The people who seem to hate me the most aren't the standard diehard statists, but those who call themselves "libertarian" and hold me up as an example of what a libertarian shouldn't be. Or isn't.
Then, they'll try to insult me by calling me an "anarchist".
They're shooting blanks.
If their idea of "libertarian" means keeping a minimal state around ("minarchy"; the wildest Utopian notion ever) so it can violate life, liberty, and property they don't personally like, count me out.
They don't really trust liberty, but fear some aspects of it, which they want government to control (violate) for them. They want to distinguish themselves from anyone who isn't saddled with their hangups. So they'll insist libertarians can't be anarchists and anarchists aren't libertarian. Many of them will say that if you're not on board with the Libertarian Party, you're not a libertarian.
Just like the awful person I know who once told people who asked about me, "I don't believe like him", I'm glad they've distanced themselves from me. They're doing me a favor. Thank you!
I don't buy e.g. Nozick's arguments for the ethical acceptability of an ultra-minimal state, but I can see why some people might find them convincing.
ReplyDeleteMost of THOSE minarchists don't seem to feel the need to virtue signal about how they aren't associated with anarchists.
But most of the standard-issue "limited government" anarchists seem to be willing to twist themselves into all kinds of pretzels trying to explain why [insert archating activity they approve of here] is the exception.
It's quite confusing to me.
DeleteIf something is so important that "limited government anarchists" believe it justifies a state, why isn't it important enough that people will make it happen voluntarily, without a state? Is it just because if the state does it, they can claim they aren't the ones committing the crime?
I assume you mean "limited government MINarchists."
ReplyDeleteThe argument I usually get, if the discussion gets that far, is typically (Rand offered a version) that a neutral/objective third party of last resort is required to identify and remediate initiations of force.
Which wouldn't be a terrible argument if there was any likelihood at all that a state, with its claimed monopoly on force, could plausibly remain neutral/objective for longer than it took for the first lobbyist to show up with a brown paper bag full of cash, or for a situation to arise in which one outcome favored retention/expansion of the state and the other outcome favored abolition or diminution of the state.
My preferred anarchist alternative to the state as a third party of last resort would be a decentralized system of private security (self-provided or as sold services) with mutual reciprocity agreements and recourse to a similarly decentralized system of arbitrators (in which the participating arbitrators have a hand-off protocol to OTHER arbitrators if the disputing parties disagree on which arbitrator to use).
I thought you used the phrase "limited government anarchists" in your first comment to be funny, so I was doing the same. I guess it got confusing! LOL
DeleteAnd, yes, I completely agree with encouraging a third party market. That's the way to do it, not with a fake "third party" state.