The Routledge Handbook of Anarchy and Anarchist Thought

[Front Matter]

[Praise for this book]

This splendid collection invites us to look at the idea of anarchy and anarchism from a remarkable range of perspectives: historical, anthropological, and economic, as well as political and philosophical. The individual essays are invariably insightful, often provocative, and sometimes surprising for what they tell us about how people have managed to order their collective lives without turning to political authority. The volume as a whole has as much to offer those familiar with anarchist traditions as others coming to these ideas for the first time.

Chandran Kukathas, Singapore Management University

This Handbook surveys the history of anti-authoritarian answers to the basic questions of political philosophy. But the introduction and selections—notable for their clarity, precision, and expertise— also apply various forms of liberatory politics to concrete matters in the contemporary world, including climate change, mass incarceration, military technologies, and even transhumanism. The Handbook embodies a coherent, unified account of its subject-matter, demonstrating the continued relevance of a fundamentally challenging tradition. The provocations this potentially controversial volume offers, especially when protesters around the world are chanting ‘abolish the police,’ could not be more timely.

Crispin Sartwell, Dickinson College

The history and prospects of anarchism are misunderstood—and often misrepresented. There is a renewed interest in questioning the size and function of the coercive state, and mistrust of attempts at reform is growing. Surprisingly, there have been very few attempts to take stock of this broad, and sometimes contradictory, body of thought. The Handbook is the right book at the right time. Scholarly enough to be used by philosophers and political theorists, it is also a delightful and intellectually challenging resource for anyone who wants to understand anarchism as a movement.

Michael Munger, Duke University

This Handbook is an important and timely contribution to a vitally necessary discussion. New pressures on our inherited political institutions are distorting them in undesirable ways, whether these pressures come from climate change, from the growth of international corporate power, from truly global pandemics, or from globe-spanning terror networks. How can we arrange our political and social affairs such that they enhance human life while simultaneously avoiding or containing the horrific effects of inappropriate modes of organization? This volume offers a wide range of suggestions for our careful consideration.

John T. Sanders, Rochester Institute of Technology

Too much contemporary political philosophy still pays too little attention to anarchist thought. That neglect has always been surprising, not least because no other body of literature so comprehensively explores and challenges the theoretical and empirical foundations of coercive forms of hierarchy and their associated conceptions of justice and authority. Nowhere is the breadth and analytical depth of the anarchist tradition better represented than in the contributions to this Handbook.

Hillel Steiner, University of Manchester

[Synopsis]

This Handbook offers an authoritative, up-to-date introduction to the rich scholarly conversation about anarchy—about the possibility, dynamics, and appeal of social order without the state. Drawing on resources from philosophy, economics, law, history, politics, and religious studies, it is designed to deepen understanding of anarchy and the development of anarchist ideas at a time when those ideas have attracted increasing attention.

The popular identification of anarchy with chaos makes sophisticated interpretations—which recognize anarchy as a kind of social order rather than an alternative to it—especially interesting. Strong, centralized governments have struggled to quell popular frustration even as doubts have continued to percolate about their legitimacy and long-term financial stability. Since the emergence of the modern state, concerns like these have driven scholars to wonder whether societies could flourish while abandoning monopolistic governance entirely.

Standard treatments of political philosophy frequently assume the justifiability and desirability of states, focusing on such questions as What is the best kind of state? and What laws and policies should states adopt?, without considering whether it is just or prudent for states to do anything at all. This Handbook encourages engagement with a provocative alternative that casts more conventional views in stark relief.

Its 30 chapters, written specifically for this volume by an international team of leading scholars, are organized into four main parts:

1. Concept and Significance

2. Figures and Traditions

3. Legitimacy and Order

4. Critique and Alternatives

In addition, a comprehensive index makes the volume easy to navigate and an annotated bibliography points readers to the most promising avenues of future research.

Gary Chartier is Distinguished Professor of Law and Business Ethics and Associate Dean of the Tom and Vi Zapara School of Business at La Sierra University. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of seventeen books, including Anarchy and Legal Order (2013), Flourishing Lives: Exploring Natural Law Liberalism (2019), and The Logic of Commitment (2018).

Chad Van Schoelandt is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Tulane University. His work has been published in Ethics, Analysis, Philosophical Studies, the Philosophical Quarterly, and Law and Philosophy.

[Title Page]

Taylor & Francis Croup

[Copyright]

First published 2021
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

© 2021 Taylor & Francis

The right of Gary Chartier and Chad Van Schoelandt to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of
the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested

ISBN: 978-1-138-73758-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-18525-5 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by River Editorial Ltd, Devon, UK

[Dedication]

Contents

Contributors xii

Acknowledgments xviii

Introduction 1

Gary Chartier and Chad Van Schoelandt

PART I

Concept and Significance 13

1 Anarchism, Anarchists, and Anarchy 15

Paul McLaughlin

2 The Anarchist Landscape 28

Roderick T. Long

3 On the Distinction Between State and Anarchy 39

Christopher W. Morris

4 Methodological Anarchism 53

Jason Lee Byas and Billy Christmas

5 What Is the Point of Anarchism? 76

Aeon J. Skoble

PART II

Figures and Traditions 81

6 Anarchism against Anarchy: The Classical Roots of Anarchism 83

Stephen R. L. Clark

7 Kant on Anarchy 99

Oliver Sensen

8 Barbarians in the Agora: American Market Anarchism, 1945—2011 112

J. Martin Vest

9 Rights, Morality, and Egoism in Individualist Anarchism 126

Eric Mack

10 Transcending Leftist Politics: Situating Egoism within the Anarchist Project 139

David S. D’Amato

11 De Facto Monopolies and the Justification of the State 152

Ralf M. Bader

12 Two Cheers for Rothbardianism 163

Cory Massimino

13 Christian Anarchism 187

Sam Underwood and Kevin Vallier

PART III

Legitimacy and Order 205

14 Anarchism and Political Obligation: An Introduction 207

Magda Egoumenides

15 The Positive Political Economy of Analytical Anarchism 222

Peter J. Boettke and Rosolino A. Candela

16 Moral Parity between State and Non-state Actors 235

Jason Brennan

17 Economic Pathologies of the State 247

Christopher Coyne and Nathan P. Goodman

18 Hunting for Unicorns 262

Peter T. Leeson

19 Social Norms and Social Order 271

Ryan Muldoon

20 Anarchy and Law 281

Jonathan Crowe

21 Anarchism, State, and Violence 295

Andy Alexis-Baker

22 The Forecast for Anarchy 309

Tom W. Bell

PART IV

Critique and Alternatives 325

23 Social Anarchism and the Rejection of Private Property 327

Jesse Spafford

24 The Right Anarchy: Capitalist or Socialist? 342

Michael Huemer

25 Anarchist Approaches to Education 360

Kevin Currie-Knight

26 An Anarchist Critique of Power Relations within Institutions 365

Kevin A. Carson

27 Anarchism for an Ecological Crisis? 381

Dan C. Shahar

28 States, Incarceration, and Organizational Structure: Towards a General Theory of Imprisonment 393

Daniel J. D’Amico

29 The Problems of Central Planning in Military Technology 406

Abigail R. Hall

30 Anarchy and Transhumanism 416

William Gillis

Annotated Bibliography 429

Index 445

Contributors

Andy Alexis-Baker is Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Arrupe College of Loyola University Chicago. He has published numerous articles and books on issues of violence and nonviolence and humans’ treatment of other animals. As an anarchist and antiwar activist, he has been involved in work for peace and justice, including, for example, antimilitarist work in Vieques, Puerto Rico, where he was placed in a federal prison with many other activists for engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience designed to remove the United States’ military from the island.

Ralf M. Bader is Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at the Université de Fribourg in Switzerland. His research concerns ethics, metaphysics, Kant, political philosophy, and decision theory. He was formerly a fellow of Merton College and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Oxford, as well as a Bersoff Assistant Professor and faculty fellow in the Department of Philosophy at New York University.

Tom W. Bell is Professor of Law at Chapman University. He is the author of Your Next Government? From the Nation State to Stateless Nations (2017) and Intellectual Privilege: Copyright, Common Law, and the Common Good (2014). He has appeared on or been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, CNN, The Economist, the Los Angeles Times, and many other news sources.

Peter J. Boettke is University Professor of Economics and Philosophy at George Mason University and Director of the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason. Before joining the faculty at George Mason in 1998, he taught at New York University. In addition, Boettke was a national fellow at the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University during the 1992—1993 academic years and the F. A. Hayek fellow in 2004 and 2006 at the London School of Economics, as well as a visiting professor or scholar at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow; the Max Planck Institute for Research into Economic Systems in Jena, Germany; the Stockholm School of Economics; the Central European University in Prague; and the Charles University in Prague. In March 2011, he was a Fulbright fellow at the University of Economics in Prague, Czech Republic. He served as the President of the Southern Economic Association from 2015–2017, the Mont Pelerin Society from 2016–2018, the Association of Private Enterprise Education from 2013–2014, and the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics from 1999—2001. In 2013, he became Founding Honorary President and Honorary President of the World Interdisciplinary Network for Institutional Research. He currently serves as a co-editorin-chief of the Review of Austrian Economics and associate editor of the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.

Jason Brennan is Robert J. and Elizabeth Flanagan Family Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University. His focus is on politics, philosophy, and economics. As of August 2020, he is the author of thirteen books, including most relevantly to this present volume Injustice for All (2019), When All Else Fails (2018), and Why Not Capitalism? (2014). He specializes in democratic theory, philosophical problems arising from perverse incentives, and the moral foundations of market society.

Jason Lee Byas is a fellow of the Center for a Stateless Society and a PhD student in philosophy at the University of Michigan. His primary interests are in rights theory, punishment, and moral repair.

Rosolino A. Candela is Associate Director of Academic and Student Programs and a senior fellow of the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Before coming to George Mason University, Candela taught in the Department of Economics at Brown University, where he was also a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Political Theory Project. He was also a visiting professor of economics at Universidad Francisco Marroquin, and a visiting fellow in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute.

Kevin A. Carson is Karl Hess Distinguished Research Scholar at the Center for a Stateless Society. He is the author of books including Studies in Mutualist Political Economy (2007), Organization Theory (2008), and The Desktop Regulatory State: The Countervailing Power of Individuals and Networks (2016).

Gary Chartier is Distinguished Professor of Law and Business Ethics and Associate Dean of the Tom and Vi Zapara School of Business at La Sierra University. His scholarship focuses on issues in law and legal theory (particularly natural law theory), political philosophy (especially anarchism), and ethics (for instance, personal formation, personal relationships, and the ethics of production and consumption). He is the author of books including Flourishing Lives: Exploring Natural Law Liberalism (2019), An Ecological Theory of Free Expression (2018), The Logic of Commitment (Routledge 2017), and Anarchy and Legal Order: Law and Politics for a Stateless Society (2013).

Billy Christmas is Lecturer in Political Theory and the PPE Programme Director at King’s College London, in the Department of Political Economy. He also has affiliations with the Classical Liberal Institute at the New York University School of Law and the Center for a Stateless Society. His primary interests are in political philosophy concern rights, property, and political authority. He is currently completing a book manuscript on property and justice, and he has published articles in journals including The Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy, and the Philosophical Quarterly.

Stephen R. L. Clark is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Liverpool, and an honorary research fellow in the Department of Theology at the University of Bristol. His books include The Nature of the Beast (1982), Civil Peace and Sacred Order (1989), The Political Animal (Routledge 1999), Biology and Christian Ethics (2000), Understanding Faith: Religious Belief and its Place in Society (2009), Philosophical Futures (2011), Ancient Mediterranean Philosophy (2013), and Plotinus: Myth, Metaphor and Philosophical Practice (2016). His chief current interests are in the philosophy of Plotinus, the understanding and treatment of non-human animals, the philosophy of religion, and science fiction.

Christopher Coyne is Professor of Economics at George Mason University and Associate Director of the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the university’s Mercatus Center. He is the author of After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy (2007); Doing Bad by Doing Good: Why Humanitarian Action Fails (2013); Tyranny Comes Home: The Domestic Fate of U.S. Militarism, with Abigail R. Hall (2018); and Defense, Peace, and War Economics (2020). He is a co-editor of volumes including (with Peter J. Boettke) The Oxford Handbook of Austrian Economics (2015) and (with Rachel Mathers) The Handbook on the Political Economy of War (2012). He co-edits the Review of Austrian Economics and The Independent Review. He serves as the book review editor of Public Choice.

Jonathan Crowe is Professor of Law at Bond University. His research examines the philosophical relationship between law and ethics. He has also produced significant bodies of work on constitutional law, rape and sexual assault law, international humanitarian law, and dispute resolution. He is the author or editor of nine books and more than ninety peer-reviewed book chapters and journal articles. His work has appeared in periodicals including the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, the Modern Law Review, and Jurisprudence. His recent books include Mediation Ethics: From Theory to Practice (2020), Natural Law and the Nature of Law (2019), and the Research Handbook on Natural Law Theory (2019). He co-edits the Journal of Legal Philosophy with Hillary Nye. He is an Honorary Life Member of the Australasian Society of Legal Philosophy, of which he served as president from 2014 to 2018.

Kevin Currie-Knight is a teaching associate professor in East Carolina University’s College of Education. His research focuses on the history and philosophy of (American K—12) education and informal and self-directed learning. He is the author of Education in the Marketplace: An Intellectual History of Pro-Market Libertarian Visions for Education in Twentieth-Century America (2019).

David S. D’Amato is a lawyer, businessman, and former legal writing instructor who is currently a columnist for the Cato Institute’s Libertarianism.org project and a policy advisor at the Future of Freedom Foundation and the Heartland Institute. He is an opinion contributor at The Hill, and his writing has also appeared in Newsweek, Forbes, Investor’s Business Daily, the Washington Examiner, RealClearPolicy, Townhall, The Daily Caller, The American Spectator, CounterPunch, and many other publications. He is frequently published by nonprofit, nonpartisan policy research organizations such as the Centre for Policy Studies, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Foundation for Economic Education, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, among others. He earned a JD from the New England School of Law and an LLM in Global Law and Technology from Suffolk University Law School. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Daniel J. D’Amico is Associate Director of the Political Theory Project and a Lecturer in Economics at Brown University,. where he teaches and coordinates student programs dedicated to the study of institutions and ideas that make societies free, prosperous, and fair. His current research examines the political economy of punishment and incarceration throughout history and around the world. He has been published in a variety of scholarly outlets, including the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, the Journal of Institutional Economics, Public Choice, and the Journal of Comparative Economics. He serves as a co-editor of the Advances in Austrian Economics book series. He is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce; an affiliated scholar associated with the workshop in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University; and a co-founder of the Carl Menger Essay Contest sponsored by the Foundation for Economic Education.

Magda Egoumenides studied philosophy in Athens and in London. She has collaborated with the Department of Philosophy at University College London and with the Department of Methodology of History and the Theory of Science at the University of Athens. Since 2009, she has been teaching philosophy at the University of Cyprus. She specializes in moral and political philosophy and has published various articles and two books on philosophical anarchism and political authority, including Philosophical Anarchism and Political Obligation (2014). She also writes books for children and has acted non-professionally for more than two decades.

William Gillis is a second-generation anarchist who has been involved in a wide array of activist work since the Battle in Seattle. He holds an undergraduate degree in physics and serves as the Coordinating Director of the Center for a Stateless Society. His writing can be found in a number of compilations, including Markets Not Capitalism and Abolish Work.

Nathan P. Goodman is a PhD student in the Department of Economics at George Mason University and a PhD fellow at the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center. His research focuses on institutions, defense and peace economics, public choice, and self-governance. He is particularly interested in how alternative institutional arrangements shape the production of security. His research has been published in the Journal of Institutional Economics, the Journal of Private Enterprise, the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, and Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy.

Abigail R. Hall is an Associate Professor in Economics at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. She is an affiliated scholar with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and an affiliated scholar with the Foundation for Economic Education. Her research interests include political economy and public choice, defense and peace economics, and institutions and economic development. She is the co-author, with Christopher Coyne, of Tyranny Comes Home: The Domestic Fate of U.S. Militarism (2018).

Michael Huemer is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the author of more than seventy academic articles in ethics, epistemology, political philosophy, and metaphysics, as well as six amazing books that you should immediately buy, including Ethical Intuitionism (2005), The Problem of Political Authority (2013), and Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism (2019).

Peter T. Leeson is the Duncan Black Professor of Economics and Law at George Mason University. He is author of the award-winning The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, Anarchy Unbound: Why Self-Governance Works Better than You Think, and WTF?! An Economic Tour of the Weird. Leeson was a visiting professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, visiting fellow in Political Economy and Government at Harvard University, and the F.A. Hayek fellow at the London School of Economics. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Roderick T. Long is Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University. He serves as President of the Molinari Institute and a senior fellow of the Center for a Stateless Society. He is the author of Reason and Value: Aristotle Versus Rand (2000), Rituals of Freedom: Libertarian Themes in Early Confucianism (2016), and Wittgenstein, Austrian Economics, and the Logic of Action (forthcoming). He is editor of the Molinari Review and a co-editor of Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country? (2008), Social Class and State Power: Exploring an Alternative Radical Tradition (2018), and the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. He has published articles in journals including Social Philosophy and Policy, Utilitas, the Griffith Law Review, and the Review of Metaphysics.

Eric Mack is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Tulane University. His primary scholarly project has been the refinement and extension of libertarian-oriented natural rights theory. He has published over 100 scholarly essays on the moral foundations of natural rights, the basis and nature of property rights, economic justice, the nature of law and of spontaneous economic and social order, the scope of legitimate coercive institutions, and the exploration of these topics by seventeenth- and nineteenth-century classical liberal and libertarian theorists. He is the editor of Auberon Herbert’s The Rights and Wrongs of Compulsion by the State and Other Essays (1978) and Herbert Spencer’s The Man versus the State (1982). He is also the author of John Locke (2013), Libertarianism (2018), and The Essential John Locke (2019).

Cory Massimino is an independent scholar. He is a fellow of the Center for a Stateless Society. His research focuses on virtue ethics, market process economics, and anarchist political theory. His writings have appeared in publications including The Guardian, The Independent, and Playboy. He lives in Florida with his wife and their four cats.

Paul McLaughlin is Senior Lecturer in Education Studies at Bath Spa University. He previously held positions in philosophy and education at the University of Limerick, Adam Mickiewicz University, and the University of Tartu. He is the author of Anarchism and Authority: A Philosophical Introduction to Classical Anarchism (Routledge 2016), Radicalism: A Philosophical Study (2012), and Mikhail Bakunin: The Philosophical Basis of His Anarchism (2002). His byline has appeared in publications including the Journal of Moral Philosophy, the European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, and Anarchist Studies, and in edited books including Brill’s Companion to Anarchism and Philosophy (2018), the Encyclopedia of Modern Political Thought (2013), and Anarchism and Moral Philosophy (2012).

Christopher W. Morris is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Maryland. His research interests concern political philosophy, political economy, legal theory, and ethics. He is the author of An Essay on the Modern State (1998), and is currently working on a new book, tentatively entitled Social Order, Liberty, and Prosperity.

Ryan Muldoon is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Philosophy, Politics and Economics program at the University at Buffalo. Previously, he was a senior research fellow in the Philosophy, Politics and Economics program at the University of Pennsylvania. He was also a core author of the 2015 World Development Report at the World Bank. His primary research investigates how we can turn the challenge of increasing diversity into a resource to be tapped for our mutual benefit. Specifically, he investigates how diversity can lead to more just societies, to an increase in the amount and quality of scientific production, and greater wealth. His scholarship also examines the social and behavioral aspects of development policy. He is the author of Social Contract Theory for a Diverse World: Beyond Tolerance (Routledge 2016) and articles in journals including Philosophical Studies, Utilitas, and Synthese and (with Cristina Biccheri) in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Oliver Sensen is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Tulane University and Vice President of the North American Kant Society. He is the author of Human Dignity (forthcoming) and Kant on Human Dignity (2011) and the editor of Kant on Moral Autonomy (2012) and of four other current or forthcoming essay collections. He has published over sixty articles on Kant’s philosophy.

Dan C. Shahar is Assistant Professor of Philosophy (Research) and a member of the Urban Entrepreneurship and Policy Institute at the University of New Orleans. His research focuses on the implications of environmental challenges for liberal societies and their members. With David Schmidtz, he is a co-editor of the latest edition of the popular textbook Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters, What Really Works (2018).

