Anarchists are fuming at our most recent viral hit “5 Reasons I’m Not An Anarchist.” They’re even going so far as to make Youtube videos to rebut our arguments for a nightwatchman state. Oh no! What to do? I guess the only thing for a rebuttal is a rebuttal to a rebuttal.
We compiled a list of the most awesome minarchist libertarians in history. We know that anarcho-capitalists like to claim these libertarian heroes as their own, but it seems that these people don’t self-identify as such. We put together this list to show that it’s pretty awesome to be a libertarian minarchist because it forms a cohesive philosophy and legal theory.
Let these 8 awesome libertarians explain why the nightwatchman state is preferable to a dystopian “Mad Max-style” anarchist state.
#1. Ron Paul
Congressman Ron Paul gave birth to a modern liberty movement full of vibrant ideas, energy, and young people dedicated to advancing constitutional, limited-government principles. The former congressman from Texas bold positions on constitutionalism and free markets made him a hero to millions across the country, and helped bring about the Tea Party movement which saw his son rise to power as a U.S. Senator and now a presidential candidate.
When asked directly by Tom Woods if Dr. Paul was an anarchist, Paul said “I haven’t accepted the idea that tomorrow we can scratch it and have no government.” Paul poo-poo’d the idea of privatized police forces, arguing that “it’s a problem because the world isn’t made up of perfect people.” He went on to say that he believes that “I haven’t gotten to the point where all problems can be solved without any government whatsoever, I think that competing police forces could become a problem.”
#2. Judge Napolitano
The great constitutional scholar himself. Judge Andrew Napolitano sits near the iron throne at Fox News as their Sr. Judicial Analyst. As a former superior court judge in New Jersey, Napolitano’s defense of limited government principles is unquestionable. With a solid foundation of individual rights as the goal, Napolitano argues that the constitution is the supreme law of the land, however, the Judge rightly defends the belief that rights don’t come from government, they come from God, or from our humanity.
Napolitano believes that we have the “presumption of liberty,” and argues: “because of our recognition of natural rights, and our history, values, and written constitutional guarantees, we in America are self-directed and free to make our own choices. In fact, the constitutional guarantee of due process mandates that because our individual liberty is natural to us, it is always presumed; thus, it is always the government’s obligation to demonstrate our unworthiness of freedom to a judge and jury before it can curtail that freedom. It is not the other way around.”
He also argues as a defender of natural law that: “Under the natural law, the government only has two purposes, and those are to preserve, protect and defend our rights from fraud and force and nothing else.”
Napolitano has built an incredible career as a stalwart defender of the constitution, inspiring millions across the country with his speeches, and across the world with his vast anthology of books.
#3. Rand Paul
Senator Rand Paul has been one of the best defenders of constitutionally limited government since he took office as a senator in 2010. Paul calls himself a “constitutional conservative,” as well as a “libertarian conservative.” He stood in opposition to President Obama’s drone policy, filibustering until the president clarified that he would never use them domestically against American citizens.
Recently, Paul declared his willingness to stand against the unconstitutional PATRIOT Act. The Kentucky senator says he will filibuster the renewal of the controversial spy program, and attempt to spark a debate about privacy in this country.
Paul is also the winner of the Constitutional Champion prize from The Constitution Project.
#4. Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick is probably the most interesting and principled libertarian in the modern era, solidifying the beliefs of limited government capitalists in his seminal work “Anarchy, State, & Utopia.” Nozick rejected the utopian beliefs of anarchists and socialists, arguing that a minimal state was necessary, “limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on.”
Nozick’s “nightwatchman state,” was a rebuttal to anarchists, since he saw that anarcho-capitalism would eventually transform into a minarchist state, since private defense or judicial agencies would see people eventually aligning with the agencies that provide majority coverage. While he sympathized with anarcho-capitalist ideals, he believed that any institutions which would arise out of that system would be a de facto “state.”
Nozick also touched on the themes echoed by Ron Paul about the problems of private policing. His argument was that if everyone is expected to be on call for mutual protection, then some members may be cantankerous or paranoid, as anyone who has associated with anarchists could easily attest. Nozick argued that any protection agency that sold services would be something “very much resembling a minimal state.”
