
• 40Note that there is also some “self-conflation.” That is, the rulers in a democracy promote, and many statists accept, the false notion that a threat to the government’s image, power, or continuity is a threat to civil society or individual citizens.
• 41Note that it’s not only in violent war that civilians are targeted by democratic states; when such states levy “economic war” against another state, such as through trade sanctions, the explicit purpose is to economically hurt the other state’s civilian population as a means of pressuring its government. (Of course the democratic state also hurts its own civilian population by levying such sanctions, since these sanctions prohibit its own civilians from freely trading with the civilians of the other state.)
• 42For an example in a democracy suggesting that this issue might not trouble statists, consider that, in the U.S., between 1861 and 1865, President Lincoln’s generals waged war on the citizens of the Confederate states, which actions many statists still support to this day. Of course one could also argue that, since this war followed the Confederate states’ secession from the U.S., this war was actually waged against a foreign nation’s citizens. In which case the statist could rest easy, morally speaking!
• 43For a very insightful articulation of the delusions that accompany modern warfare, see Laurie Calhoun’s book, War and Delusion.
• 44For an excellent discussion of what war does to a population, see the book edited by John Denson, The Costs of War.
• 45Note that not only do the rulers (and their cronies) benefit from war while not bearing its costs, but the most senior members of the state also receive significant personal protection against any blowback—paid for by the confiscated income of private citizens—in the form of massive amounts of armed protection wherever they go (while denying private citizens the right to be armed for their own protection), as well as underground bunkers to which to flee if there is an actual or threatened attack.
• 46One might have more sympathy for those in the armed forces who are conscripted by the state to fight its wars. Even then, the real honor should be reserved for those who flee conscription to avoid carrying out the state’s violence.
• 47Probably the most startling example of this in recent times is the fact that, as disclosed in 2012, during his presidency President Obama regularly presided over a “kill list,” whereby he ordered the murder by drone strike of designated individuals overseas, including Americans, none of whom had been tried and found guilty of any violent crime. While many of these strikes also murdered individuals not on the list, according to one report in The New York Times, the president had a formula for minimizing the official count of mistaken casualties that “in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants . . . unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.” This is quite a perverse reversal of the usual burden of proof required in capital crimes. Yet this shocking activity quickly ceased being a central discussion point in the U.S.; it appeared that the vast majority of the population didn’t know about, didn’t care about or, in the case of foreign policy hawks, actively supported, this horrific exercise of state power.
• 48Such person could assign or abandon this right, but that would be his voluntary decision.
• 49In today’s state “justice” system, to bolster the aura around the supposed infallibility of, and the supreme “justice” imposed by, the state’s court system, note how intimidating the setup is, almost as if there are some divine aspects to it. The judge wears a fearsome black robe, is seated higher than everyone else, may be supported by armed guards, and must be addressed using honorific terms (otherwise contempt charges might be brought against the miscreant). This is of a piece with other ridiculously childish aspects of the state, such as the aura created around, and forced respect given to, the presidency, the legislature, and the military. Respect and honor should be earned, not imposed, but the pomp and ceremony is important for the state’s illusion of superiority.
• 50For instance, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report from June 2012, just at the federal government alone in 2008 there were 40 federal agencies with over 120,000 officers authorized to carry firearms and make arrests. Unusual examples include the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Reserve, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the General Services Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the IRS, the Bureau of Land Management, the Library of Congress, the National Institute of Health, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Park Service, and the Veterans Health Administration.
• 51According to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, approximately one-third of the federal and state prison population in the U.S. (that is, approximately 520,000 prisoners) had been incarcerated for these types of non-violent, victimless “crimes.” Note that these numbers exclude another 700,000+ prisoners held in local jails and over 4.7 million individuals on probation and parole, for which “category of offense” data is not available, although undoubtedly a large number of these individuals were also incarcerated for non-violent, victimless “crimes.”
• 52To bolster its argument, the state typically claims that reducing private gun ownership would itself reduce violent crime, but that claim is demonstrably false: see John Lott’s book, More Guns, Less Crime. The aggressor rarely pays attention to gun-control regulations, or uses other means to conduct his violence, such as vehicles, knives, clubs, superior strength, explosives, etc. So the only effect of gun-control regulations is to disarm the law-abiding victims.
• 53A “plea bargain” is an agreement by a defendant with a prosecutor to plead guilty to certain charges without a trial, in return for other charges being dropped and/or the prosecutor recommending to the judge a potentially lighter sentence.
• 54If the victim tried to sue the prosecutor for negligence, then the prosecutor would likely benefit from the immunity principle discussed earlier, and of course the victim would have to sue the state prosecutor in the state’s own courts!
• 55Moreover, in some areas the state may actually prohibit a parallel, private civil action by the victim against the aggressor. Even where both actions might be run in parallel, findings in the criminal case could impact the outcome of the civil case, but the victim has no real input into or control over the criminal case.
• 56The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that federal prosecutors and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents can use trickery, deceptions, and outright lies (including such things as disguises, verbal traps, and fraud) to help them extract information from a witness or person they are investigating.
• 57And note that the state uses the ordinary citizen’s income to fund possession of large amounts of firearms and ammunition to protect individuals at the state, while at the same time, through gun-control regulations, substantially limiting the ordinary citizen’s ability to use the same firearms and ammunition to protect himself.
• 58This concept is even more egregious when paired with the immunity concept described earlier: the police get the benefit of immunity when they do something wrong, and when they are wronged, their aggressors suffer greater penalties.
• 59Obviously I’m not suggesting that taxes are a “debt due” to the state, since taxes are forcibly mandated, as opposed to arising from a voluntary payment contract.
• 60In the U.S., quite apart from the IRS’s enforcement arm, there are other examples of armed tax collectors, such as the New York state government’s “strike force” to combat the heinous crime of trying to avoid payment of state taxes on cigarettes.