Aeon J. Skoble is Professor of Philosophy at Bridgewater State University. He is the author of Deleting the State: An Argument about Government (2008) and The Essential Nozick (2020); the editor of Reading Rasmussen and Den Uyl: Critical Essays on Norms of Liberty (2008); and co-editor of Political Philosophy: Essential Selections (1999); Reality, Reason, and Rights (2011); the best-selling The Simpsons and Philosophy (2000); and three other books on film and television. He has frequently lectured and written for the Institute for Humane Studies, the Cato Institute, and the Foundation for Economic Education, and he is a senior fellow of the Fraser Institute. His principal research foci include theories of rights, the nature and justification of authority, and virtue ethics. He also writes widely on the intersection of philosophy and popular culture.

Jesse Spafford is a research fellow at Trinity College Dublin. He was previously a Mellon/ American Council of Learned Societies fellow and a fellow at the Center for Global Ethics and Politics at the City University of New York Graduate Center. His research focuses on assessing debates between libertarians, socialists, and anarchists over the moral status of the market and the state. His work has appeared in the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, the Journal of Value Inquiry, and Public Affairs Quarterly.

Sam Underwood is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He is specializing in phenomenology and hermeneutics, with particular interest in the thought of Paul Ricoeur.

Kevin Vallier is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University. His primary research foci are political philosophy and ethics, with interests in political economy and philosophy of religion. He is the author of Liberal Politics and Public Faith: Beyond Separation (Routledge 2014) and Must Politics Be War? Restoring Our Trust in the Open Society (2019).

Chad Van Schoelandt is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Tulane University. His byline has appeared in journals including Ethics, Analysis, Philosophical Studies, the Philosophical Quarterly, and Law and Philosophy.

J. Martin Vest is an adjunct professor of history at Madonna University in Livonia, Michigan, an historical consultant with Proquest LLC, and a research associate in the University of Michigan Department of History.

Acknowledgments

We welcome the occasion the publication of this book affords to say “thank you” to many people.

We owe an obvious debt of gratitude to Andrew Beck at Routledge for patiently supporting the publication of the Handbook and to Marc Stratton, production editor Christopher Taylor, Andrew Melvin, and Julie Willis at River Editorial for help at various stages of its production.

We thoroughly appreciate the willingness of the Handbook’s many authors to contribute, David Gordon’s thoughtful and detailed comments on the Introduction, Chandran Kukathas’s identification of a footnote error, and John T. Sanders’s improvement of the Handbook’s bibliography. We are also thankful for the willingness of Hillel Steiner, Chandran Kukathas, Michael Munger, John T. Sanders, and Crispin Sartwell to endorse the book; for the able assistance rendered by Chelsea Jackson and Matthew Reeves when work on the Handbook began; and for the opportunity to incorporate in the Annotated Bibliography some entries and annotations that first appeared in Gary Chartier’s The Conscience of an Anarchist (Apple Valley, CA: Cobden 2011).

In addition to students in his Tulane course on anarchy, Chad Van Schoelandt thanks Trevor Griffith, Jerry Gaus, Kevin Vallier, Nathan P. Goodman, Virgil Storr, and Pete Boettke. Gary Chartier is grateful to the usual suspects—A. Ligia Radoias, Aena Prakash, Alicia Homer, Annette Bryson, Alexander Lian, Andrew Howe, Carole Pateman, Charles Teel, Jr., Christopher C. Reeves, Coco Owen, Craig R. Kinzer, David B. Hoppe, David Gordon, David R. Larson, Deborah K. Dunn, Donna L. Carlson, Elaine Claire von Keudell, Elenor L. Webb, Eva Pascal, Fritz Guy, Gen Mensale, Jeffrey D. Cassidy, Jesse Leamon, John Thomas, Kenneth A. Dickey, Kirsten Rasmussen, Lawrence T. Geraty, Maria Zlateva, Michael Orlando, Nabil Abu-Assal, Nicole Regina, Patricia M. Cabrera, Roderick T. Long, Roger E. Rustad, Jr., Ronel S. Harvey, Sheldon Richman, Stephanie Burns, Trisha Famisaran, Varsha Pravinsih, W. Kent Rogers, Wonil Kim, and Xavier Alasdhair Kenneth Doran—for the usual reasons.

La Sierra University served as the context for Gary Chartier’s editorial work on this book. Thanks are thus due to John Thomas, Joy Fehr, Cindy Parkhurst, and Elias Rizkallah, among others, for enabling Chartier to work on this book during his time at La Sierra.

Introduction

Gary Chartier and Chad Van Schoelandt

I. The Point and Context of the Handbook

Anarchy is a social condition free not of rules but of rulers—and so especially, but not only, of states.[1] Anarchism is the project of doing without rulers.[2] And anarchist thought, in the broad sense, is concerned with the possibility, desirability, and potential shape of anarchy.[3] The purpose of the Routledge Handbook of Anarchy and Anarchist Thought is to introduce you to a broad and diverse range of topics related to the contemporary resurgence of critical reflection on anarchy. It does this by exploring relevant historical figures and movements and by examining contemporary issues in a range of disciplines, including philosophy, economics, and religious studies.

The popular identification of anarchy with chaos makes sophisticated interpretations of the topic—interpretations that see anarchy as kind of social order rather than as an alternative to it— especially interesting. It is increasingly obvious that existing political arrangements confront serious, and perhaps insurmountable, challenges. Strong, centralized governments have struggled to quell popular frustration and resentment, and doubts have continued to percolate about their moral legitimacy and long-term financial stability. Since the emergence of the modern state itself, concerns like these have driven scholars to wonder whether societies could flourish while abandoning monopolistic states entirely. Moreover, many political philosophers have been concerned with understanding problems that individuals within anarchic arrangements would face in order to understand the role, justification, and appropriate limits of the state. This book is designed to deepen understanding of anarchy—among both scholars and thoughtful non-academic readers— at a time when anarchist ideas have attracted considerable attention.

Discussions of anarchy as an analytical model in economics, political science, and international relations theory and as a normative model in legal and political philosophy have been matched by growing interest in anarchist ideas in the political sphere. In the United States, for instance, the Ron Paul movement propelled many of those who originally embraced it beyond electoral politics and into support for anarchy. Opposition to corporate-led globalization during the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization embraced anarchist symbols and values. The Occupy movement embraced a self-consciously anarchist flavor, drawing inspiration from anarchist anthropologist David Graeber and praise, indeed, from Ron Paul. And less dramatic antiauthoritarian attitudes find expression in increasingly vocal challenges to the drug war and to state policing.

Globally, the policies embraced by many governments to the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic have prompted theoretical anarchist critiques and practical anarchist responses—involving the development of alternatives to state service provision and push-backs against restraints on civil and economic liberties.[4] In the United States, the renewed attention to police violence prompted by the murder of George Floyd has also led to on-the-ground activism and critiques of state provision of security services, both with anarchist undertones or explicit anarchist content.

At the same time, libertarian ideas of various sorts are gaining increasing exposure in academe. Where some academics might once have thought only of nineteenth-century Russian anarchists or of Nozick’s (anti-anarchist) discussion in Anarchy, State, and Utopia when anarchy was mentioned, the work of scholars across a range of disciplines has generated a robust literature concerned with anarchism as a provocative contender among practitioners of social and political philosophy.

The Handbook offers students of philosophy at multiple levels an opportunity to engage with serious objections and alternatives to state authority. Standard political philosophy frequently assumes the legitimacy and desirability of states, frequently focusing on such questions as What is the best kind of state? and What laws and policies should states adopt?, without considering whether it is just or prudent for states to do anything at all. The Handbook is designed to enable scholars and students to grapple with a radical and provocative alternative that will cast more familiar views in stark relief.

The Handbook features a range of original essays on crucial issues related to the nature, appeal, and viability (or non-viability) of anarchy. It is intended to offer an authoritative, up-to-date introduction that will make it distinctively valuable both in classrooms and in individual and institutional libraries.

II. Background to the Handbook

Anarchism is arguably a radical strand within the liberal tradition.[5] But modern political philosophy arguably begins with thinkers, many of them liberals—notably Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant—who take it as a crucial task to explain and justify the authority of the state in the wake of the demise of theories of divine right.

Writing in a period of profound social upheaval, Hobbes maintains that life without a robust state would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” We need a ruler with potentially absolute power to keep us safe from mutual predation. It is therefore rational—very much in our own interests—to agree with each other to accept the dominance of such a ruler. (We do not, for Hobbes, make any sort of agreement with the ruler, which means that the ruler can’t, per se, violate any agreement with us in a way that merits withdrawal of consent and, perhaps, revolution.)

While the social contract seems for Hobbes to be an intellectual device, Locke appears to take it at least perhaps to be genuinely historical. Locke supposes that humans without the state might be able to interact peacefully, but he clearly believes that security of persons and property is substantially enhanced by agreeing to the rule of a limited state. He also believes, however, that consent to such a state can be withdrawn when it is ineffectual or predatory.

Hume is (rightly) skeptical about the idea of any sort of social contract, as either an historical reality or a useful thought experiment. Emphasizing human sociality, Hume sees state authority as rooted in the practical need to maintain order and resolve what we would today characterize as “public goods” problems. We should accept the rule of existing states, for Hume, presuming they’re tolerably good at meeting this need.

For Rousseau, state authority emerged from a commitment to collective self-government. Joining together, people form and express the general will through democratic politics, ideally in something like small city-states.

Kant explicitly denies that the idea of a deliberate exit from the state of nature is anything but a thought experiment. But he uses it to make clear why he believes that accepting the authority of a state governed by and enforcing just laws is not merely advisable but morally required. Maintaining justice requires the institutions of the state, he believes, and we act wrongly if we fail to endorse and support these institutions.

Though each of these thinkers defends the state, the approach each takes can be seen as depending on his analysis of what might be expected under anarchic conditions. For instance, the disagreement between Hobbes and Locke regarding the legitimate extent of state power arguably reflects their disagreement about the prospects for life in anarchy. The greater the degree of peaceful cooperation possible without the state, the more restraints on the state are reasonable. An absolute state may thus appear acceptable if violent death is likely for many or most people in a stateless society. A proper analysis of the prospects for and challenges associated with anarchy— at least as a means of discerning (some of) the proper limits of state power—is thus necessary even for many accounts that defend the state.

These thinkers very much represented an increasingly dominant trend in political philosophy in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. But the roots of a counter-tradition were also increasingly evident. For instance: Locke had maintained that consent was at the root of state authority, and had recognized that this consent could be withdrawn. But one could easily ask why an individual who did not wish to endorse the state should be understood to be obligated because others had consented. As a result, Locke’s consent-based approach could readily be radicalized.

Similarly: Scottish Enlightenment thinkers including Hume, Adam Ferguson, and Adam Smith articulated an essentially evolutionary account of social institutions, of these institutions as produced on a bottom-up basis as products “of human action but not of human design.”[6] All of these thinkers assumed that these institutions would function while embedded within societies governed by robust, if limited, states. But one could easily ask whether those institutions needed to ensure social order—notably laws, courts, and police agencies—could not themselves be produced in the same bottom-up fashion as other institutions. Why couldn’t the evolutionary account of markets, language, and other institutions be applied to those institutions within which families, markets, and other institutions functioned?

While, as contributions to the Handbook make clear, relevant ideas were in circulation much earlier, what we might readily recognize as anarchism emerges in the nineteenth century. In France, the first thinker to call himself an anarchist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, developed a dialectical approach to thinking about society that included the unequivocal rejection of being governed. In Belgium, Gustave de Molinari elaborated a model for the provision of security without the operation of an entity exercising a monopoly over the use of force in a given geographic area. In England, William Godwin advanced a version of anarchism rooted in something like utilitarianism, Thomas Hodgskin demonstrated the radical potential of anti-statist economics, and the young Herbert Spencer called the authority and necessity of the state into question. In Russia, Peter Kropotkin envisioned a world of peaceful cooperation without dominance, and Mikhail Bakunin highlighted the similarities between authoritarian politics and authoritarian religion: why, he wondered, retain belief in the state after having rejected belief in God? In the United States, Josiah Warren carefully delineated the characteristics of, and sought to model, a society rooted in what he characterized as “individual sovereignty.”[7] Warren’s successors, including Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker, developed a more elaborate array of normative and analytical social-theoretic ideas about a society without monopolistic rulers.

From the latter part of the nineteenth century through the early part of the twentieth, anarchism’s rejection of coercive rule was obscured, replaced in the public mind with an image of anarchists as promoters of revolutionary violence. Anarchy came to be treated as synonymous with chaos. And while thinkers outside the mainstream, like Albert Jay Nock and Dwight Macdonald, might have thought of themselves as anarchists, anarchist ideas were frequently and reflexively dismissed. The expression of anarchist ideas by some participants in the summer 1968 protests in Europe did little to focus attention on anarchism as a viable socio-political program. Economist Murray Rothbard’s elaboration of an account of the economics of law and justice without the state received little attention.

Beginning in the 1970s, the conversation shifted. While the most influential English-language work of political philosophy, John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice, comfortably endorsed state authority, questions about theoretical and practical alternatives were increasingly evident.[8] In philosophy, Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia put the discussion of the viability of anarchy back on the map, and the incisive arguments of John Simmons, Robert Paul Wolff, Joseph Raz, and others raised important critical questions about political obligation. (Nozick himself treated anarchy as a foil, using his critique of anarchism to ground his defense of a minimal state.) In economics, James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock began to explore the viability of anarchy as an analytical device designed to clarify the maintenance of social order. In addition, their development of public choice theory as an approach to the study of politics “without romance” laid the groundwork for a skeptical view of state action rooted in a recognition of the incentives facing state functionaries. Also in economics, Anthony de Jasay highlighted state pathologies and emphasized the possibility that public goods could be provided without the state, and David Friedman sketched out a set of microeconomic arguments designed to show how social organization could be created and maintained without the state. In normative political theory, Carole Pateman, while defending radical democracy, powerfully highlighted problems with conventional defenses of state authority. In formal political theory, Michael Taylor challenged Hobbesian models of social interaction in favor of ones emphasizing genuine cooperation and argued that communities could maintain order without states. Historian James J. Martin sought to revive understanding of the nineteenth-century American anarchists. Religious thinkers like Jacques Ellul and Vernard Eller employed anarchist language to critique what they saw as idolatrous state pretentions. In law, Randy Barnett worked simultaneously to rehabilitate a Lockean version of natural law theory and to put that theory to work grounding a polycentric, stateless legal order, while Henc van Maarseveen and Thom Holterman called attention to a variety of links between primarily European anarchist thought and issues in legal theory. In international relations theory, Hedley Bull underscored the importance of talking about the world’s states as existing in a state of anarchy—given the absence of a global Leviathan (a reality to which anarchists have appealed in arguing that no Leviathan is needed at the domestic level). And, in anthropology, James C. Scott and, latterly, David Graeber analyzed anarchic practices and state alternatives on the ground while also reflecting on them theoretically.

Across a range of disciplines, then, anarchy and anarchism became increasingly interesting and, arguably, more respectable as foci of inquiry. Even for those who were disinclined to regard anarchy as viable or desirable, it became increasingly important to examine the reasons it wasn’t viable or desirable. The resurgence of thought about anarchism meant, at minimum, that the state wasn’t complacently taken for granted in philosophy, the social sciences, and elsewhere.

III. The Range and Fruitfulness of Inquiry into Anarchism and Anarchist Thought

Anarchist proposals regarding social organization and anarchist criticisms of existing social institutions directly and indirectly raise a diverse array of normative and positive questions. These questions concern the merits and dynamics of existing institutions; the analysis and evaluation of rationales offered for those institutions; and the potential capacities of alternatives to current institutional arrangements.

We highlight some of these questions in Part III. Some are addressed or implicated by the chapters of this Handbook. Others are explored elsewhere (as, for instance, in texts mentioned in the Annotated Bibliography). We include them here for several reasons.

Perhaps most fundamentally, they help to clarify what the study of anarchy and anarchist ideas looks like—the range and diversity of the conversation we seek to introduce here. In addition, they help to make evident why something like this Handbook is valuable. These questions make the stakes of reflection on state and anarchic alternatives more apparent: attending on them should help you to understand what would be needed for a defense of anarchy or of state authority to succeed. They serve to emphasize the fruitfulness of the topic of anarchism and anarchist thought for philosophy, economics, and other disciplines, and so to underscore why the introduction to these topics afforded by the Handbook deserves to be followed by focused inquiries in multiple areas. The fact that reflection on anarchy occasions these questions explains why, apart from their individual significance, the Handbook’s topics of anarchy and anarchist thought matter as spurs to further inquiry.

A. Consent and Related Strategies for State Legitimation

Medieval political arrangements often featured overlapping jurisdictions, with the existence of each serving to limit the power of the others.[9] And medieval political theory, frequently rooted in the thought of Aristotle, often treated governmental powers as limited. In subsequent centuries, however, states were frequently assumed to be authoritative because monarchs were assumed to be imbued with divinely delegated rights to rule. The state apparatus was transparently and unapologetically understood as an extension of the monarch’s will, so it needed no justification if the monarch’s position itself was divinely approved. The assumption of monarchical legitimacy dissolved under critical scrutiny: the doctrine of divine right proved harder to defend on the basis of traditional religious sources than its proponents had supposed, and historical, philosophical, and literary challenges forced a careful rethinking of the nature and status of those sources themselves.

As we noted above, new rationales for state power emerged in the wake of the decline of the doctrine of divine right. Some focused on consent, some on perceived pragmatic necessity. (While many of these were initially understood as new defenses of monarchical power, the putative legitimacy of monarchs’ authority came increasingly to be transferred to, broadly speaking, democratic institutions, with parliaments and presidents and premiers stepping into the places of princes and kings.)

Modern theories emphasized the importance of consent in grounding state authority—consider, for instance, the assertion in the US Declaration of Independence that states acquire their legitimate authority from “the consent of the governed.” Appeals to consent continue to play important roles in validating state claims. But anarchist challenges embody, and prompt consideration of, critical questions including:

• Is consent necessary or sufficient to confer legitimacy on a state?

• If consent is necessary or sufficient, must it be individual consent or is some sort of collective consent sufficient? Must it be explicit, or may it be inferred—and, if so, in what ways?

• Can individual subjects be bound in ways interestingly similar to consent—as, for instance, when they accept certain benefits from states?

B. Public Goods

While consent figured centrally in, for instance, Locke’s account of state authority, attention came increasingly to be paid to the potential role of states in producing what today we commonly label public goods—goods that are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. Roughly speaking, in economic terms, a good is excludable if it can be offered just to specific people while others can be kept effectively from obtaining it. Thus, if, for instance, the good is offered on the market, it can be provided only to those willing to pay for it. By contrast, delivering a non-excludable good to one member of a population ordinarily means unavoidably delivering it to all members of the population, with the resulting temptation to be a free-rider—to take advantage of the good’s availability without helping to defray its cost. A good has the property of non-rivalrous consumption if adding new consumers of the good (including free-riders) to an array of existing consumers does not significantly detract from the enjoyment of the existing consumers.

A standard argument holds that, given the temptation to be a free-rider, large numbers of people won’t contribute to the production of public goods, and these goods will be produced at sub-optimal levels. A state with the ability to force contributions to the production of public goods is therefore necessary. Anarchist objections to the necessity of states as sources of public goods have prompted the consideration of questions including:

• Are there goods that are unavoidably public, or is publicness really just a function of the costs of excluding those unwilling to pay from access to particular goods?

• Are we confident which goods are, in fact, public in the relevant technical sense? Can we tell which goods really are public, and so likely to be (arguably) underproduced, and which goods are genuinely private while conferring spillover benefits on others?

• Given people’s heterogeneous preferences, how could state officials accurately determine an efficient level for the production of any public good? When should we expect the inefficiencies of public good production in anarchy to be greater or lesser than those inefficiencies in a state-governed society?

• How might we compare (i) the costs of not obtaining particular public goods against (ii) the costs of maintaining the extractive institutions needed to supply such goods?

• Given the importance of supplying particular public goods, are there reliable non-coercive mechanisms for delivering them? What public goods currently provided by a state could be left to voluntary production?

• What considerations related to class membership and ordinary self-interest might complicate appeals to the state to address dispute-resolution and public-goods problems?

C. Sharing Responsibility

Careful economic scrutiny reveals that very few goods qualify as public in the technical sense. But people often, and understandably, regard it as important that responsibility for the provision of some private goods—education, for instance, and income support for the economically vulnerable—be shared.[10] It is often reflexively supposed that sharing responsibility for delivery of these goods means endorsing (i) their funding by taxation and (ii) the organization of their delivery by the state. Anarchist objections to the assumption that the provision of these goods must be state-delivered and state-funded naturally give rise to questions including:

• What do historical examples of mutual aid teach us about the possibility of sharing responsibility for the delivery of these goods without coercive organization or funding?