#5. Friedrich Hayek
Hayek is a hero to limited government libertarians everywhere. His work “Road to Serfdom” details the problems of a totalitarian state, and explains how democracy can easily lead to fascism. He won the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991 from George H.W. Bush, and the Nobel Prize for his work on economics and the business cycle.
Hayek was a minarchist, despite the protestations of well-meaning professors Edward Stringham and Todd Zywicki. His work “The Constitution of Liberty,” sketched out a new view of what principles should be enshrined in law. Hayek also agreed with Robert Nozick on the idea that governments should be judged on how they govern, not on how they attained governance.
For example, Hayek was a defender of Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, saying that “As long term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period. […] Personally I prefer a liberal dictatorship to democratic government devoid of liberalism. My personal impression – and this is valid for South America – is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government.”
Hayek argued that there was a difference between authoritarianism and totalitarianism. He warned against confusing the two, stating that totalitarianism was the want to “organize the whole of society” to attain a “definite social goal,” which was stark in contrast to “liberalism and individualism.”
#6. Ludwig Von Mises
The authority in libertarian thought, Ludwig Von Mises was the pioneer in the study of praxeology, or the study of human choice and action. He was firm in his beliefs in the superiority of the marketplace to government coercion in advancing prosperity. Milton Friedman recounted the humorous tale of Mises at a Mount Pelerin meeting where he stormed out, calling the room of classical liberals a “bunch of socialists.”
However, Mises was no anarcho-capitalist. He once referred to them as a:
“A shallow-minded school of social philosophers, the anarchists, chose to ignore the matter by suggesting a stateless organization of mankind. They simply passed over the fact that men are not angels. They were too dull to realize that in the short run an individual or a group of individuals can certainly further their own interests at the expense of their own and all other peoples’ long-run interests. A society that is not prepared to thwart the attacks of such asocial and short-sighted aggressors is helpless and at the mercy of its least intelligent and most brutal members. While Plato founded his utopia on the hope that a small group of perfectly wise and morally impeccable philosophers will be available for the supreme conduct of affairs, anarchists implied that all men without any exception will be endowed with perfect wisdom and moral impeccability. They failed to conceive that no system of social cooperation can remove the dilemma between a man’s or a group’s interests in the short run and those in the long run.”
Of course, libertarian anarchists love to claim Mises as their icon, but I wonder if they’ve read this: “Government as such is not only not an evil, but the most necessary and beneficial institution, as without it no lasting social cooperation and no civilization would be possible.”
#7. Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand despised libertarians, and yet she has become an icon for them because of her unquestioned defense of free market capitalism. She was a supporter of rational and ethical egoism, and had harsh words for altruism. She was a laissez-faire capitalist, and opposed collectivism and anarchism. Rand saw libertarianism as a subset of anarchism, which she thought was naive and subjective.
Rand had harsh words for libertarians, but they still love her and see her as one of their own, despite the following statement:
“Capitalism is the one system that requires absolute objective law, yet they want to combine capitalism and anarchism. That is worse than anything the New Left has proposed. It’s a mockery of philosophy and ideology. They sling slogans and try to ride on two bandwagons. They want to be hippies, but don’t want to preach collectivism, because those jobs are already taken. But anarchism is a logical outgrowth of the anti-intellectual side of collectivism. I could deal with a Marxist with a greater chance of reaching some kind of understanding, and with much greater respect. The anarchist is the scum of the intellectual world of the left, which has given them up. So the right picks up another leftist discard. That’s the Libertarian movement.”
#8. Frederic Bastiat
Another great hero of minarchist libertarians, Frederic Bastiat promoted a view of free market economics that many say helped form the basis of the modern Austrian economic school. The French philosopher and politician argued against economic protectionism and for free trade. However, he was no anarchist, since he did argue that government had a purpose, and that purpose was to protect life, liberty, and property.
Also, despite his arguments against redistribution, Bastiat slightly contradicted himself when he wrote in the Journal des Economistes that “under extraordinary circumstances, for urgent cases, the State should set aside some resources to assist certain unfortunate people, to help them adjust to changing conditions.”
Not quite libertarian, definitely not anarchist, but safely a minarchist. Bastiat is still influencing libertarian thought today.
Disillusioned with Anarcho-Capitalism? Go to the next slide for something fresh, bold, and new.
What is a Minarchist? Intro To The Nightwatchman State