Is it crucial that these goods be delivered in uniform patterns? Or is diversity in this context a useful occasion for discovery and experimentation? If uniformity matters, can non-state institutions offer it?

Might non-state provision of these goods involve dignitary injuries (say, the encouragement of servility or shame on the part of those receiving assistance)? If so, how might the risk that such harms will occur be minimized?

Can non-state institutions effectively deliver assistance to children whose parents are unconcerned about or hostile to their welfare? Is state coercion needed to ensure good behavior by such parents? When do states themselves create dangers to child welfare?

D. Security, Dispute Resolution, and Other Aspects of Social Order

Defense of individuals against identifiable predators is a private rather than a public good, though its deterrent effects clearly yield benefits to many others. The same is true of reliable dispute resolution. But these order-maintenance functions are often viewed as among the most crucial tasks of the state. The picture of the state as a source of social order seems quite straightforward and simple at first glance: the state enacts uniform laws, adjudicates conflicts regarding these laws using its court system, and enforces them using its police agencies. States’ contributions to order maintenance have often seemed intuitively to be among their most appealing characteristics. Anarchists have, unsurprisingly, challenged the assumption that states are essential guarantors of social order, encouraging reflection on such questions as:

• What role do social norms play in maintaining social order—in restraining predation and unreasonable opportunism, ensuring the performance of agreements, and facilitating cooperation with adjudicatory and law-enforcement institutions? If social norms enable the effective functioning of state order-maintenance institutions, could they not do the same where nonstate order-maintenance institutions are concerned?

• While self-regulating spontaneous orders serve many valuable functions, it is often thought that they rely on exogenous legal institutions and would collapse absent such institutions. Is this correct, or can law itself be generated in a manner that is endogenous to spontaneous social orders?

• Real-world legal systems have often been more complex than the simple model of state-based legal uniformity might suggest, with overlapping and sometimes competing mechanisms for making laws, adjudicating conflict, and enforcing laws; we can refer to systems featuring such mechanisms as polycentric. Do history or theory suggest that law must be uniform in content or source, or can polycentric legal institutions function effectively? Are there psychic, social, cultural, economic, or normative dynamics in virtue of which legal systems with different sources might be expected to exhibit important overlaps in content?

• Are polycentric legal systems inherently unstable? Can predatory states be expected to emerge inevitably from such systems?

• Are polycentric legal systems inherently unreasonable? Is there something normatively suspect about the operation of multiple legal rules in proximity to each other? Is the idea of deterritorialized law oxymoronic?

• To what extent can state institutions that are at present highly centralized be replaced with decentralized state institutions? To what extent can the competition, decentralization, and experimentation characteristic of anarchy be realized within a state?

• How could a non-state legal system provide satisfactory protection to those—children, the frail, the elderly, the seriously ill, non-human animals—not able to take responsibility for asserting their own interests? How would the likely performance of non-state legal system compare to the performance of actual or realistically conceivable state legal systems as regards the protection of vulnerable populations?

Under what circumstances, if any, would the success of an existing state at maintaining social order be a decisive reason to treat it as authoritative?

Even if ordinarily unwarranted, would the exercise of monopolistic coercive power be justified in an otherwise polycentric legal order when a widespread emergency occurs? If so, how might the relevant emergencies be identified? How might the appropriate limits of emergency powers be limned? How might emergency institutions be constrained in fact? How could it be rendered likely that such institutions would surrender their powers after the emergencies they were designed to address have subsided?

E. Economic Activity

States are deeply enmeshed in economic life. And it is often supposed that they are crucial enablers of economic stability and economic equity. However, anarchists of all stripes have frequently seen the state as the agent and enabler of economic groups on whom it confers unjust privileges and not as a defender against but rather as a source of economic instability. At the same time, anarchists who have agreed about the state’s mischief-making role have disagreed radically about the optimal shapes of stateless societies’ economic arrangements. Anarchist challenges to the necessity and value of state involvement in the economy and anarchists’ own disputes about justice and expediency in economic life encourage reflection on such questions as:

• What rules regarding the acquisition, use, exchange, and abandonment of property are defensible?

• Is individual property in the means of production a creation of the state that would disappear without state support? Or is it a robust source of defense against coercion?

• What is the relationship between private and state hierarchies? To what extent, if at all, are private hierarchies—in businesses, associations, and other institutions—objectionable? Is the resemblance between these hierarchies and state hierarchies largely superficial, or are they subject to similar normative and pragmatic challenges?

• From an anarchist standpoint, should social class be understood as a function of people’s relationships with the means of production? Or is class membership better seen as constituted by people’s relationships with the state (and perhaps other coercive institutions)?

IV. The Shape of the Handbook

In this Handbook, scholars from a range of disciplines and with a range of ideological perspectives address questions about the possibility and desirability of anarchy.

We have included contributions in multiple disciplines and standpoints and ones from both academics and independent scholars in the body of the Handbook and in the Annotated Bibliography—well aware of the importance of not limiting consideration of vital issues of social organization to those from a single intellectual perspective or from conventional institutional settings.

While the contributors represent and examine a range of perspectives, this Handbook devotes what is arguably an unusual amount of attention to the nineteenth-century individualist anarchists. We suspect that these figures have received too little attention in recent discussions of anarchism. But it’s also worth noting both that (i) their views are inherently interesting, not least because those views don’t map easily onto standard political spectra and (ii) precisely for this reason, they can be seen as offering options capable of building bridges among proponents of diverse anarchist tendencies (as Roderick T. Long stresses in Chapter 2).

Bottom-up social organization obtains on a continuum—or, indeed, on a set of continua. While anarchy lies at one end of that continuum, it’s important to think about anarchy on the margins. Between anarchy and totalitarianism lie innumerable possibilities as regards the scope of non-consensual order maintenance and of voluntary activities and institutions. As a number of the Handbook’s authors emphasize, various societies and patterns of social organization lie closer to or further from anarchy, featuring wider or narrower scopes for anarchic organization.

Part I, “Concept and Significance,” attempts to help readers understand anarchism and anarchist claims and the broad significance of arguments about anarchism.

• Chapter 1, “Anarchism, Anarchists, and Anarchy” (Paul McLaughlin), emphasizes that anarchism itself is an essentially contested concept, considers different accounts of what anarchism amounts to in light of different definitional strategies and foci, and argues for an understanding of anarchism as skepticism about domination and hierarchy.

• Chapter 2, “The Anarchist Landscape” (Roderick T. Long) clarifies distinctions among anarchist tendencies and uses left-wing market anarchism to highlight relationships among these tendencies.

• Chapter 3, “On the Distinction between State and Anarchy” (Christopher W. Morris), makes clear that, just as there is no unambiguous and uncontroversial understanding of anarchism, so, also, the boundaries between anarchy and state are fluid and imprecise.

• Chapter 4, “Methodological Anarchism” (Jason Lee Byas and Billy Christmas), underscores the importance of not assuming the existence or necessity of the state in political philosophy.

• Chapter 5, “What Is the Point of Anarchism?” (Aeon J. Skoble), suggests that arguments about anarchism have immediate practical significance even if articulating them doesn’t immediately lead to an anarchic society.

Part II, “Figures and Traditions,” examines issues raised by or in relation to individual anarchist thinkers and schools of thought. The focus of this part is on the roots and significance of ideas related to anarchy—positively or critically. While it does not aim to examine every significant figure or tradition significantly related to discussions of anarchy, it is intended to expose you to an intriguing and provocative range of thinkers and ideas.

• Chapter 6, “Anarchism against Anarchy: The Classical Roots of Anarchism” (Stephen R. L. Clark), examines the roots of skepticism about top-down social order in the ancient Mediterranean world.

• Chapter 7, “Kant on Anarchy” (Oliver Sensen), explains why Kant believed it was not only prudent but necessary that we endorse state authority.

• Chapter 8, “Barbarians in the Agora: American Market Anarchism, 1945—2011” (J. Martin Vest), explores the nineteenth-century individualist anarchists and their twentieth- and twenty-first-century heirs.

• Chapter 9, “Rights, Morality, and Egoism in Individualist Anarchism” (Eric Mack) focuses on a vibrant debate among nineteenth-century anarchists over the relationship of morality to anarchism and the relative merits of egoism and alternative moral positions.

• Chapter 10, “Transcending Leftist Politics: Situating Egoism within the Anarchist Project” (David S. D’Amato), provides an alternative perspective on the place of egoism in nineteenth-century anarchism and its successors.

• Chapter 11, “De Facto Monopolies and the Justification of the State” (Ralf M. Bader), makes clear how Robert Nozick can acknowledge the failure of consent-based defenses of state authority while still regarding such authority as legitimate.

• Chapter 12, “Two Cheers for Rothbardianism” (Cory Massimino), offers an appreciative but critical perspective on the work of the twentieth-century anarchist economist and political theorist Murray Rothbard, seeking to show that the positions of Rothbard and those of other anarchists might prove mutually enriching.

• Chapter 13, “Christian Anarchism” (Sam Underwood and Kevin Vallier), calls attention to a long-lived tradition of deep skepticism about state power in Christian thought while questioning the versions of this kind of skepticism voiced by some contemporary Christians.

The chapters that make up Part III, “Legitimacy and Order,” consider and develop normative and analytical arguments related to the authority of the state and its value as a source of social order.

• Chapter 14, “Anarchism and Political Obligation: An Introduction” (Magda Egoumenides), explains why conventional accounts of state authority fail to show that such authority is morally binding and how this conclusion sheds light on the indispensable contribution of the anarchist perspective to the debate.

• Chapter 15, “The Positive Political Economy of Analytical Anarchism” (Peter Boettke and Rosolino Candela), engages with a range of economic arguments related to the possibility that social order can be maintained without the involvement of a Weberian monopolist; while not offering a normative argument for anarchism, their insights provide obvious resources for anyone developing such an argument.

• Chapter 16, “Moral Parity between State and Non-State Actors” (Jason Brennan), provides reason to think that state actors’ claims to be entitled to do things it would be wrong for others to do are unsustainable.

• Chapter 17, “Economic Pathologies of the State” (Christopher J. Coyne and Nathan Goodman), indicates why states might be expected consistently to distort economic life and to underperform non-state alternatives.

• Chapter 18, “Hunting for Unicorns” (Peter T. Leeson), provides historical evidence that supports the contention that social order can be effectively maintained in the state’s absence.

• Chapter 19, “Social Norms and Social Order” (Ryan Muldoon), reflects critically on the potential of social norms to serve as sources of order alternative to state-made laws, highlighting both the difficulties associated with such norms in some social environments and the characteristics of the kind of social setting in which norms might be most appealing as bases of order.

• Chapter 20, “Anarchy and Law” (Jonathan Crowe), explains why law can exist in the absence of the state and what forms it might be expected take.

• Chapter 21, “Anarchy, State, and Violence” (Andy Alexis-Baker), emphasizes that states undermine and attack peaceful social order, offering a critique of state violence as an idolatrous religious phenomenon reflecting a tendency to sacralize brutality and domination.

• Chapter 22, “The Forecast for Anarchy” (Tom W. Bell) examines the social forces that are rendering hope for peaceful anarchy more reasonable.

Part IV, “Critique and Alternatives,” focuses on anarchist positions regarding particular sociopolitical issues, addressing contemporary policy questions and considering the envisioned characteristics of anarchic societies.

• Chapter 23, “Social Anarchism and the Rejection of Private Property” (Jesse Spafford), focuses on a key debate among anarchists: it explores the links between the denial of legitimacy to state power by all anarchists and the denial of legitimacy to private property by some, explaining the worries voiced by these anarchists concerning the potentially oppressive nature of such property.

• Chapter 24, “The Right Anarchy: Capitalist or Socialist?” (Michael Huemer), continues the anarchist debate about property begun in the preceding chapter, arguing that forms of anarchism incorporating respect for markets and robust property rights are strongly preferable to available alternatives.

• Chapter 25, “Anarchist Approaches to Education” (Kevin Currie-Knight), considers historical and normative questions related to educational practice as these might appear from an anarchist perspective.

• Chapter 26, “An Anarchist Critique of Power Relations within Institutions” (Kevin A. Carson), highlights a range of pathologies inherent in hierarchical institutions and links between state power and the occurrence of these pathologies.

• Chapter 27, “Anarchism for an Ecological Crisis?” (Dan C. Shahar), asks how anarchists might respond effectively to large-scale environmental challenges.

• Chapter 28, “States, Incarceration, and Organizational Structure: Towards a General Theory of Imprisonment” (Daniel J. D’Amico), highlights evidence that strongly suggests a link between the predictable incentives faced by state actors and the growth of the carceral state.

• Chapter 29, “The Problems of Central Planning in Military Technology” (Abigail R. Hall), indirectly notes the significance of anarchy by emphasizing the ways in which the inherent liabilities associated with state decision-making renders states more likely than non-state decision-makers to reach poor decisions with respect to military hardware.

• Chapter 30, “Anarchy and Transhumanism” (William Gillis), underscores the inherent links between anarchism and a range of social, cultural, political, and technological proposals designed to help people move beyond the limits currently imposed on human action and interaction by their biological natures.

V. Engaging with the Handbook

The chapters of the Handbook have been written independently, and you can read them profitably in any order. We hope that the range of disciplines, approaches, and historical foci represented, in whatever fashion you choose to adopt, reflect on, or critically engage with them, will give you a better sense of the richness and diversity of anarchist thought and of the range of important issues anarchist criticisms of existing institutions and practices place on the table. We hope, too, that the Annotated Bibliography will point you toward a range of texts that will enrich your understanding of anarchism from a variety of perspectives. We also hope that you will discover that anarchy need not be a condition of chaotic violence—that its proponents, of all stripes, are advocates of peace and voluntary cooperation and that they see the state as precisely not a source of peace but rather as the preeminent perpetrator and abettor of violence. We hope, in addition, that you will treat the questions we noted in Part III as prompts for reflection—prompts that, along with the Handbook’s chapters and the Annotated Bibliography, will lead you to explore the significance of anarchism and anarchist thought for yourself and to extend understanding of these stimulating topics. And we hope, finally, that you will find yourself encouraged, whatever your ultimate response to anarchist proposals, to think more clearly and carefully about the challenges to frequently unquestioned contemporary assumptions that anarchism so pointedly raises.

Part I: Concept and Significance

1. Anarchism, Anarchists, and Anarchy

Paul McLaughlin

I. Introduction

What is the social philosophy of anarchism? What is its relationship to the social action of anarchists? And what is its relationship to the social vision of anarchy? These are the three questions I address conceptually in this chapter. Depending on one’s point of view, one might regard it as necessary (or not) to address some of these questions simultaneously. In particular, one might hold that answering the anarchism question requires that we address the anarchists question or the anarchy question. Or, if one is minded as I am, one might regard these questions as independent affairs and the anarchism question as answerable in itself. In this chapter, I will attempt to justify the latter point of view in large part by demonstrating what is wrong with the former. In effect, I will attempt at a conceptual level to divorce “anarchism” from “anarchists” and “anarchy.”

What motivates this attempt is original doubt about two prominent conceptions of anarchism. The first is a political conception that conflates “anarchism” with what might more accurately be termed “anarchist-ism.” The second is a philosophical conception that conflates “anarchism” with what might more accurately be termed “anarchy-ism.” I will analyze and critique both of these conceptions below. But the original doubt here concerns not just possible intellectual error—or misconception of anarchism—but also a certain undesirable practical and theoretical sectarianism that is grounded on the apprehension of, for example, supposedly defining anarchist practices or values. The worry, in other words, is unjustified or even arbitrary exclusion by some (“true anarchists”) of others (“false anarchists”) from the political and/or philosophical community of anarchism. Needless to say, any account of anarchism will be exclusive. The point here is that exclusion requires justification on non-arbitrary grounds (other than, for example, a particular individual’s preferred tactics or personal ethics).

In undertaking such work, one is invariably challenged—at least within this community— over the possibility and/or desirability of conceptual analysis as such, or the conceptual analysis of political terms more particularly, or even the conceptual analysis of anarchism itself. For example, Noam Chomsky maintains:

The terms of political discourse are hardly models of precision. Considering the way terms are used, it is next to impossible to give meaningful answers to such questions as ‘what is socialism?’ Or capitalism, or free markets, or others in common usage. That is even truer of the term ‘anarchism.’ It has been subject to widely varied use, and outright abuse both by bitter enemies and those who hold its banner high, so much so that it resists any straightforward characterization.[11]

This is no denial of the possibility or desirability of conceptual analysis as such. Nor is it a denial of the desirability of the conceptual analysis of political terms including “anarchism.” But it is a denial of the possibility of the conceptual analysis of anarchism in particular among political terms, of analysis that might yield a “straightforward characterization” or definition of the term.

A stronger claim is made by Benjamin Franks, who insists that “it is misguided to attempt to find ahistorical and universal, decontested concepts [or to fix] the meaning[s] of terms [by identifying] necessary and sufficient conditions” for their application.[12] I take this assertion of misguidedness to be a denial of possibility. In other words, I take Franks to deny the possibility of conceptual analysis of political terms at the very least, if not conceptual analysis as such. Moreover, I also take him to deny the desirability of conceptual analysis—not merely because it is impossible (which may also be Chomsky’s position with respect to political terms), but also because “fixing” meaning would be objectionable—or objectionable from an anarchist perspective—even if it were possible. To fix meaning is an act of linguistic authoritarianism, an act whereby one party (the analytic philosopher) imposes “necessary and sufficient conditions” on all others (including anarchist activists).

Let us grant for present purposes the impossibility and undesirability of conceptual analysis understood in Franks’s narrow sense. Let us admit that it is impossible to specify necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of (at least political) terms and that it is undesirable to fix and impose (at least political) meaning. However, we may still defend conceptual analysis in quite a different, explicative, sense, borrowing from and going beyond Rudolf Carnap (in a normative direction) in doing so.[13] “Explication” involves the tightening up of “everyday” (say, political) language for “scientific” (say, evaluative) purposes:

The task of explication consists in transforming a given more or less inexact concept into an exact one ... The [inexact concept] may belong to everyday language or to a previous stage in the development of scientific language. The [exact one] must be given by explicit rules for its use, for example, by a definition which incorporates it into a well-constructed system of scientific either logico-mathematical or empirical concepts.[14]

The explicative process of “tightening up” is not intended to reveal essential conceptual truths but to yield more precise and theoretically fruitful concepts that are still familiar from ordinary use within given linguistic communities. These concepts may be specified in terms of seemingly necessary and other more contentious conditions for their use. The former are measures of everyday familiarity; the latter, possible additional requirements for scientific fruitfulness. What result from this explicative process are non-arbitrary stipulative definitions of terms. These definitions are “auditable” as such, to test their non-arbitrariness.

The task of a concept audit is ... to see to it that the conceptual resources put at a philosopher’s disposal by ... pre-established usage have been adequately employed and the prevailing distinctions and connections duly acknowledged.[15]

In other words, anything and everything does not go with conceptual analysis understood in this sense. Ordinary use is to be respected to the greatest possible degree compatible with theoretical employment.

To return to Chomsky’s remarks that “terms of political discourse are hardly models of precision” and that “it is next to impossible to give meaningful answers” to questions of political definition: the point of explicative analysis here is to make the imprecisions of ordinary political discourse more precise and ideally (as a regulative ideal) to render them as “models of precision”; and it is possible to provide a meaningful analysis of political discourse by such means, as I hope to demonstrate. That is to say, whatever might be said of conceptual analysis in Franks’s narrow sense, I wish to assert: first, the possibility of conceptual analysis qua explication, or the possibility of pinning down political meaning in given linguistic contexts; and, second, the desirability of conceptual analysis qua explication, or the desirability of doing this for particular theoretical (if not other political and practical) purposes. (One might even go further here and assert the necessity of conceptual analysis qua explication for the achievement of such purposes.) A minimal theoretical purpose of conceptual analysis, as I understand it here, is to prevent semantic confusion in the investigation of political phenomena (such that, for example, philosophers may be talking past one another in attempting to evaluate them).

II. On “Anarchist-ism”

Conceptual analysis is not, of course, universally rejected, even by anarchists. There are scholars who have sought to define “anarchism” in very different ways. Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt have argued that conceptual analysis can and should be undertaken for the internal purpose of “identify[ing] the common features of the subject under definition”—thereby “enabling effective analysis and research”—and for the external purpose of “clearly delineat[ing] the category being defined from other categories.”[16] Thus, conceptual analysis can disclose the shared and distinguishing features of anarchism for theoretical purposes. However, they are insistent that the resulting definition should not be too inclusive. Conceptually, their worry is that “a range of quite different and often contradictory ideas and movements [might] get conflated,” which would lead to the view that there is “something necessarily incoherent about anarchism.” They also worry that anarchism might be regarded as “a movement existing throughout history,” rather than “a relatively recent phenomenon” (of a specific communist and revolutionary character).[17] This historical point is central to their analysis, as van der Walt underscores:

It is a matter of record ... that the anarchist movement appeared as something new to its contemporaries, rivals, and adherents; with this appearance, anarchism first became the topic of scholarly enquiry, police investigation, and media attention. Even writers favouring exceedingly loose definitions of ‘anarchism’ concede that ‘anarchism’ did not previously exist as a ‘political force’ ... The very question of whether there were earlier or ‘different schools, currents and tendencies’ of anarchism, or an anarchist ‘orientation’ ‘throughout human history’ could not even be posed before this moment.[18]

Schmidt and van der Walt claim that anarchism only came into existence once it was recognized as a new political force in the 1860s. Curiously, it did not exist when it was first proclaimed and expounded as a social philosophy in the 1840s or when this philosophy was developed under other names prior to the 1840s (by the end of eighteenth century, if not earlier). Thus, anarchism is strictly identifiable with the recognized anarchist movement, or the collective socio-political action of anarchists, from the late nineteenth century onward.

Like Schmidt and van der Walt, Uri Gordon accepts the possibility and desirability of conceptual analysis. He endorses what he calls “Anglo-American ... methods and conventions” such that his study of anarchism “chiefly takes the form of analyzing concepts and arguments, making distinctions and giving examples, all with the intention of driving home some point.”[19] The account he offers of anarchism is less historically rooted and more contemporary and evolving than that of Schmidt and van der Walt. Nevertheless, like them he identifies anarchism with a “social movement” that is animated by a particular “political culture” and generative of a “collection of ideas.”[20] Whatever may be said about anarchism as a theory, it is one that is “grounded in practice.”[21] Anarchism is therefore ultimately about what anarchists continue to do collectively as a movement.

Many other scholars have emphasized socio-political action in their analyses of anarchism. For example, David Morland, while skeptical about the conceptual analysis of anarchism (which appears to constitute “an essentially contested concept”[22]), claims that it is possible to say at least one thing about “the very nature of anarchism”: as “an ideology it is an active creed” and anarchists “have been, by their very nature, inclined towards activism.”[23] What Schmidt and van der Walt and Gordon add to this activist condition is a collective condition. Anarchism is not just about the activism of certain individuals, but such activism at a collective level. This is what yielded an anarchist movement, or anarchism in the proper sense, at a given moment in social history.

On this kind of analysis, collective discourse may be added as a seemingly necessary condition to (or included within) collective action. What counts is not just the collective action (narrowly construed) of anarchists, but also the ways in which anarchists talk, theorize, and strategize about such action. David Graeber observes that (i) “[a]narchists are distinguished by what they do, and how they organize themselves to go about doing it” and (ii) “this has always been what anarchists have spent most of their time thinking and arguing about.” As a result, “[a]narchism has tended to be an ethical discourse about revolutionary practice.”[24]

It would appear, on the account that emerges above, that anarchism is reducible to the collective socio-political action and discourse of anarchists. Put bluntly, anarchism is what anarchists as a whole do and say (about what they do). So, while one might have supposed that anarchists are defined as such by their anarchism(s), on the contrary, anarchism is properly defined by its anarchists. This anarchist-centered outlook may be termed “anarchist-ism”—the view, again, that anarchism is to be defined in terms of the collective action (perhaps including discursive action) of anarchists; that is, in terms of what anarchists do or have done (perhaps including what they talk about or have talked about). In order to understand anarchism, then, we need to examine what anarchists do (and the way in which this gains theoretical expression), not what they think (and the way in which this gains practical expression).

There are quite obvious problems—both historical and logical—with the “anarchist-ist” conception of anarchism. Historically, it is problematic for this conception that (as I noted above) anarchism was pronounced, elucidated, and defended by individual anarchist intellectuals prior to the existence of anything like a collective anarchist movement. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is the major case in point.[25] It is also problematic that (at the very least) similar, unnamed views had been expressed by others previously. William Godwin is a noted example;[26] but there are many other strands in the pre-Proudhonian (pre-)history of anarchism.[27] Of course, one may argue against the characterization of such ideas and individuals as anarchist. But it is unjustified to do so on the mere basis that they were not products or parts of a movement that emerged subsequently, inspired by some of these very ideas and individuals (even if the ideas were later modified and the individuals fell out of favour). (Incidentally, the anarchist ideas of Mikhail Bakunin, for example, pre-date and motivate his foundational role in the recognized anarchist movement; and he demonstrably declared himself an anarchist some time before entering the First International.[28]) The anarchist movement is an expression of such ideas—an expression that continues to develop and refine these ideas over time through further reflection (including reflection on associated action). (That said, there is no reason to suppose that anarchist ideas should only continue to develop within this collective and activist context.) At any rate, to deny the complex pre-history of the anarchist movement renders inescapable the question of how or why this movement came into existence in the first place.

Logically, the anarchist-ist conception of anarchism is equally problematic. If anarchism is to be defined in terms of what anarchists collectively do (and perhaps say), we are left with obvious problems pertaining to the identification of relevant actors and actions. How are we to pick out the relevant actors here (without reference to what defines them as such; i.e., their anarchism)? The answer is usually one of self-identification (since other-identification is typically regarded as ignorant and/or oppressive): the relevant actors are those who identify themselves as anarchists or as part of a collective movement of such self-identifying anarchists. Actors are anarchists if they say they are anarchists, and anarchism is what these self-identifying anarchists do (and perhaps say). However, most (if not all) who identify themselves as anarchists deny this identity to (at least some) others who also identify themselves as anarchists. So simple self-identification would appear to be inadequate. In any event, even if this problem could be set aside, how are we to pick out the relevant actions of these actors, that is, anarchist actions as opposed to actions of anarchists (again, without reference to what defines them as such; i.e., their anarchism)? It is the actions of anarchists that are claimed to define anarchism; but presumably not all acts of anarchists are anarchist actions. Arguably, actions are anarchist actions if they are identified as such by people who identify as anarchists. But most (if not all) who identify their actions as anarchist deny this identity to the actions of (at least some) others who do the same. Self-identification would appear to be inadequate once again.

The point I am indirectly attempting to establish here is twofold: first, that anarchism is factually anterior to the anarchist movement; and second, that “anarchism” is logically prior to “anarchist.” Anarchist ideas existed before the anarchist movement; and it would be surprising, to put it mildly, if this were not the case. And anarchists (and their anarchist actions) can only be identified with reference to anarchism as a philosophical idea. The nature of this idea will be taken up in the next section. But my bluntly stated response to those who endorse the anarchistist conception of anarchism is as follows: anarchism is not what anarchists do any more than liberalism is what liberals do, socialism is what socialists do, conservatism is what conservatives do, and so on. This remains the case even if activism is especially important and informative to anarchists—or, for that matter, proponents of other ostensibly revolutionary outlooks.

If one accepts the above, one may speculate in Adlerian terms about why some anarchists—perhaps uniquely among the politically committed—define their position in such a “back-to-front” way. Two complexes—perhaps independent of one other but more likely connected—may be suggested in this purely speculative explanatory context. One is an intellectual inferiority complex among anarchists: the diminishing sense that they lack the intellectual weaponry of classical Marxists and contemporary liberals, for example.[29] This lack can be and has been dramatically overstated (from Karl Marx himself onward[30]). In any event, there are many legitimate criticisms of this weaponry (some of them introduced by Bakunin in response to Marx[31]). Whatever the causes of this complex, one way of compensating for it may be to develop an activist superiority complex: the flattering sense that anarchists are uniquely and virtuously predisposed towards properly political and even revolutionary action. While classical Marxists and contemporary liberals indulge in ever more complex and arcane theorizing, anarchists set about righting real wrongs (often contrary to the understanding and wishes of the apparently ignorant majority on whose behalf some claim to act). One may respond that there are indeed well-conceived and virtuous forms of activism; but there are mindless and vicious forms, too—some of them arguably evidenced within the anarchist tradition.

The points made in this section about factual anteriority and logical priority may appear obvious and unworthy of protracted analysis. Nevertheless, the anarchist-ist conception of anarchism remains prevalent—if difficult for serious scholars of anarchism to maintain consistently. It is therefore unsurprising that the scholars discussed above all advance alternative conceptions of anarchism which are (issues of origins aside) consistent with the more plausible candidates discussed in the next section. Schmidt and van der Walt define anarchism (quite conventionally from a traditional left-wing perspective) as a revolutionary and libertarian brand of socialism.[32] Gordon defines it most fundamentally (in more contemporary terms) as opposition to domination in all forms.[33] David Morland defines it (in broad and recognizable terms) as opposition to the state.[34] And, finally, David Graeber defines anarchism (in quite complex terms) as “a rejection of all forms of structural violence, inequality, or domination.”[35] What, then, are we to make of conceptions of anarchism of this general philosophical kind?

III. On “Anarchy-ism”

If “anarchism” is not to be defined in terms of what anarchists do, it might instead be defined in terms of what anarchists want: an internally shared and externally distinguishing social vision—or imagined form of social alterity—known as “anarchy.” This conception is neatly encapsulated by Bob Black:

Anarchism is an idea about what’s the best way to live. Anarchy is the name for that way of living ... Anarchists are people who believe in anarchism and desire for us all to live in anarchy.[36]

The social vision of anarchy is characterized by an alternative absence and/or presence—negation and/or realization—of specific social phenomena and values.[37] This vision is traditionally held to be premised upon a certain philosophical ethic and anthropology. Systematically, then, anarchism has been understood to constitute a vision of a good society resting on certain moral principles and understandings of human nature. (“Post-anarchism” I take to represent a sympathetic challenge to anarchism so conceived on anti-foundational, anti-universalist, or anti-essentialist grounds.[38]) Differences over the nuts and bolts of exactly what this society might look like—and how we could or should reach it—account for much of the variety in anarchism so understood; but they do not define it as such.

Anarchism, then, is often thought of as the belief in the desirability (if not the possibility) of anarchy, where “anarchy” consists in the alternative negation and/or realization of specific social norms, practices, relations, institutions, and structures. Such a belief may be more or less explicitly stated. And the social vision involved may be more or less elaborate. But holding this belief in itself does not make one a member of a historically recognizable anarchist movement. Nor does it commit one to activism.[39] Of course, there may be compelling additional moral and political reasons to establish or join such a social movement and/or to take action. But these reasons are not built into the definition of anarchism as such.

This anarchy-centered (as opposed to anarchist-centered) conception of anarchism essentially conflates it with what we might term “anarchy-ism.” The “anarchy-ist” conception of anarchism is, I think, significantly more common and plausible than the anarchist-ist conception. However, I will argue that it too is ultimately unsustainable. This can be demonstrated by more closely analyzing what is involved in the conception at its bare minimum (underpinning the least elaborate visions of anarchy). Two principal conditions seem to be necessary here: a particular kind of disposition (on the part of the anarchist); and a particular kind of object (to which the anarchist is so disposed). The kind or rather kinds of disposition are relatively clear in the case of anarchism so understood: they are (i) oppositional or (ii) supportive or (iii) both. The object or often objects in question are much more contentious, and I will consider precise examples below; but they include particular kinds of social phenomena (x below) and values (y below). Accordingly, anarchism on this conception can be understood as the belief that society should be arranged (i) without some undesirable x, or (ii) in the name of some desirable y, or (iii) without some undesirable x in the name of some desirable y. This social arrangement constitutes anarchy.

The object of anarchy-ism is often represented in singular terms and I will examine it on this basis. However, it is important to note that, on some accounts, a plurality of objects is either enumerated or subsumed under a single potentially confusing (if not conceptually confused) label. Nathan Jun, for example, catalogues varieties of coercion, domination, oppression, authority, and inequality as objects of anarchist opposition[40] (on libertarian and egalitarian grounds[41]). For Jun, therefore, anarchism is the belief that society should be arranged without specific kinds of coercion, domination, oppression, authority, and inequality for the sake of liberty and equality. Uri Gordon, on the other hand, subsumes varieties of control, coercion, exploitation, humiliation, discrimination, “etc.,” under the single object-label “domination”[42] (which appears to be opposed by anarchists on a plurality of moral grounds[43]). For Gordon, therefore, anarchism is the belief that society should be arranged without control, coercion, exploitation, humiliation, discrimination, and other unspecified forms of (what he regards as) domination.

We turn now to some of the recurrent singular objects of anarchist opposition (x above) and/or support (y above)—or to the most common (anarchy-ist) definitions of anarchism proposed by anarchist theorists and scholars of anarchism. The objects of opposition traditionally include (non-exhaustively) government,[44] state,[45] law,[46] violence,[47] social power,[48] domination,[49] authority,[50] and hierarchy.[51] Traditional objects of support (on which such opposition may rest) include liberty,[52] autonomy,[53] equality,[54] happiness,[55] virtue,[56] flourishing,[57] and other more complex goods.[58] Anarchism (in the anarchy-ist sense) may therefore be defined as the belief that society should be arranged (i) without government/state/law/violence/social power/domination/authority/hierarchy, or (ii) in the name of liberty/autonomy/equality/happiness/virtue/flourishing/some complex good, or (iii) without government/state/law/violence/social power/domination/authority/hierarchy in the name of liberty/autonomy/equality/happiness/virtue/flourishing/some complex good.

In evaluating the anarchy-ist conception in this general form, one may immediately and easily establish that there is no shared anarchist value (distinguishing or otherwise). Whatever it is that anarchists purportedly oppose (or see as desirably absent from anarchy), they oppose for all manner of reasons (deontological, consequentialist, aretaic, etc.) drawn from across the traditional ethical spectrum (and perhaps beyond).[59] This diversity of ethical outlook is sometimes seen as a strength of anarchism, but I will not examine that issue here.[60] (Incidentally, it is likewise easy to establish that there is no shared anarchist conception of human nature.[61]) A similar observation may be made with respect to object x: on the face of it, there would appear to be no shared anarchist object of opposition (distinguishing or otherwise), either. If this is all so—if there is no shared object of concern that anarchists envision as absent or present in the ideal social order called anarchy—then anarchism might appear incoherent or even non-existent. However, I believe that it is possible to establish after some further analysis that there is a shared anarchist object of concern. The question remains whether anarchists share an oppositional disposition towards it and therefore whether an anarchy-ist conception of anarchism is ultimately defensible.

Let us return to the individual candidates for (opposed object) x. I assume for present purposes that any of these candidates would distinguish anarchism from non-anarchism. That is to say, I accept here (without endorsing the view) that opposition (on whatever moral basis) to government or state or law or violence or social power or domination or authority or hierarchy would distinguish anarchists from non-anarchists. But are any of these candidates shared by anarchists themselves? Do all anarchists oppose (on whatever moral basis) government or state or law or violence or social power or domination or authority or hierarchy? If so, we have arrived at a true definition—or possibly more than one true definition—of “anarchism.” But what we ideally wish to arrive at is an adequate as well as a true definition: a definition which picks out not only a token or tokens of the type of object that anarchists oppose, but also this very type of object. The real definitional question here is therefore the following: is government/state/law/ violence/social power/domination/authority/hierarchy the type of object that all anarchists oppose (on whatever moral basis)?

In some cases, the answer is negative because the objects in question are unshared. It is simply untrue to say that all anarchists oppose government[62] or law[63] or violence[64] or social power[65] as such. Opposition to social power (or any effective capacity in social relations), in particular, would be absurd from almost any perspective. In other cases, the answer is less straightforward. Anarchists do appear to share a concern—indeed a highly critical concern—with the state,[66] domination,[67] authority,[68] and hierarchy.[69] However, it is mistaken in my view to characterize their concern with domination, authority, and hierarchy in simple oppositional terms. There are forms of domination (of the controlling capacity in social relations), of authority (of the capacity to require action or the acceptance of belief in social relations), and of hierarchy (of the structured inequality that emerges from relations of social power, domination, and authority) that at least some anarchists regard as justified in revolutionary if not post-revolutionary circumstances. Violent resistance, expert leadership, and the stratified organization of social forces are morally problematic from an anarchist point of view; but some anarchists have certainly regarded them as consequentially justifiable (in the name of social transformation into anarchy).[70] Some have also foreseen justifiable forms of dominative, authoritative, and hierarchical relations—and even regulation, administration, or government—under anarchy.[71] This demonstrable non-opposition to domination, authority, and hierarchy in fact may seem at odds with stated opposition in principle—or to exemplify a certain inconsistency on the part of some anarchists. However, I believe that it evinces a more nuanced anarchist position with respect to domination, authority, and hierarchy than is generally recognized both inside and outside anarchist circles.[72] I will outline this position in Section IV, but we are not quite ready to move on.

An outstanding candidate for the shared (and distinguishing[73]) oppositional object (x) of anarchism remains, one which may yet support the anarchy-ist conception of anarchism. Anarchism is plausibly the belief in the desirability of anarchy understood as a social order without a state of any kind. Anarchism may fundamentally be about opposition to the state. It is certainly unusual for an anarchist to defend the state in current non-ideal conditions,[74] and unheard of for an anarchist to defend the state in the ideal conditions of anarchy. Indeed, state and anarchy are generally seen by anarchists as revolutionary antitheses. However, an a posteriori anarchist case for the justification of some form of the state—while yet unknown—is arguably conceivable.[75] In any case, this anarchy-ist definition suggests a degree of state-obsessiveness that is difficult to reconcile with the variety of classical and especially contemporary anarchist concerns. The state is not, I contend, the type of object towards which anarchists are somehow disposed, but a notable token of that type; nor is the disposition of anarchists towards this token necessarily oppositional, as I have just suggested, though I concede that it almost always is as a matter of fact.[76]

In summary, the anarchy-ist conception of anarchism identifies anarchism with a belief in the desirability of a society called anarchy in which certain social phenomena (objects of anarchist opposition x) are negated and/or certain social values (objects of anarchist support y) are realized. However, there is no such shared and distinguishing object of anarchist support (y); and if there is a shared and distinguishing object of anarchist opposition (x), it is a token of the relevant type of object of anarchist concern rather than that type itself; all anarchy-ist definitions of anarchism in oppositional terms are therefore inadequate even if true. As I will argue in Section IV, the correct (shared and distinguishing type of) object is picked out by an anarchy-ist definition (and tokens of this type are picked out by other such definitions, too); but the disposition towards this object is misrepresented by the anarchy-ist conception (as oppositional). Before explaining this position in greater detail, however, I want to conclude Section III by noting an important implication of the rejection of the anarchy-ist conception: anarchism is logically independent of anarchy, of the social ideal in terms of which it is so often defined. An anarchist may embrace all manner of social ideals or none at all. This is not to say that an anarchist should not have a social vision or that any social vision is defensible on anarchist grounds. But such matters go well beyond the analysis of “anarchism.”

IV. On “Anarchism”

I have defined “anarchism” previously—in relation to “anarchy-ism”—as a distinct disposition towards a familiar object. The disposition as I saw it then was neither oppositional nor supportive, but skeptical. The object was the specific variety of social power known as authority. Hence, I concluded that anarchism was to be defined as skepticism about authority.[77] I now believe that I was right with respect to the disposition but wrong with respect to the (type of) object.

Anarchism is—I still maintain—a form of socio-political skepticism: of authentic doubt rather than blanket opposition. Anarchists of various ethical persuasions share a suspicious and inquiring disposition towards the desirability of all forms and instances of their socio-political object of concern.[78] They are distinguished from non-anarchists in this respect. None of these instances is accepted as self-evidently desirable. Many of them—even those accepted by most people in most places most of the time—are treated as undesirable. And some of them that anarchists are thought to oppose are understood as desirable after all. Anarchists typically seek to undermine undesirable forms in one way or another: by individually or collectively giving voice to their opposition and/or taking counter-actions of various kinds.

It is true to say—as I maintained previously—that anarchists are skeptical about authority. But it is also true to say that anarchists are skeptical about the state, for example. I argued previously that the state—for all the attention it receives in anarchist literature—is merely a token of the type of thing about which anarchists are skeptical, so that it would be mistaken (or inadequate) to define anarchism as skepticism about the state.[79] I argued then that the type of thing about which anarchists are skeptical is authority, and defined anarchism accordingly. I now believe this is mistaken and that authority too is a token—albeit a more general token—of the relevant type of thing. This type of thing is domination. I had previously resisted this conclusion on the grounds that it would make anarchism indistinguishable from liberalism.[80] But I now think this was an error—which was inconsistent with my overall analysis—and that I was giving liberalism too much critical credit at the time. Liberalism is not skepticism towards domination or the broad token of this type called authority or the narrow token known as (the political authority of) the state. Liberals exhibit certain skeptical delusions in these regards (as I have witnessed repeatedly in academic discussions of these matters over the years). But these need to be exposed.

Two prominent dispositions—quite at odds with anarchist skepticism—stand out in the history of liberal thought about domination, authority, and the state. One of these is resolutely non-skeptical—indeed dogmatic. The other is only strategically skeptical—or arguably pseudo-skeptical. Liberal dogmatism is most famously expressed by John Stuart Mill:

All that makes existence valuable to anyone, depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people. Some rules of conduct, therefore, must be imposed, by law in the first place, and by opinion on many things which are not fit subjects for the operation of law. What these rules should be is the principal question in human affairs.[81]

This is no argument for “social control” (by various means). It is a simple dogmatic statement of its necessity. And the “principal question” of social theory as anarchists see it is not about the nature and limits of (obviously necessary) social control; rather, it is about its justifiability in its many and varied forms (authoritative and otherwise). The arguably pseudo-skeptical element in liberal thought is represented by the contractarian tradition. Liberal contractarians as I understand them—as effective socio-political counterparts to Descartes—do not doubt the desirability of “social control”; they set out to construct a secure normative foundation for it. “The whole point of the thought-experiment of the social contract is justificatory, namely, to normatively ground the authority of the state [and, I would add, other forms of domination] retrospectively.”[82] The defining liberal disposition is not skeptical but supportive; and its defining object is not domination but individual liberty (which it assumes is or tries to establish as compatible with domination of at least some kinds.) Liberalism and anarchism are fundamentally distinct.

Anarchism I now define as skepticism about domination (including authority in general and the authority of the state in particular). Within the history of anarchist thought, particular emphasis has been placed on authority and especially the state for contextual reasons that are easy to explain. These emphases—and especially the apparently universal anarchist rejection of the state—have led many scholars to define anarchism in terms of the wrong disposition and/or the wrong (type of) object. I believe that my definition as it now stands is both true and adequate. It is admittedly thin: stripped of a social vision, ethic, and metaphysic. If it seems so thin as to include ideas and individuals that some anarchists dislike, this is a price I am willing to pay. My view of anarchism is rather ecumenical, which is not to deny that I too dislike certain anarchist ideas and individuals. But definitions should not be matters of taste—a point that many anarchists tend to ignore.[83] In any event, I am satisfied that my definition is not so thin as to render anarchism indistinguishable from liberalism in particular.

There is an alternative perspective on anarchism—already hinted at in the previous section— that gives rise to a related but distinct definition that may also be true and adequate. This perspective appears more prevalent in the social sciences than the humanities: among those inclined and equipped to describe and explain social structures rather than to analyze and evaluate social relations. From this perspective, the (type of) object of skeptical anarchist concern is hierarchy rather than domination. Anarchism, then, may be defined as skepticism about hierarchy. Thus, two conceptions of anarchism emerge: a philosophical conception of agential anarchism (defined as skepticism about domination) and a scientific conception of structural anarchism (defined as skepticism about hierarchy). As a social philosopher, I tend to focus on the analysis and evaluation of social relations. But I also maintain that social structures are the products of social relations and I argue for the priority (though not the absolute priority) of the philosophical over the scientific line of investigation (of domination before hierarchy) here.

V. Conclusion

In this chapter, after defending the possibility and desirability of explicative conceptual analysis of “anarchism,” I have argued for (1) the logical priority of “anarchism” to “anarchist”; (2) the logical independence of anarchism and anarchy; and (3) skepticism about domination as a true and adequate definition of (agential) “anarchism.” I am conscious that my basic analysis does not constitute an argument for the social philosophy of anarchism or any social vision of anarchy or any roadmap to anarchy or any anarchist ethic or any anarchist conception of human nature or engagement in any form of anarchist activism or membership in any anarchist movement. A comprehensive anarchist philosophy would range over all of this and perhaps more besides. Here, however, I have only attempted to scratch the conceptual surface of anarchism. I hope that this facilitates the ongoing quest for greater understanding.

2. The Anarchist Landscape

Roderick T. Long

I. Introduction

The anarchist landscape, like many landscapes, looks different from different vantage points within it. In particular, how one is disposed to draw the boundaries of anarchism often depends on where one is located.

Anarchists agree on rejecting the state, whatever else they disagree about. They do not necessarily agree as to what counts as rejecting the state, however. The federated workers’ associations favored by anarcho-syndicalists,[84] the independent democratic communities hailed by libertarian municipalists,[85] and the private security systems advocated by many market anarchists,[86] each strike one anarchist camp or another as states in anarchist guise. My present concern, however, is primarily with anarchist disagreements as to what, if anything, anarchism involves, or should involve, beyond opposition to the state.

II. Varieties of Individualism

The terms “social anarchism” and “individualist anarchism” are often used to distinguish two major branches within anarchism. But matters are immediately more complicated. By one accounting, the two groups differ over the role of markets, economic competition, and private ownership in an anarchist society: social anarchists (whether communistic, collectivistic, or syndicalist) tend either to oppose these outright or else to regard their role as properly marginal, seeing them as potential tools of domination and exploitation; for individualist anarchists, by contrast, private ownership is the embodied form that liberty takes, and market competition plays a crucial role in maintaining social cooperation.[87]

But the term “individualist anarchism” is also used quite differently, to refer to forms of anarchism centered on an amoralist egoism based on or in the same vein as the ideas of Max Stirner.[88] While social anarchists, in characterizing their rivals, have often taken Stirnerism and support for markets together as defining features of individualist anarchism, most of the major nineteenth-century thinkers usually identified as individualist anarchists (including Thomas Hodgskin,[89] Josiah Warren,[90] Stephen Pearl Andrews,[91] Ezra and Angela Heywood,[92] Lysander Spooner,[93] William B. Greene,[94] Moses and Lillian Harman,[95] Dyer Lum,[96] and Voltairine de Cleyre[97]) either predated Stirner, ignored him, or explicitly rejected him, and embraced a moralistic orientation Stirner would have found uncongenial.

Even the best-known Stirner enthusiast, Benjamin Tucker,[98] had already become an anarchist before reading a word of Stirner;[99] and after reading him, Tucker seems to have simply picked up his existing system of anarchistic thought and plopped it down onto its new Stirnerist foundations, with only the slightest resulting shifts in the overall structure. Indeed, the contractarian version of Stirnerism that Tucker developed lays such heavy emphasis on Stirner’s cooperative dimension (such as the idea of a “Union of Egoists”) and so little emphasis on Stirner’s moral nihilism (his regarding other people as “food,” for example) that Tucker’s fellow Stirnerist Dora Marsden, in her debate with Tucker in the pages of her journals The New Freewoman and The Egoist (1913–1914), could fairly charge him with being a moralist in Stirnerist guise.[100] Tucker often seems to be more an ethical egoist after the model of Epicurus[101] or Ayn Rand[102]—one who seeks to ground morality, including a commitment to mutual respect for rights, on egoistic foundations—than the kind of moral nihilist that at least some of Stirner’s pages seem to license. (Similar remarks would apply to many thinkers influenced by Tucker, such as Francis Tandy,[103] as well as to more independent anarchist theorists like Anselme Bellegarrigue.[104])

Just as individualism in the market sense need not entail individualism in the Stirnerist sense, so the entailment does not run in the other direction either. There are Stirnerist egoist communists, such as the authors of the 1974 pamphlet The Right To Be Greedy: Theses On The Practical Necessity Of Demanding Everything;[105] and there are currents, often labelled “individualist,” ranging from the “post-left anarchism” of such thinkers as Bob Black[106] and Wolfi Landstreicher[107] to the views of the eco-terrorist group ITS (Individualists Tending Toward Savagery, aka Individualists Tending toward the Wild),[108] which embrace the moral nihilist strand in Stirner but show no particular affinity for markets. Indeed Stirner himself, while clearly rejecting communism, gives little clear indication as to what economic arrangements he favors; he uses the language of private property, but only to say that the true egoist regards everything in the world, including other people, as his own property—which is not the kind of commitment to property that represents a recognition of other people’s property rights.

To complicate matters still further, there are thinkers routinely identified as individualist anarchists who neither express much enthusiasm for markets nor embrace Stirner-style amoralism; examples include Leda Rafanelli, Émile Armand, Han Ryner, and André Lorulot.[109] These thinkers seem to be counted as individualist anarchists simply because they advocated an individualist ethics; but by that standard Emma Goldman, undisputedly a communist anarchist, would have to be reckoned an individualist too, for her ethical views were certainly staunchly individualist.[110] It’s not clear that the category is being employed with any great consistency or precision.

Even leaving aside the latter group, it seems safe to say that the label “individualist anarchism” in fact applies to, at the very least, two distinct groups, only barely overlapping—a market-focused one and a Stirner-focused one. Let’s leave the Stirner-focused one aside in turn, and consider the market-focused one.

While some anarchists have taken a “let a hundred flowers bloom” approach, seeing marketbased and communal forms of anarchism as compatible,[111] for the most part social anarchists and individualist anarchists have regarded each other’s positions as misguided. Communist anarchists like Pëtr Kropotkin, for example, argued that individualist anarchism was an unstable combination, and that its proponents would eventually be driven to give up either their anarchism or their individualism.[112] Conversely, individualist anarchists like John Henry Mackay argued that it was communist anarchism that was unstable and that its proponents would eventually be driven to give up either their anarchism or their communism.[113] Nevertheless, with some exceptions, each camp has regarded the adherents of the other as heretics rather than infidels—that is, as deviationists within the anarchist fold rather than as anarchists in name only.

The nineteenth-century thinkers I’ve mentioned above, in the market-focused individualist anarchist group, while supporting free markets, economic competition, and private ownership, generally opposed what they called “capitalism,” meaning the concentration of ownership of the means of production in a small number of hands, thereby requiring most people outside this privileged group to perform wage labour for them on pain of starvation. But, in the twentieth century, a movement arose within the free-market libertarian movement calling itself “anarcho-capitalist,” and claiming to be continuing the legacy of individualist anarchism; Murray Rothbard[114] and David Friedman[115] are among the most prominent writers in this group.

III. “Libertarian” Clarifications

Before considering the place, if any, of anarcho-capitalism on the anarchist landscape, let’s turn aside briefly to discuss the term “libertarian.” Originally this was a generic term for an advocate of freedom of any sort (including not just political freedom but also, for example, metaphysical free will—a meaning it still bears in the free will literature today). Starting around the 1970s, the term came to be generally understood as referring specifically to a radical free-market philosophy (chosen as a replacement for “liberal,” which in the twentieth century had lost its earlier free-market associations, especially in the U.S.). But “libertarian” had long been used (and to some degree continues to be used) in the anarchist movement either as a synonym for “anarchist”—and in particular for “social anarchist” (although its use by individualist anarchists is also quite early)[116]—or else for a range of positions only slightly broader than anarchism.[117] The first use of “libertarian”—or rather its French equivalent, libertaire—to refer to an adherent of a specific political position rather than to an advocate of freedom more generally, was by the anarcho-communist Joseph Dejacque in 1857.[118] (Nowadays, French has two different equivalents of “libertarian”: libertaire, meaning an anarchist, and the hideously un-French-looking libertarien, meaning a free-market radical.)

In the 1970s, in response to the wider usage of “libertarian” in the free-market sense, many social anarchists started referring to themselves as left-libertarians, and categorizing the free-market variety as right-libertarians. However, in the very same period, many free-market libertarians (such as Samuel Konkin[119] and Roy Childs[120]) had independently started using the term “leftlibertarian” differently, to refer to the left wing of the free-market libertarian movement (essentially, those who saw the New Left student movement more as allies than as opponents). Thus the very same thinkers might well count as right-libertarians by the first criterion and as leftlibertarians by the second. To add to the confusion, in the 1990s and early 2000s, many analytic philosophers, apparently unaware of the two earlier meanings, began using “left-libertarian” with yet a third meaning, to refer to a position that combined individual self-ownership with common ownership of resources, without necessarily endorsing anarchism (though some left-libertarians in this sense are also anarchists).[121]

IV. Anarchists and Markets

In any case, anarcho-capitalists, as I said, are free-market libertarians who identify with the individualist anarchist heritage; but this identification is controversial, as the main line of individualist anarchism has historically rejected capitalism. But anarcho-capitalists (or “ancaps”) can point to a number of more-or-less capitalist thinkers in the nineteenth century who are clear precursors of the anarcho-capitalist position, such as Herbert Spencer, Gustave de Molinari, Auberon Herbert, and Wordsworth Donisthorpe; and while these thinkers generally did not apply the anarchist label to themselves, it must be borne in mind that a number of anti-capitalist individualists (such as Warren, Andrews, Greene, and Spooner) did not use the label either.

But social anarchists, for the most part, grant heretic status to anti-capitalists like Tucker and Spooner, regarding them as misguided fellow anarchists, while treating ancaps as outsiders—fake anarchists and fake libertarians. And ancaps have largely returned the favor—not denying social anarchists’ status as anarchists (social anarchists are far too well embedded in anarchist history for that to be a plausible move) but denying social anarchists’ status as libertarians. For most social anarchists, capitalism is inherently a system of domination and exploitation, opposition to which is an essential part of any libertarian or anarchist project worthy of those names; for ancaps, by contrast, capitalism properly understood is a system of liberty, to which no true libertarian, surely, could be opposed.

Is this dispute over “capitalism” terminological or substantive? As is often the case with these sorts of disputes, it is some of each. By “capitalism,” most ancaps mean not the concentration of ownership of the means of production in the hands of an employing class, but simply free markets and private property. By that definition, individualist anarchists like Tucker and Spooner count as pro-capitalist. (Tucker’s views on land ownership differ from those that prevail among ancaps, but Spooner’s don’t, especially.[122] And Spencer is generally treated as a proto-ancap even though his views of land are even more “socialistic” than Tucker’s[123] and he also favored replacing wage labour with workers’ cooperatives[124]—whereas the “socialistic” Tucker, unlike both Spooner and Spencer, had no objection to wage labour so long as the labour market was properly flat and competitive.)[125] Notably, Voltairine de Cleyre was willing to call her own position, albeit with tongue half in cheek, “capitalistic anarchism” in her 1891 critique of communism.[126] In Thomas Hobbes’s words: “Words are wise men’s counters, they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools.”[127]

But the disagreement is more than merely terminological. While ancaps do not make economic concentration and the wage system a definitional part of the capitalism they defend, most of them do regard such features as likely, and acceptable, consequences of a free market; whereas the anti-capitalist individualists reject them. Should this disagreement exclude ancaps from being part of the individualist anarchist tradition? Most social anarchists think it should; most ancaps think it shouldn’t.

Historically, most individualist anarchists—meaning those recognized by social anarchists as genuine if misguided anarchists—have thought it shouldn’t either. Tucker, for example, although he believed and hoped that anarchism would bring about a more economically egalitarian society, took this as an empirical prediction rather than as a matter of definition, and moreover insisted that he would still be committed to anarchism, albeit less enthusiastically so, should the prediction prove mistaken;[128] moreover, proto-ancaps Molinari, Herbert, and Donisthorpe were hailed in the pages of Tucker’s journal Liberty, the foremost individualist anarchist periodical, as fellow individualist anarchists or nearly so, despite their capitalist tendencies.[129] Indeed, social anarchists undertaking to tell individualist anarchists who counts as a true individualist anarchist can seem a bit presumptuous, like Catholics undertaking to tell Episcopalians whether Mormons count as Protestants.

But since the boundaries of individualist anarchism are in fact disputed, let’s substitute the term “market anarchism,” meaning any version of anarchism that gives free markets and private property an essential coordinating role in an anarchist society. (“Essential” need not mean “exclusive”; many versions of market anarchism also make room for communal property.)[130] Contemporary continuators of the nineteenth-century individualist anarchist movement (such as Kevin Carson, Charles Johnson, Gary Chartier, William Gillis, and others associated with the Center for a Stateless Society) have made use of the label “left-wing market anarchist” (or “LWMA”), so we can treat the LWMAs as one wing of the market anarchist movement (applying the term retroactively to the Spooner—Tucker group as well), and assign the anarcho-capitalists to the other wing—while reserving debate as to whether all market anarchists, or only the LWMA wing thereof, count as genuine anarchists. (LWMAs can also be seen as the anarchist wing of left-libertarianism, in the second of the three senses of “left-libertarian” distinguished above.)

Let me note in passing a further complication: social anarchists and LWMAs share not only an opposition to capitalism but also an opposition to various other forms of oppression, including hierarchies of race, gender, and the like; such opposition is often seen as a crucial part of the “left” in “left-wing market anarchism” (as well as in “left-libertarian”).[131] Some anarcho-capitalists share this opposition as well, but others see such issues as irrelevant to their concerns, while still others see hierarchies of race and/or gender as “natural” and worthy of defense; and this has sometimes served as another basis for excluding anarcho-capitalists (all or some) from the anarchist ranks. To be sure, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the first thinker to use the “anarchist” label himself, has been claimed for both the social and individualist anarchist traditions (as has the mutualist tradition he inaugurated), despite Proudhon’s own intense antisemitism, misogyny, and homophobia. Presumably he is given a pass because he lived in the nineteenth century; but his own anarchist contemporaries were not always so obliging. In fact, the term “libertarian” (or libertaire) in its anarchist use was coined by Dejacque as part of a polemic against Proudhon, arguing that Proudhon could be no true libertarian so long as he denied women equal status with men. (Dejacque would go on, in the following year, to use Le Libertaire as the title of his journal.)

Returning specifically to the issue of “capitalism,” the social anarchist basis for excluding ancaps from the anarchist ranks is not always clear. Precisely what features of ancaps’ support for capitalism renders them ineligible for the status of genuine anarchists? It’s hard to find any criterion that won’t also rule out some LWMAs whom social anarchists want to rule in. For example, social anarchists sometimes point to ancaps’ support for private security firms as evidence of crypto-statism; yet LWMAs Tucker, Spooner, and Bellegarrigue, acknowledged by social anarchists to be genuine if misguided anarchists, also supported private security firms. Again, social anarchists will point to ancaps’ support for rent and wage labour as incompatible with anarchism. Well, Tucker opposed rent but not wage labour, regarding the latter as no longer exploitative once the wage system—the necessity to work for others, or starve—had been eliminated; Spooner, by contrast, opposed wage labour but not rent. And not only will these criteria rule out some LWMAs whom social anarchists want to rule in, but they also run the risk of ruling in some ancaps that social anarchists want to rule out; for example, at the time that ancap David Friedman wrote the second edition of his most famous book, The Machinery of Freedom, he was also opposed to the wage system;[132] but I’m not aware that any social anarchist has seen this as a reason to welcome The Machinery of Freedom into the anarchist canon.

V. Distinguishable Tendencies

But if the criteria for inclusion or exclusion are not completely precise, they are not completely arbitrary either. If we think of political groupings as picked out by family-resemblance concepts rather than by specifications of necessary and sufficient conditions, then it seems reasonable to take social anarchists, LWMAs, and ancaps as forming three camps within which, whatever deviations toward one camp some individuals in another camp may have with respect to this or that specific issue, it will still be the case that members of each camp share a greater ideological resemblance to one another than to those in either of the other two camps.

It will also be the case, though, that LWMAs share more affiliations with each of the other two camps than those two camps share with each other. This is seen, for example, in the fact that while it is rare to find social anarchists favorably citing Rothbard, or ancaps favorably citing Kropotkin, LWMAs are frequently to be found citing both favorably (albeit not uncritically). Social anarchists’ greater affinity with LWMAs than with ancaps explains why social anarchists have found it easy to think of themselves and LWMAs as belonging to a common “anarchist” tradition from which ancaps are excluded. And, by the same token, ancaps’ greater affinity with LWMAs than with social anarchists explains why ancaps have found it correspondingly easy to think of themselves and LWMAs as belonging to a common “individualist anarchist” tradition from which social anarchists are excluded. And those affinities also explain why LWMAs have historically been friendlier toward both the social anarchist and the ancap camps than those camps have been toward each other.

I don’t mean to give the impression that LWMAs can always be counted on to welcome both social anarchists and ancaps as fellow anarchists, or that social anarchists and ancaps can always be counted on to exclude each other while welcoming LWMAs as fellow anarchists. There are always cases of individuals either more or less accepting than this stereotype would suggest. At one point in his career, for example, social anarchist Murray Bookchin was enthusiastic about having right-wing libertarians as allies.[133] (In later and grumpier life he rejected them as fake libertarians;[134] but then again, in later and grumpier life Bookchin rejected most participants in the anarchist movement in general as fake libertarians.[135]) Tucker,[136] while (as noted above) accepting capitalist antistatists as genuine albeit misguided anarchists or near-anarchists, grew increasingly inclined over the course of his career to write anarcho-communists like Kropotkin, Johann Most, and the Haymarket martyrs out of the movement. And neither social anarchist nor ancap acceptance of LWMAs should be exaggerated.

One thing that (many) social anarchists and (many) ancaps have in common is that they recognise anticapitalist individualist market anarchists as valuable comrades (albeit erring ones) as long as they’re dead 19^th-century figures like Benjamin Tucker, Lysander Spooner, and Voltairine de Cleyre, and even include them in their favourite anthologies, but as soon as they encounter actual living 21^st-century examples of anticapitalist individualist market anarchists, they cringe in horror and shriek either ‘capitalist!’ or ‘commie!’ depending on the direction of deviation.[137]

Nevertheless, it remains true on the whole that social anarchists and ancaps are readier to recognize LWMAs as deviationists within the fold, while anathematizing each other, and that LWMAs are readier to recognize both social anarchists and ancaps as deviationists within the fold.

If anarchism is concerned with opposition to domination, then social anarchism, which is highly sensitive to ways in which private property relations can enable domination, but relatively insensitive to ways in which interference with private property relations can do so—and anarcho-capitalism, which conversely is highly sensitive to ways in which interference with private property a relations can enable domination, but relatively insensitive to ways in which private property relations themselves can do so—each seem to be specializing in opposition to one aspect of domination while neglecting another aspect. From that perspective, the LWMA approach seems to represent a more systematic opposition to domination, in virtue of synthesizing the concerns of both of its main rivals without falling prey to the one-sidedness of either.

VI. Left-Wing Market Anarchism as a Mediating Position

There is actually one affiliation that social anarchists and ancaps share with each other and not with LWMAs, and that is the tendency either to identify free markets with capitalism (in the sense of economic concentration and a wage system), or else to assume that the former naturally leads to the latter. The difference is one of evaluation; social anarchists take the case against capitalism (so understood) to constitute a case against free markets, whereas ancaps take the case for free markets to constitute a case for capitalism. For LWMAs, by contrast, free markets and capitalism are incompatible; competition is a natural levelling force, since if one person or group is raking in profits by providing some good or service, then others will imitate them if not prohibited from doing so—and so capitalism is a product of government intervention that could not survive on a free market.[138]

And this is why who counts as an anarchist, or as a libertarian, seems to depend on where on the anarchist landscape one is oneself located. It’s natural to take one’s own preferred form of anarchism as representing the core of anarchism; slight deviations from that core will still fall within the boundaries, while large deviations from it will fall outside. On economic issues, from the social anarchist perspective, LWMAs are at least half-right (laudably anti-capitalist, mistakenly pro-market) while ancaps are completely wrong (mistakenly pro-capitalist and pro-market). Conversely, from the ancap perspective, LWMAs are again at least half-right (laudably pro-market, mistakenly anti-capitalist) while social anarchists are completely wrong (mistakenly anti-market and anti-capitalist). But from the LWMA perspective, social anarchists (laudably anti-capitalist, mistakenly anti-market) and ancaps (laudably pro-market, mistakenly pro-capitalist) are each halfright. (Social anarchists like to put the “anarcho” in “anarcho-capitalist” in scare quotes; LWMA Anna Morgenstern has argued that instead it is the “capitalist” in “anarcho-capitalist” that should be put in scare quotes, since implementing ancaps’ preferred policies would in fact dismantle capitalism, whether or not ancaps realize this.)[139]

For social anarchists, social anarchism naturally represents the main line of anarchism; LWMAs are deviationists close enough to be within the fold, while ancaps are distant enough to be beyond the pale. For ancaps, it is anarcho-capitalism that represents the main line, if not of anarchism, then at least of libertarianism; LWMAs are deviationists close enough to be within the fold, but social anarchists are beyond the pale. For LWMAs, by contrast, it is the LWMA position that is the main line of anarchism and libertarianism—not in terms of numbers (LWMAs represent a tiny group compared to the other two, a mouse squeezed between the social anarchist elephant and the ancap bear) but in terms of the “objective tendency of the problematic”; and social anarchists and ancaps are both close enough to count as deviationists within the fold rather than outsiders.

Does this mean that one must first decide which purported version of anarchism is most defensible in order to decide which positions are genuinely anarchist, or genuinely libertarian? That would be awkward; in particular, it would leave those who find all purported versions of anarchism or libertarianism equally unappealing with no way of determining any boundaries for the concept. I think we can do a bit better; more precisely, I think there are grounds for accepting the LWMAs’ more eclectic drawing of the boundaries even if one is not oneself an LWMA. Fair warning, though: since I am myself an LWMA, my argument might reasonably be taken as a product of LWMA bias. I hope not, but the danger should be kept in mind.

(Note that while I’ll be defending an ecumenical view of the anarchist landscape, according to which social anarchists, LWMAs, and ancaps all count as anarchists and libertarians, I do not mean to give the impression that every self-described anarchist or libertarian thinker or group should be welcomed in as part of the fold. So-called “national anarchists,” for example, while sharing genuine points of affiliation with various forms of anarchism, share far more in common with fascism; and as I take fascism to be point-for-point the polar opposite of anarchism in any of its forms, being more closely affiliated with fascism than with anarchism necessarily means not being a genuine anarchist.)

There are good reasons to regard left-wing market anarchism as standing at the center of the libertarian and anarchist traditions, even if one does not regard it as the most defensible version of anarchism. Nicolas Walter, a social anarchist and historian of anarchism, has stressed anarchism’s historical dependence on both (state) socialism and (classical) liberalism.[140] If social anarchism and anarcho-capitalism represent the fullest anarchistic developments of each of these lineages respectively, left-wing market anarchism combines both lineages the most equally.

To be sure, if one focuses solely on the social anarchist and ancap positions (which is easy to do, since they are both more prominent than the LWMA position), the two seem so different that it’s easy to come to the conclusion that there’s no wider tradition to which both belong. But once the LWMA position is brought clearly into view, its web of affiliation with the other two positions makes it easier to see how all three are part of a common conversation, with LWMAs as the chief mediator. Historically, the conversation can be seen in such phenomena as the mutual influence between Molinari and Proudhon;[141] Tucker’s engagement with Herbert and Donisthorpe in the pages of Liberty; Sophie Raffalovich’s treatment of the Boston Anarchists in Molinari’s journal;[142] Dyer Lum’s association first with Tucker and later with Albert and Lucy Parsons; de Cleyre’s association first with Tucker and then with Goldman and Berkman; the membership of Warren, Andrews, and Greene (and, according to one source,[143] Spooner, though this is doubtful) in the First International; and the influence of proto-ancap class theory on LWMA Hodgskin, and through him on ancaps, LWMAs, and social anarchists alike.

And once one recognizes those affiliations between social anarchists and ancaps that are mediated by LWMAs, it becomes easier to see the significance of those (admittedly fewer) affiliations between social anarchists and ancaps that are not so mediated, such as Kropotkin’s and Goldman’s admiration for proto-ancap Spencer; Spencer’s call (even in his more conservative later years) for replacing the wage system with workers’ cooperatives; Kropotkin’s singing the praises of private enterprise;[144] Rothbard’s call for the return of conquistador-stolen land to the peasants[145] and the takeover of government-privileged corporations by their workers;[146] and the enthusiasm for the free mercantile cities of the late medieval period that unites social anarchists like Kropotkin and Bookchin with protoancaps like Augustin Thierry (whom Kropotkin frequently cites) and Charles Dunoyer.[147]

VII. Conclusion

Seen from either the social anarchist or the anarcho-capitalist region of the anarchist landscape, the corresponding region can easily look so distant and so different that it’s easy to relegate it to an alien and hostile territory. But, I’ve argued, once one carefully surveys the intermediate, leftwing market anarchist region, the deep intertwining of root and branch among all three traditions comes more clearly into view.

Social anarchist John Clark offers an apposite observation in his article “Bridging the Unbridgeable Chasm.” The purported chasm he has in mind is not the one between social anarchism and anarcho-capitalism, and I have no reason to think he would agree with my use of it here (in fact I have some reason to think he wouldn’t).[148] But I do think it applies:

The idea that there is an ‘unbridgeable chasm’ between two viewpoints that share certain common presuppositions and goals, and whose practices are in some ways interrelated, is a bit suspect from the outset. It is particularly problematic when proposed by a thinker like Bookchin, who claims to hold a dialectical perspective. Whereas nondialectical thought merely opposes one reality to another in an abstract manner, or else places them inertly beside one another, a dialectical analysis examines the ways in which various realities presuppose one another, constitute one another, challenge the identity of one another, and push one another to the limits of their development. Accordingly, one important quality of such an analysis is that it helps those with divergent viewpoints see the ways in which their positions are not mutually exclusive but can instead be mutually realized in a further development of each.[149]

This passage perfectly describes what I see as the relationship among social anarchism, anarchocapitalism, and left-wing market anarchism.[150]

3. On the Distinction Between State and Anarchy

Christopher W. Morris

I. Introduction

The distinction between the state and anarchy is widely deployed in modern political philosophy. In a number of ways, it is problematic and will be challenged here. Most importantly, the distinction is often thought to be exhaustive, or virtually exhaustive, of the possibilities for political societies or for the political organization of a polity. Quite often the state is defended by arguing that anarchy is awful, and less often anarchy is defended by pointing to the abuse and horrors of states. These arguments tend to assume that state and anarchy exhaust the possibilities. They turn out to be false dilemma arguments. I shall argue that this way of understanding our choices is a mistake, one that blinds us to the variety of alternative forms of political society. The “state of nature” of modern political philosophy is usually thought to be anarchy, and I will suggest a more interesting understanding of our “natural condition”. This understanding may reveal some problems with much anarchist thinking.

II. The State/Anarchy Distinction

Some years ago, Robert Nozick challenged the complacency of political philosophers. He wrote:

The fundamental question of political philosophy, one that precedes questions about how the state should be organized, is whether there should be any state at all. Why not have anarchy? Since anarchist theory, if tenable, undercuts the whole subject of political philosophy, it is appropriate to begin with an examination of its major theoretical alternative.[151]

Why then the state, why not anarchy? The question was timely in the early 1970s. Philosophers took for granted that we must live in states, and they focused on the question of how states should be organized and then mainly on questions of the distribution of resources.[152] Many have even understood the history of political thought as focusing primarily on these last questions. To some others, Nozick’s suggestion was a breath of fresh air.

In some ways, that suggestion fits quite well with the main tradition of modern political philosophy, which would have us compare the state with the “state of nature” of social contract theory. This natural condition is the real or the hypothetical condition of humans in the absence of a state. The different seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theorists disagreed about the proper description of this “natural” state of affairs, but they took it as the starting point for reflection about the state. In the first part of Anarchy, State, and Utopia Nozick takes seriously the proposal that there may be anarchist solutions to the problems that humans encounter in the state of nature. Like most philosophers, he is particularly interested in normative questions about the state’s justification and legitimacy.

The suggestion Nozick makes is that we examine anarchist theory, as it is the “major theoretical alternative” to political philosophy, at least in its current or possibly modern form. In his well-known account in Part One of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Nozick argues that something like a state can emerge without violating any of the basic rights of people, which he thinks refutes the claims of anarchists who say that states are necessarily illegitimate or unjust. This argument has been the subject of much commentary, and my interests here lie elsewhere. I wish instead to examine the claim that state and anarchy exhaust or virtually exhaust the alternatives. Nozick’s words—the state’s “major theoretical alternative”—allow for other alternatives, but he proceeds as most philosophers have in this tradition, by focusing on the disjunctive choice: state? Or anarchy?

Is the distinction between state and anarchy exhaustive or virtually exhaustive? Discussions in the literature as well as the classroom proceed as if it were. There are some reasons for proceeding this way. Doing so simplifies matters, which can be helpful. And an exhaustive distinction between state and anarchy allows one to mount a simple argument for the state (or anarchy): a dilemma argument, in fact. This is, of course, what Hobbes and many others do. His is the most famous dilemma argument for the state: life in the natural condition of humankind is awful; therefore, we must have a state. The argument is very well known, and we need not linger on the omitted details. And many anarchists are also happy to embrace the dilemma structure of the argument and to challenge the picture of the state of nature. The essentially binary structure of the landscape in political philosophy is commonplace.

The traditional justification of the state—best known to students of political philosophy from the writings of Hobbes and Locke—involved an attempt to demonstrate that the state (or that a certain kind of state) is preferable to that nonpolitical condition called ‘the state of nature’ (and, thus, that the state is both acceptable and best for us, relative to the state of nature.) The state of nature is often equated with the condition of ‘anarchy,’ which seems perfectly fair if we are using the word anarchy in one only of its familiar senses, where it means ‘absence of government.’[153]

A natural starting-point for thinking about the state is to ask: what would things be life without it? ... We imagine a ‘state of nature’; a situation where no state exists and no one possesses political power .... [S]ooner or later, among any fairly sizeable group of people, life in the state of nature will become intolerable. Reason enough, it may be said, to accept that the state is justified without the need for further argument. After all, what real alternative to the state do we have?[154]

This assumption, that the exclusive or virtually exclusive choice we face is “state or anarchy”, has had a bad effect on political philosophy. It blinds us to the variety of political alternatives, and it does this by simplifying the actual history of our world beyond recognition. If each political society must be either a state or an instance of anarchy—taking the latter to be a form of political society, if you will—then we lose sight of the many of the historical alternatives: the Roman Empire, late medieval Europe, the German-speaking lands of the Holy Roman Empire, the Islamic caliphates, Christendom, the Hanseatic League. We also fail to understand some of the more contemporary alternatives: British Hong Kong, Singapore, perhaps the European Union. As we shall see, a lot turns on how we think of states.

Philosophers, perhaps especially in the Anglo-American tradition, are raised on a diet of great books from classical Greece and modern Europe and often assume that Hobbes and Locke are engaged in a continuous conversation with Plato and Aristotle about how best to organize political society, the polis and the state being thought of as more or less similar things. But the modern state did not immediately follow Athens and Rome; a millennium of different political institutions and frameworks lies between them and the modern world. The modern state displaced or destroyed a variety of different forms of political organization. The history of our Western polities alone suggests that the binary characterization of the alternatives is mistaken or at least misleading. Our choices are not simple as between “state” and “anarchy”; there is a considerable variety of forms of political organization, and these may be of great interest to us.

Oddly, it shouldn’t take much to persuade that the anarchy/state distinction cannot be exhaustive, or even virtually exhaustive. Consider the case of medieval Europe—Europe from roughly the fifth to fifteenth centuries. During this time, Europe was not organized the way it increasingly was in later centuries, as a collection of states. And it was not a state of nature or anarchy. I shall first make a case for this claim and later consider more carefully what we might think of as states. As we shall see later, much turns on how we understand states. The forms of political society in medieval Europe cannot be easily summarized, even for Western Europe. So, let us think first of northern France and England around the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. We find there a complex social and political order quite unlike ours. “Government” consisted of complex hierarchies of lords and vassals. These allegiances were based on personal loyalties and land tenure (fiefs). The resulting order was decentralized and fragmented, one in which “public” functions of government were “privatized”, and in which rule was indirect, and it was not territorial—very different from what obtains under state rule. Here is Maitland’s characterization:

A state of society in which the main social bond is the relation between lord and man, a relation implying on the lord’s part protection and defense; on the man’s part protection, service and reverence, the service including service in arms. This personal relation is inseparably involved in a proprietary relation, the tenure of land—the man holds land of the lord, the man’s service is a burden on the land, and (we may say) the full ownership of the land is split up between man and lord. The lord has jurisdiction over his men, holds courts for them, to which they owe suit. Jurisdiction is regarded as property, as a private right which the lord has over his land. The national organization is a system of these relationships: at the head there stands the king as lord of all, below him are his immediate vassals, or tenants in chief, who again are lords of tenants, who again may be lords of tenants, and so on, down to the lowest possessor of land. Lastly, as every court consists of the lord’s tenants, so the king’s court consists of his tenants in chief, and so far as there is any constitutional control over the king it is exercised by the body of these tenants.[155]

The social and political system summarized by Maitland is complex. Governance is largely decentralized, privatized, and indirect, and it is not territorial in the ways it is today. It is decentralized and fragmented, shared by multiple parties; indeed, there is no “center”. Power rests in the hands of distributed networks of lords and their vassals. The Church’s power and influence only compound the complexity of medieval governance arrangements. Importantly, political power—what we think of as belonging to the “public” realm—is privatized. Power is based on personal relations, “a complex hierarchy of patron—client relationships”.[156] A third important contrast with our states is that feudal rule is largely indirect. There is no single person or entity, the Church aside, that rules all persons in the realm. Rule is mediated and personal. A lord requests of a vassal that he fulfill his pledge, and that request obligates that vassal; no one else is thereby obligated. The vassal may need to call on his vassals, but the latter are not obligated to the (first) lord. In France fidelity was owed only to one’s immediate overlord: vassallus vassalli mei non est meus vassallus (“my vassal’s vassal is not my vassal”).[157]

A consequence of the decentralized, privatized, and indirect nature of political power is that it was limited or constrained. The power of any one individual was limited. We have not mentioned the political power of serfs, if only because they had none (or virtually none); independent towns are mentioned below. Our focus is on the rulers, and the power of lords was limited. The foundation for their power was contractual and thus constrained. Duties and rights were conditional; if one of the parties failed in his duties, the other would be released from his. No single person or body possessed complete authority or what the moderns call sovereignty.[158] Moreover, the hierarchy of powers—the hierarchy of lord-vassal relationships—was complex in a further way: it need not constitute an ordering. The rule cited above meant that the lord-vassal relationship need not be transitive: if A was B’s lord and B was C’s lord, it did not follow that A was (also) C’s lord. Additionally, a vassal could serve several lords.[159]

Lastly, in this system political authority was largely personal and not importantly territorial. Political allegiances were oath-based, referring to persons but not countries or national lands. What we think of as national borders did not exist in any case. The jurisdictions of our states are mostly territorial: laws apply to members (i.e., citizens) of course, but in the first instance they apply to all agents in the state’s territory. The obligations of medieval lords and vassals—the individuals who wield power—are mostly contractual. They are thus personal, even when allegiance is exchanged for land.

In late medieval times, in what is now France or England there were monarchs who claimed sweeping powers. Drawing their inspiration from Rome or ancient Israel, these monarchs claimed broad powers to make law and not to be overruled by others. But, at the same time, they were non sub homine sed sub Deo et lege (“not under man but under God and the law”).[160] And not without reason. Kings were constrained by the Church and its courts. The Church’s power was often a significant constraint on the powers of kings and other lords. It was also a center of literacy and wealth, often largely independent of kings and princes. And kings ruled directly only on their own personal lands and indirectly everywhere else. And by comparison to many early modern kings, they were weak, militarily dependent on vassals. Lastly, with the development of commerce (and of money), towns and cities, starting in the eleventh century, became increasingly important economically and politically. Many were independent centers of power, antagonists to much of the feudal order.

What I have described is a period of late medieval European history which could not be characterized as anarchic, but which featured social systems or political societies that were clearly not states. Governance was fragmented and decentralized, privatized (not public), indirect and personal, and not essentially territorial. But the important point is that there was government in this time. There were controls on people, consisting of systems of law and other effective constraints. There were of course pockets of disorder or “anarchy”, either from the collapse of orders or merely in areas in which there were few controls. This is “anarchy” in the sense of disorder. In the classical sense relevant here, anarchia refers to social settings without rulers or centralized political authority. In this sense late medieval Europe was not anarchic. We need now to consider more carefully why late medieval Europe does not have states. Part of the answer lies in our description of feudal government as decentralized and fragmented, privatized, indirect, and not territorial, and largely personal systems of power. States are systems of centralized, public, direct, and, most importantly, impersonal and territorial rule. Let us then ask: what are states, more precisely?

III. What are States?

There often appears to be considerable agreement about what states are. When in need of a “definition” of the state, political philosophers often cite Max Weber. In the first few paragraphs of a public address that Weber delivered at the University of Munich in 1918 on the subject of “Politics as a Vocation”, there is what appears to be a definition of the state.[161] In the third or fourth paragraph of his lecture (the third in the German text), Weber says that “a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.”[162] This familiar definition is widely used.

The opening paragraph of the Wikipedia entry on “state” says that “[a] state is a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a certain geographical territory” and later that “[t]he most commonly used definition is Max Weber’s.”[163] It is noteworthy that no single entity in medieval Europe possessed such a monopoly and that, for the most part, none could be understood as claiming one, though this last is less clear.

There are, however, a number of problems with this characterization or, rather, with the standard uses of it. In the lecture Weber qualifies it. And most importantly, elsewhere, in a work less cited for these purposes, Weber expresses a more subtle and complete characterization:

Since the concept of the state has only in modern times reached its full development, it is best to define it in terms appropriate to the modern type of state, but at the same time, in terms which abstract from the values of the present day, since these are particularly subject to change. The primary formal characteristics of the modern state are as follows: It possesses [1] an administrative and [2] legal order subject to change by legislation, to which the organized corporate activity of the administrative staff, which is also regulated by legislation, is oriented. This system of order [3] claims binding authority, not only over the members of the state, the citizens [...] but also to a very large extent, over all actions taking place in the area of its [4] jurisdiction. It is thus a compulsory association with a [4a] territorial basis. Furthermore, today, the [5] use of force is regarded as legitimate only so far as it is either permitted by the state or prescribed by it.[164]

The fuller characterization is superior to the oft-quoted one from “Politics as a Vocation”: “an administrative and legal order”, “claims binding authority.over all actions taking place in the area of its jurisdiction”, “a territorial basis”. For our purposes note that both characterizations are multi-attributive; the state is defined in terms of several attributes. I will make use of this fact. But first let me introduce a third characterization, a much more complex one. In my Essay on the Modern State, I said that

[t]he concept of the modern state, in my sense, then, as it emerges in medieval and early modern history, is that of a new and complex form of political organization. For the purposes of my inquiry, the state is to be characterized in terms of a number of interrelated features.

These features are:

1. Continuity in time and space. (a) The modern state is a form of political organization whose institutions endure over time; in particular, they survive changes in leadership or government. (b) It is the form of political organization of a definite and distinct territory.

2. Transcendence. The modern state is a particular form of political organization that constitutes a unitary public order distinct from and superior to both ruled and rulers, one capable of agency. The institutions that are associated with modern states—in particular, the government, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, standing armies—do not themselves constitute the state; they are its agents.

3. Political organization. The institutions through which the state acts—in particular, the government, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, the police, and the military—are differentiated from other political organizations and associations; they are formally coordinated one with another, and they are relatively centralized. Relations of authority are hierarchical. Rule is direct; it is territorial (see 1b); and it is relatively pervasive and penetrates society legally and administratively.

4. Authority. The state claims to be sovereign—that is, the ultimate source of political authority in its territory—and it claims a monopoly on the use of legitimate force within its territory. The jurisdiction of its institutions extends directly to all residents or members of that territory. In its relations to other public orders, the state is autonomous.

5. Allegiance. Members of a state are the primary subjects of its laws and have a general obligation to obey by virtue of their membership. The state expects and receives the loyalty of its members and of the permanent inhabitants of its territory. The loyalty that it typically expects and receives assumes precedence over that loyalty formerly owed to family, clan, commune, lord, bishop, pope, or emperor.[165]

This characterization is fuller than the Weberian ones. Item 1a is implicit in the second Weberian characterization, but item 2 needs to be stated explicitly so as to highlight the kind of corporate entity present here. The unitary and corporate nature of modern states is of importance.[166] Item 4 is quite important; states claim not only some kind of monopoly on “legitimate” uses of force and violence but also authority. It is not surprising that many social scientists do not want to include normative notions in a characterization of the state, but it is hard to understand what states are without referring to what powers and rights they claim.[167] And other items here— e.g., the allegiance demanded or expected by states (item 5)—are important.

This third characterization was constructed to highlight the distinctive features of modern states and to contrast them with their late medieval alternatives. Modern states resemble Athens and especially Rome only in a few respects, and these latter were long gone when states emerged and replaced late medieval institutions and political systems. Prior to the emergence of modern states there were many alternative forms of political organization, several of which had to be defeated or subsumed for statehood in the modern sense to emerge as the dominant form. Modern states displaced kingdoms, principalities, duchies, independent cities, leagues of cities, empires, the Church (of Rome), and many other alternative political forms, including several of the institutions and practices left over from feudalism. Things might have gone differently, pace Hegel. Charles Tilly, arguing against the historian Joseph Strayer, claims that

In the thirteenth century, then, five outcomes may still have been open: (1) the form of national state which actually emerged; (2) a political federation or empire controlled, if only loosely, from a single center; (3) a theocratic federation—a commonwealth—held together by the structure of the Catholic Church; (4) an intensive trading network without large-scale, central political organization; (5) the persistence of the “feudal” structure which prevailed in the thirteenth century.[168]

That’s all history now, so to speak. Today the triumph of the modern state is universal; all but one bit of the landmass of the globe is the territory of a state. Even the European remnants of earlier forms of political organization—the principalities of Monaco, Liechtenstein, and Andorra, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the seat of the Church of Rome (Vatican City)— are dubbed states by political geographers and international lawyers. For us, there are only states (and “failed states”). The historical alternatives have been forgotten, and political philosophers often think that “the state of nature” and “the state” exhaust our options. We note, however, that by any of these three characterizations there were no states in medieval Europe, even if there were systems of governance and law; even when and where violence and force were controlled, there were no states.

For some purposes, of course, Weber’s first definition may be sufficient. For others, his second or mine may be more useful. Characterizations are largely to be guided by the ends of inquiry and the phenomena that are illuminated thereby. Anarchists and many egalitarians are bound to be suspicious of states and especially of the monopolization of force highlighted by the first Weberian definition.[169] For them the initial centralization of power that occurred ten millennia or so ago gave birth to increasing specialization of functions, with some people or classes coming to monopolize various political functions or roles. They may find the roots of some of our political problems in the ways in which concentrations of power and political specialization make more egalitarian anarchist communities impossible. Michael Taylor is a good example of such a thinker. Other thinkers, including me, want to think about alternatives to our current system of (modern) states but do not think that the kinds of anarchist community that existed several thousand years ago are feasible or attractive alternatives for us. But, as we shall see in Section IV, there is another distinction which may be more useful to political philosophers.

IV. The Structure of the Argument: Many Attributes, Many Possibilities

Note that characterizations of the state, as with any complex entity, are multi-attributive; something is a state insofar as it possesses several attributes. This is certainly the case with Weber’s second characterization and with those similar to mine. But it is also true of the simple, widely invoked Weberian definition: “a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” This characterization is relatively simple, but note that the kind of human community in question is a territorial one. Territoriality is an attribute distinct from the monopolization of force. Further, note that the human community that claims the monopoly is an entity; that is, a single corporate entity. What sort of thing is it? It can’t be the king or “the sovereign”, understood as a single human being (“the ruler”); no one rules alone. The “ruler” is always a set of rulers—in fact, a coalition of coalitions of powerful people. More importantly, “the ruler” is a corporate being of some kind. It may be made of Many, but it is One. In the frontispiece of Leviathan, the Sovereign’s body is made up of those Many. Something like this may be suggested by Weber’s “human community”, as it is by many notions of “We, the People”. In addition, the important predicate “legitimate” in Weber’s simple definition is more complex than it seems to be, but we will leave this aside for now. We should just note that even this simple definition is multi-attributive; there are at least three distinct attributes of states in this oft-invoked definition. Weber’s complex definition distinguishes at least five important characteristics of states.

Now why would this be significant? When political communities satisfy some but not all of the attributes essential to states, they will not be states, or not fully. But they may also not be anarchies. Unless the defining attributes can only be instantiated together, then polities can exist with some of the attributes but not others. We have mentioned the Principality of Monaco, the Vatican, the Principality of Andorra, and other remnants of medieval Europe. These are considered city-states or countries by some, but this is a bit of a fiction. The co-princes of Andorra, for instance, are the French President and the (Catholic) Bishop of Urgell of Spanish Catalunya. American Indian reservations and Canadian First Nation territories have some state-like features. On the classical view of sovereignty—item 4 in my long characterization of states—member countries of the

European Union have given up their sovereignty or, if this is possible, part of their sovereignty. Classical Athens had some state-like features but not others. Classical empires like that of Rome and the Holy Roman Empire were not modern states and did not claim sovereignty.[170]

Depending on the period of the Middle Ages, Christendom is a political force, sharing some features with empires. And then there are the cluster of contemporary states lumped together as failed or fragile states or characterized using some other term. “Quasi-states”, such as many former European colonies, are recognized as states but lack governments with full control of their territories and many other features of developed states.[171] We can find the Democratic Republic of the Congo or the Republic of South Sudan on maps, but they are not full states. Some of these places are anarchic in the sense of disorderly, but they are not anarchies. Coalitions exert control or rival groups seek to extend their control. In the next section we’ll call them “limited-access social orders”.

One could of course construct an exhaustive anarchy/state distinction, for instance, distinguishing states from non-states (or anarchic from non-anarchic societies). One could stipulate that anything that meets all of the conditions of one of the Weberian definitions would count as a state and that everything else is a non-state. Anarchy would then be the condition of nonstates. But, of course, that would be odd. Better would be to stipulate that anarchy is a condition in which people lack rulers and that everything else is a state. Anthropologists do something like that, but they also recognize the variety of “states”.[172] Students of the last two millennia of political societies would find either of these exhaustive distinctions useless; they hide the variety of forms of political organization. One cannot understand the modern state except against the background of late medieval Europe. Why did English and French monarchs need to become independent of the Church of Rome and to tame or reach agreements with their aristocrats? Simple definitions are of no use here.

Note as well that the stipulated, exhaustive definitions won’t allow for a dilemma argument of the kind favored by some defenders of state or anarchy. These arguments depend on being able to show that one of the two options is just awful or that one is decidedly better than the other. But if the stipulated distinction is such that one of the alternatives groups together a large variety of arrangements—e.g., ancient Egypt, Athens, the Iroquois, Singapore, Andorra, North Korea, Norway—then the choice won’t be easy, and the argument won’t go through. We shall see this more clearly with the distinction to be introduced in the section that follows.

V. Anarchy and Natural States

Anthropologists are (or were) traditionally concerned with the early, pre-modern societies not studied by historians. Consequently, many have studied acephalous or anarchist societies and have found special significance in the emergence of hierarchical forms of social organizations, sometimes dubbed chiefdoms. These are larger communities than bands or tribes, socially stratified, with chiefs with considerable authority over large areas. The important explanatory notion here may be that of “fissioning”:

All political systems except true states break up into similar units as part of their normal process of political activity. Hunting bands, locally autonomous food producers, and chieftaincies each build up the polity to some critical point and then send off subordinate segments to found new units or split because of conflict over succession, land shortage, failure by one segment to support another in intergroup competition or hostilities, or for some other reason. These new units grow in their turn, then split again. The state is a system specifically designed to restrain such tendencies. And this capacity creates an entirely new society.[173]

The “German tribes” that challenged Rome were large chiefdoms of some complexity. For many anthropologists the transitions from anarchist communities to chiefdoms and then to “states” in something like the first Weberian sense is important. The distinction between anarchist or acephalous communities and chiefdoms and states represents a significant difference in social organization. And the modern and contemporary interest in “the origins of inequality” accentuates this distinction, given that the small acephalous communities are quite egalitarian.[174] There is much interest today in these small communities. Michael Taylor refers to them in his argument that anarchy requires community. It is a mark of acephalous societies that “there is only a minimum concentration of force and scarcely any political specialization of at all.... The are no leadership positions with formal status.”[175]

We have identified the philosopher’s “state of nature” with anarchy. Social contract thinkers as well as many anarchists use the anarchist state of nature as the baseline for arguments for or against the state. The state of nature is also a device used by early modern philosophers, as well as classical thinkers like Plato, to lay out their conceptions of human nature, of those aspects of the human untouched or influenced by society or the state. The quarrel between Hobbes and Rousseau in the latter’s Discourse on the Inequality of Man contrasts two views of human nature; on Rousseau’s view, humans uncorrupted by society are quite different from us. However, the notion of the state of nature that’s important in this discussion is that of an alternative to the state. It is thus a counter-factual notion, a notion of what would obtain in the absence of a state: “during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe”.[176] Hobbes did have the idea of a state with many features of the modern state characterized in Section II. But we may need to rethink the idea of anarchy as being not-a-state; it may be better to think of anarchists as opposed to governments and the resulting concentration of power.

The philosopher’s “state of nature”, as we have noted, serves as the baseline for many assessments of states. For some social contract thinkers—Rawls would be an important exception—the relevant state of nature is specifically counter-factual, the condition in which we would find ourselves absent the state or, rather, government. Political philosophers, then, might find anarchy less interesting than a particular understanding of the state of nature. This understanding is to be found in the recent work of Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast, and I wish to describe their account here. In their Violence and Social Order,[177] they distinguish three social orders: the foraging order, the limited-access order (or natural state), and the more recent open-access order. Their focus is on the second and third, as the first occurred ten millennia ago and is not replicated significantly anywhere since. The choice of the label “natural state” may suggest that it should replace the typical interpretations of the “state of nature”.[178]

The natural state is natural because, for most of the last ten thousand years, it has been virtually the only form of society larger than a few hundred people that has been capable of securing physical order and managing violence.[179]

Their theory is explanatory and focuses on the ways in which societies secure order, especially the control of violence. Their distinctions and conceptual framework are meant to help us understand the ways in which different forms of social organization work and how the prosperous and free open-access orders can come about and be maintained.

Societies must secure order and specifically contain and limit violence. North, Wallis, and Weingast focus on the ways this is done:

In most societies, political, economic, religious, and military powers are created through institutions that structure human organizations and relationships. These institutions simultaneously give individuals control over resources and social functions and, by doing so, limit the use of violence by shaping the incentives faced by individuals and groups who have access to violence.[180]

They distinguish “natural” or “limited-access” societies from “open-access” ones. “Natural states use the political system to regulate economic competition and create economic rents; the rents order social relations, control violence, and establish social cooperation.”[181] By contrast, beginning in early to mid-nineteenth century, a few open-access societies emerge. These “regulate economic and political competition in a way that uses the entry and competition to order social relations.”

A natural state manages the problem of violence by forming a dominant coalition that limits access to valuable resources—land, labor, and capital—or access to and control of valuable activities—such as trade, worship, and education—to elite groups. The creation of rents[182] through limiting access provides the glue that holds the coalition together, enabling elite groups to make credible commitments to one another to support the regime, perform their functions, and refrain from violence.[183]

Members of the dominant coalition benefit in different ways from these arrangements. They are able more easily to make credible commitments (e.g., agreements, contracts), as these will be enforced (if necessary) by the third-party agency of the coalition, enabling them to set up mutually advantageous organizations (e.g., businesses, associations, schools, churches) more easily. These natural states offer limited access to the capacity (or legal power) to form organizations. So doing creates rents for the members of the dominant coalition, and it also enhances the value of their privileges by making them more productive.[184]

A key idea in the theory advanced by North, Wallis, and Weingast is that “how a social order structures organizations determines the pattern of social interaction with a society.”[185] We take for granted that an adult citizen may start a business, form a corporation, start a club or a church, and the like. In our societies, access to these forms of organization is open to all and not controlled by the ruling elites. Access is open in this sense. In natural states, (1) access to organizational form is limited. In addition, (2) trade is controlled (“Natural states always control who trades, and may also control the places they trade and the prices at which they trade.”).[186] The authors distinguish between fragile, basic, and mature natural states. Given that social orders of any size larger than a few hundred for the last two millennia have been natural states, there is great variety.

By contrast, open-access social orders allow access to all. And they are much wealthier—by historical standards remarkably wealthy—and much more peaceful and stable. Most readers of this essay will live in such societies. These social orders will have

open access for organizations of all types, market economies that create a comparative advantage that generate a major portion of the society’s wealth, and competitive elections with every citizen enfranchised. Other institutions support rights, such as free press, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and conscience, and the right to assemble. All open access orders have some form of division of powers and multiple veto points.... All open access orders also have judicial and bureaucratic mechanisms for enforcing citizen rights and contracts. And finally, they all have constitutions (whether official documents or small ‘c’ constitutions) that provide for the limit condition—limiting the stakes of power so that everything is not up for grabs in the next election.[187]

Open-access orders provide unrestrained “entry into economic, political, religious, and educational activities”, and they provide support for these organizational form (e.g., contract enforcement). The rule of law is enforced impartially, and exchange is impersonal.[188] The last may be appreciated by contrast with limited-access orders, in which access is limited to some, or is partial and personal; rules are “identity rules”, the application and enforcement of which depend on the individual’s identity (e.g., membership of a class or of a ruling group).[189] The governments of open-access orders “provide services and benefits to citizens and organizations on an impersonal basis; that is without reference to the social standing of the citizens or the identity and political connections of an organization’s principals.”[190] Open-access orders also depend on shared beliefs and attitudes of members that emphasize equality of status, inclusion, and sharing.[191] The organizations of civil society help constitute and stabilize the social order.

The account developed by North, Wallis, and Weingast is, as the subtitle indicates, “a conceptual framework for interpreting recorded human history”. They wish to understand how the different types of social orders maintain themselves and develop, and how our open-access orders emerge from natural states. I needed to outline major parts of the theory, but our interest here is primarily in the account of natural states incorporated in the theory. North, Wallis, and Weingast characterize these states as “natural”, as we noted earlier, because most social orders for the past two millennia have been of this kind.

Too often, social scientists [and philosophers] in open access societies implicitly rely on the convenient assumption that the societies they live in are the historical norm. In contrast, we argue that the default social outcome is the natural state, not open access. Until two hundred years ago, there were no open access orders; even today, 85 percent of the world’s population live in limited access orders. The dominant pattern of social organization in recorded human history is the natural state. We use that appellation rather than the more literal limited access order to remind us that ... the natural state emerged at a durable form of larger social organization five to ten millennia ago. The natural state has lasted so long because it aligns the interests of powerful individuals to forge a dominant coalition in such a way that limits violence and makes sustained social interaction possible on a larger scale.[192]

This account of limited-access orders is important for our discussion of the distinction between anarchy and state and of their comparative values. I have identified anarchy, the condition of social life without rulers or concentrated political power, with the philosopher’s “state of nature”, the condition in which we find ourselves when there is no state. This condition serves as the baseline for evaluation of our current situation, whatever it is, very much as anarchy serves as a baseline for anarchists’ condemnation of states. But suppose the real alternative to our states, open-access orders, is not anarchy but limited-access orders. In the absence of the kind of state that exists in the US or France or Germany, that is the condition we’d find ourselves in absent our current political system. That is, were our state to crumble or vanish, we would find ourselves not in anarchy but in a limited-access society or natural state.[193]

If one thinks of the philosopher’s state of nature counter-factually, as the condition we would find ourselves in in the absence of the institutional structures of present society, then it is not anarchy but some kind of limited-access society or natural state. The original anarchy/state distinction is not, we have argued, exhaustive or virtually exhaustive. Equally important, it is not all that useful. There are many alternatives to our kind of state; our modern states were preceded by independent cities (and leagues of cities), feudal social structures, empires, Christendom—“natural states” of various kinds. The distinction between limited- and open-access societies may be more useful for explaining and evaluating our liberal, republican states. The concept of anarchy is of course useful for understanding various forms of “spontaneous order”, but these forms depend on social order and the limitation of force and violence, the security of property and of contract, and thus the general frameworks offered by institutions and law.

Perhaps, as I have suggested, it may be more interesting to think of anarchy as the absence of all forms of government or concentration of power. Anarchy in this sense may be a utopian ideal, perhaps of a world which may be possible only in the future, when the “state withers away”.[194] If anarchy is the absence of all forms of government, then it becomes clear how utopian it is. Anarchist or semi-anarchist communities have existed only in certain contexts. Early human history featured relatively anarchic foraging societies. More recently, a variety of anarchic or semi-anarchic communities have existed, some for multiple generations or even centuries, inside modern states (e.g., kibbutzim in Israel, Amish communities in the US) or religious communities in the Middle Ages (e.g., monasteries), all dependent on protection or other support from larger political frameworks. Anarchist communities are vulnerable to conquest, of course, and need the protection of states or empires. Our world is much more populated than it was at earlier times. Anarchy as a social order does not work on a large scale. The fact that there has never been an anarchist society larger than several thousand is telling. Anarchy is not a serious alternative to our states and social systems; the attempt to build anarchist orders now would almost certainly lead to forms of limited-access social orders.

VI. Conclusion

I have argued against the assumption made by some that anarchy and state exhaust, or virtually exhaust, the alternatives. Defenses of state or anarchy that make this assumption turn out to rely on false assumptions. Exhaustive distinctions can be constructed—e.g., state vs non-state or everything else—but they merely sweep variety under the rug. There is no persuasive dilemma argument for the state or for anarchy. Modern states have many attributes, and there are many “not-a-state” or at least “not-quite-a-state” alternatives to them.

At the end of the quotation in the first section of this chapter, Jonathan Wolff asks, “After all, what real alternative to the state do we have?” We may agree with him here, even if we are quite critical of states. But there are various kinds of states. The ones in which most readers of this essay reside are open-access societies. If the real alternatives to our liberal societies are limited-access orders, then the best states look even better. This is not Hobbes’s argument, as he was in effect defending limited-access orders of a special kind, with rulers possessing classical sovereignty. But the argument is similar: limited-access orders are not very attractive, except to the few on top, and even these individuals are not secure—depending on the kind of natural state they inhabit.

Our open-access societies can be improved. Some improvements may involve protecting and strengthening the organizations of civil society where they may be vulnerable or weak. Or they may involve something new. It is hard, of course, to divine the latter. We can say, or at least I would say, that what is feasible depends on path-dependent features of the society in question: on the size of the population, on the history of the people and the culture, on a variety of geopolitical considerations, and on the shifting state of nature or “natural equilibrium”. What may work in Norway or Japan may not in the US or the United Kingdom. These path-dependent constraints are themes for another occasion.

Acknowledgements

Talks on this topic were given at the Southern Economic Association meetings, Washington D.C., December 2017; the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Society Conference, New Orleans, March 2018; and the Department of Philosophy, University of Maryland. I am grateful to the commentators and audiences, as well as to John Wallis, for helpful comments and discussions.

4. Methodological Anarchism

Jason Lee Byas and Billy Christmas

I. Introduction

Anarchists all share the same basic public policy proposal: abolish public policy. With regard to foreign policy, their position is to abolish the military. With regard to education policy, abolish state schools. With regard to law enforcement policy, abolish the police. And so on and so forth.[195]

Given this total agreement on policy goals, it might seem like anarchists should be free from infighting. As anyone familiar with the anarchist movement knows, they aren’t. Each form of anarchism is vigorously opposed by at least one other form, with each often writing the other out of “anarchism” altogether. In anarcho-communist Alexander Berkman’s 1929 account of these differences,[196] they are in part disputes about justice. For communists like himself, private property and commerce drive domination and injustice, and so must be abolished. For individualists, private property and commerce are fundamental constituents of freedom and justice, and so must be unleashed. Even between marketfriendly anarchists, the contents of justice are controversial. For instance, Murray Rothbard puts justice purely in terms of self-ownership, whereas Gary Chartier argues for a much broader conception that includes distributive and relational concerns.[197] These differences are rendered unintelligible within a set of assumptions predominant within academic political philosophy. We refer to this discourse as “the policy framework”: it regards prescriptions of justice as little more than prescriptions of public policy.

For instance, in “The Zig-Zag of Politics,” where Robert Nozick explained why he had greatly moderated his libertarianism, he wrote that “[t]he libertarian view looked solely at the purpose of government, not at its meaning.”[198] Taking questions of meaning seriously, he said, means that certain laws and programs must exist to voice “social solidarity and humane concern for others.”[199] Beyond that, “[j]oint political action [by which Nozick means state action] does not merely symbolically express our ties of concern, it also constitutes a relational tie itself.”[200] If true, this presents a considerable problem for anarchists. If the means by which a society not only communicates but constitutes certain social relations demanded by justice must involve the state, then justice—or at least part of justice— is conceptually impossible in a stateless society. Moreover, these intra-anarchist disputes look nonsensical, given that there is no institutional organ to institute their different conceptions of justice to begin with.

Anarchists and their critics, then, seem to be speaking different languages. There is a basic methodological difference in the way anarchists and non-anarchists think about politics, often more implicit than explicit. Anarchists see politics and justice as being concerns of social institutions, norms, and relations generally—both inside and outside the state. Much of academic political philosophy talks of politics and justice as if they are definitionally concerns about what states should do, or our relationships with each other through the state. In this chapter, we argue that the anarchists are on the right side of this difference. We call the insight that undergirds the anarchists’ understanding of politics and justice “methodological anarchism.” We seek to exorcise the policy framework in favor of methodological anarchism. Indeed, we believe it should be embraced by all political philosophers, not only the anarchists among their ranks.

Political philosophers ought to abstain from the policy framework for two reasons. First, it is analytically impoverished inasmuch as, when followed to its logical conclusion, it is unable to engage with enormous areas of analysis that are relevant to what makes a society just or unjust. Second, it instills subtle prejudice against other important approaches to mitigating injustice that are unconcerned with public policy. This also carries the danger of lending ideological support for existing injustices and thereby entrenching them. Accepting our critique of the policy framework and adopting methodological anarchism does not necessarily require the acceptance of any kind of substantive political anarchism. But it does mean thinking a bit more like an anarchist about how to make society more just—thus our characterization of it as “methodological.”

II. The Poverty of the Policy Framework

The policy framework is a mode of engagement with principles or theories of justice that treats them as little more than prescriptions for state action. If there is injustice, it is because there is something that the state ought to do but does not (or ought not to do, but does). Once there is justice, it will be because the state has implemented a successful policy (or repealed a policy) associated with this concern. Politics, therefore, is always an exercise in attempting to change states or influencing their actions. Doing so might involve engagement at any number of levels, from directly lobbying legislative officials to acts of civil disobedience, but within the policy framework the end goal is always changing the state’s constitution or its laws.

An example of a philosophical argument reflecting the influence of the policy framework is the following:

1. Theory entails that every person is entitled to J.

2. J is constituted by x, y, and z.

3. Therefore, the state ought to provide each citizen with x, y, and z.

4. Therefore, the state ought to enact policy XYZ.

We might imagine J as some level of material wellbeing such as sufficiency or equality. Correspondingly x, y, and z could be shares of resources with a particular market value or particular goods such as education and health. XYZ basically stands in for some modification of the existing welfare state apparatus with the stated objective of giving each person x, y, and z.[201] Arguments often take this form even when they intend to support non-welfare-based conceptions of justice. For example, J might be a status of relational, social equality; x, y, and z could be elements of a democratic workplace, sources of equal opportunity for political office, or features of some derivatively valued level of material wellbeing;[202] and XYZ could be some extension of existing governmental discretion required for the state to intervene with the stated objective of giving people x, y, and z.[203]

Much of the interesting philosophizing will take place between (1) and (2), but what is conspicuously left out is an argument for why it is the state that should be uniquely concerned or charged with fostering this aspect of justice, and why the proposed policy is the best way to realize this aspect of justice. The kind of argument required could be a conceptual argument that justice entails a state policy of this kind or an empirical argument that such a policy is the best method for achieving justice—but typically we are given neither.

In proposing the methodological anarchist alternative to the analytically and ideologically impoverished policy framework, we join a growing literature that is critical of political philosophy’s pre-occupation with, and simultaneous under-analysis of, the state. Tendencies relating to what we refer to as the policy framework have been identified by Jacob Levy, Jason Brennan,[204] Christopher Freiman, and Peter Jaworski, referring to “folk ideal theory,” “the Fallacy of Direct Governmentalism,” “ideal theories of the state,” and “the ought/state gap” respectively.[205] Levy notes that putatively “[p]ure normative theories concern themselves with what the state should do,” yet states are not mere “machines for dispensing justice, and we are poorly served when our theories imagine them to be.”[206] Brennan observes that “[t]heorists and philosophers tend to assume their job is to provide normative grounding for the construction of an ideal nation-state ... to determine what counts as a good or bad Leviathan.”[207] Freiman argues that injustices identified in the market and civil society are presumed to be soluble only by a state because of the unstated premise that the pathologies of economic and civil society do not affect political institutions.[208] The state is posited as an institution that, by definition, does not suffer the same information and incentive problems that individuals and private associations do. The notion that the state has magical powers that enable it to overcome institutional barriers that cannot be surmounted through any other means is pervasive.

The policy framework is a particular kind of discourse: it is a way of engaging with the theories and arguments of normative political philosophy. It might be instantiated in the inferences drawn from particular theories (as illustrated above), or it might be instantiated in the rhetorical ploys that escort such inferences, designed to make particular theories appear more or less favorable in virtue of their purported implications for policy. It might even play a role in the formulation of a full-blown theory of justice, where particular policy implications are the outcome the theory is constructed to legitimize.

A basic Hobbesianism underlies the policy framework: an assumption that any social order requires an orderer external to the agents being ordered. The problem with such assumptions is that this is not always true, and moreover that the state does not stand outside society in a way that insulates it from the former’s general social dynamics. Rather, it just provides a different theatre in which they play out. Thomas Hobbes asserted that each member of society lacks the incentives to comply with rules that reciprocally protect each member, and that only by empowering a monopoly state can each person’s security be ensured.[209] Where Hobbes took the state to be the solution to the most basic public goods problem—that of individual security—the policy framework takes it as the solution to other justice-related public goods problems.

In similar respect to Hobbes, the policy framework regards the state as transcending the social problems that call for it. Often this perspective is one where individuals do not have sufficient incentives to voluntarily contribute to various public goods, but without those conversations extending to state action. Little discussion is had about the incentives for those engaging with the state or the incentives of state actors themselves.[210] Unlike the messiness of human society, the state just does what we want it to, and the effects of what it does are what we want them to be. The problem with this view is that the state does not operate any more automatically than does any other social institution.[211] Insisting a priori on state guarantees no more guarantees the desired outcome than insisting on guarantees in the market or civil society.[212] In his Nobel address, James Buchanan echoed the message of Knut Wicksell: “[e]conomists should cease proffering policy advice as if they were employed by a benevolent despot, and they should look to the structure within which political decisions are made.”[213] Methodological anarchism involves, inter alia, extending Buchanan and Wicksell’s lesson from economics to political philosophy.

A glaringly simple example of the policy framework is, as the title suggests, Ronald Dworkin’s book Sovereign Virtue.[214] There, he famously defends an abstract, egalitarian ideal, and immediately charges the sovereign with responsibility for implementing this ideal—not in light of any social scientific or normative considerations identifying public policy as the appropriate mechanism for ensuring each citizen receives her equal share of resources, but as if as much was plainly written into the principles themselves. The philosophical arguments for those principles are taken to be philosophical arguments for particular state policies. Similarly, David Miller asserts that normative political enquiry presumes

that there is some agency capable of changing the institutional structure more or less the way our favored theory demands. It is no use setting out principles for reforming the basic structure if in fact we have no means to implement these reforms. The main agency here is obviously the state: theories of social justice propose legislative and policy changes that a well-intentioned state is supposed to introduce.[215]

Beyond the general case, there are a number of more peculiar ways in which this approach to political philosophy can manifest itself. John Rawls, Robert Nozick, and G. A. Cohen have each, at times, operated within the policy framework. We will briefly examine them in turn to see how this pattern of discourse can play out in different ways.

Rawls suggested that the state ought to own (or effectively control) the means of production, and that an allocation branch of government ought to be added to the traditional three branches of executive, judicial, and legislative.[216] Rawls’s principles of justice demanded that inequalities should not result from arbitrary socioeconomic factors, and should thus only be permissible when they serve the worst off. He argues that this entails that laissez-faire capitalism and welfare state capitalism are both incompatible with these principles since the goal of these economic systems was not to redistribute socioeconomic advantage in the way demanded by justice.[217] It is the goal, however, of a powerfully interventionist state—so-called property-owning democracy—to do so; therefore, the latter is a priori preferable to the former. Rawls privileged the state with being able to achieve the tasks of justice we give it the necessary power to achieve, but not other kinds of social institutions. He asserted that since it is not the goal of capitalism to satisfy the difference people, it cannot be relied upon to do so, and that it is the goal of a fiscally powerful democratic state to do so; therefore, it can be relied upon to do so. The actual functions of institutions are ignored, and their teleological justification privileged.[218]

Aside from moralizing the function of the state, the policy framework can also manifest itself in identifying the state as the voice of the people. We have already seen how Nozick makes this claim directly in “The Zig-Zag of Politics.” He moves immediately from the fact that we need something which expresses and constitutes our relational ties of concern to the need for particular sorts of state policies. It is worth noting that even before this shift, Nozick also accepted a form of expressive retributivism—the view that in order to socially convey the wrongness of a criminal offender’s act, we must punish the offender.[219] Nozick himself does not say that this punishment must be imposed by the state, and his discussion of protective associations in Anarchy, State, and Utopia grants the conceptual possibility of punishment carried out by non-state actors.[220] However, we can still see the beginnings of Nozick’s embrace of the policy framework on expressive grounds. The identification of public expression with a particular kind of legal act is already evident, and it is not far from this position to his later view that a collective voice must speak through the language of state policies.

In contrast to Nozick and Rawls, G. A. Cohen might seem free of the policy framework. When critiquing Rawls, Cohen argues that “the justice of a society is not exclusively a function of its legislative structure, of its legally imperative rules, but also of the choices people make within those rules.”[221] What matters for Cohen is not institutional structures per se, but the distribution of benefits and burdens, however that distribution comes about.[222] Taken at his word, Cohen here is expressing a version of methodological anarchism.[223] All the same, even Cohen slips into the policy framework in his discourse about justice by implicitly privileging the state. Notice that his expansion of justice beyond the state is to the choices people make within the state’s rules. This framing maintains state primacy, with it as the assumed source of socially operative rules. Our choices within those state-given rules also matter, but with emphases on the “within” and the “also.” This is to say, theorizing about justice is still primarily theorizing about how the state should operate, and then secondarily about how we as individuals should behave.

One can most clearly see the policy framework haunt Cohen in the implicit, rather than explicit, premises of his work. For instance, he famously argues that equal shares of resources are demanded by justice, and that justice therefore demands redistributive taxation.[224] The principle of self-ownership, Cohen believes, is incompatible with the policy of redistributive taxation. He thus rejects self-ownership on those grounds. In this way, Cohen allows institutional prejudices about the necessity and probable success of particular policies shape his theorizing about the abstract content of justice. This same dynamic is present in Why Not Socialism?, where he locates justice in the non-state ideal of the camping trip. In asking if this ideal can be applied to society at large, he immediately shifts to statecraft, rather than assessing the feasibility of anarchist communism.[225] With Cohen’s subliminal acceptance of the policy framework, legislators, bureaucrats, and police creep back into the picture without argument.[226]

A. What the Policy Framework Is Not

The policy framework ought not be conflated with what some political philosophers call “nationalism”: roughly, the idea that relations of justice only exist between compatriots—members of the same nation.[227] This idea, combined with a view that the respective jurisdictions of existing states are sufficiently accurate divisions of nations, might lead one to the view that the state is the only or ultimate vehicle for realizing justice. Indeed, Sen is right to say that

[t]here is something of a tyranny of ideas in seeing the political divisions of states (primarily, national states) as being, in some way, fundamental, and in seeing them not only as practical constraints to be addressed, but as divisions of basic significance in ethics and political philosophy.[228]

Yet even if this notion were right, it is still not obvious that all justice must be realized in or through the machinery of the state. Relations of justice only between compatriots can still subsist through other institutions which those compatriots participate in and are subject to.

Nor ought the policy framework be confused with “statism” in the particular sense used by some political philosophers[229] to refer to the view that being subject to coercion by one and the same state places such subjects into special justice-relevant relations which do not obtain between themselves and those subject to the coercion of other states.[230] On this view, though the coercive apparatus of the state may engender social relations that are subject to evaluation as to their justice, it need not entail that those relations can only be just via the enactment of particular policies by the state.

The policy framework might or might not be embraced by “nationalists” and “statists” of this kind, since it is a way of framing and articulating normative principles rather than something internal to normative theorizing. Even cosmopolitans—who believe duties of justice are owed to foreigner and compatriot alike—often analyze the nature of global justice and how to achieve it by thinking about what kind of policies ought to be implemented at the state or international level.[231] At the international level as well as the domestic, however, we ought not to presume from the armchair that any particular institution is the one that ought to be charged with realizing justice.[232] No particular set of institutional arrangements for realizing domestic or global justice is entailed by the purely normative content of justice.[233] “Nationalism” and “statism” are normative commitments which do not immediately imply any particular set of institutions.

B. The Analytical Poverty of the Policy Framework

Any analysis of justice that renders it the unique concern of state action is thoroughly impoverished. Looking only, or even chiefly, at the state as a default disables one from analyzing the plethora of other loci of justice and injustice in real societies.

Consider, for a moment, two different societies. Call the first one Iustitia, and the second Iniustitiam. The respective states governing Iustitia and Iniustitiam have virtually identical constitutions and virtually identical laws.[234] Moreover, they are made up of highly similar people—neither absolute saints nor absolute sinners. Iustitia—as its name suggests—is an admirably just society, whereas Iniustitiam is—also as its name suggests—rife with injustice.

In Iniustitiam, large swaths of people starve in the streets, and race is a major factor in determining which members of the society find themselves in that number. Those able to find work are subject to the worst kinds of managerial pressures, with seemingly no reprieve. While women are legally allowed to do as they wish, almost all of them stay at home in rigidly patriarchal relationships. Crime rates are staggering, and the police are often complicit. All the while, a small, select class of people enjoy almost all the wealth, doing their best to blissfully ignore the cries of the proles as they drift from fine dining establishment to fine dining establishment. On sufficientarian, relational egalitarian, luck egalitarian, and libertarian standards, Iniustitiam is Hell.

Iustitia is a bit different. Almost no one goes hungry, aside from those who are fasting on religious grounds. Most businesses are worker cooperatives, and those that are not might as well be, given the respectful nature of the employer—employee relationships. Men and women enter the workforce at almost identical rates and share equally in household labor. Violent crime occurs mostly on television, not in reality. And benefits are widely shared: Iustitians’ limited differences in resources result only from robustly voluntary choices. On sufficientarian, relational egalitarian, luck egalitarian, and libertarian standards, Iustitia is Heaven.[235]

As stated previously, the laws and constitutions of Iniustitiam and Iustitia are identical. Yet the differences between these two societies are not accidental. While Iustitia has a powerful labor movement to keep workplace authority in check, this does not exist in Iniustitiam. The Iustitian labor movement is also connected to a robust network of mutual aid societies, with nothing similar in Iniustitiam. While there are, formally-speaking, very serious anti-discrimination laws in both societies, cultural norms make them almost unnecessary in Iustitia, and unenforceable in Iniustitiam. Religious institutions in Iniustitiam spend most of their time reinforcing the low social status of women and racial minorities, whereas religious institutions in Iustitia spend most of their time voluntarily redistributing their wealth downward and holding informal restorative justice seminars.

Iustitia is very obviously more just than Iniustitiam, even if their laws and constitutions are identical. To make the point here even clearer, imagine that they aren’t identical. Instead, Iustitia has no state-provided social safety net at all, while Iniustitiam’s is quite expensive. Iustitia has no formal anti-discrimination legislation, and Iniustitiam does. And so on and so forth. In that case, while some theorists might think this second version of Iustitia’s laws intuitively sound more out of whack with justice than Iniustitiam’s, Iustitia is still clearly more just.

That Iustitia can be basically just and Iniustitiam basically unjust counts against the policy framework, but there is still a way of talking about Iustitia and Iniustitiam’s differences from within the policy framework. One could say that Iustitia and Iniustitiam are faced with very different circumstances, meaning that the same principles of justice apply themselves very differently in Iustitia and Iniustitiam. Distributive justice could mean that the state does what’s necessary to secure that justice, and it may be that this does not require a welfare state for Iustitia, but does for Iniustitiam. Seeing justice as about the state does not mean its demands are not affected by factors beyond the state.

This response overlooks a much simpler solution, however. The circumstances that evoke wonder in Iustitia and horror in Iniustitiam are social circumstances. They are differences not in their public policies but in their social institutions more broadly. One way to bring Iniustitiam closer to Iustitia would be for the state to take over where other institutions have failed. Another option, though, is to simply reform those non-state institutions. An adherent of the policy framework might respond that this would just be a matter of adjusting the background circumstances in a way that makes justice much easier. Either way, the effect is the same—justice can be achieved through any number of ways that bypass public policy. It is more straightforward to say that justice can concern social institutions without any mediation whatsoever through the state’s express policies.

A defender of the policy framework might protest that this loses sight of justice as a site of enforceable obligations. There are at least two reasons this reply fails. First, the contrast between Iustitia and Iniustitiam shows that even when claims of justice are equally “legally guaranteed” by those states at some formal level, they are only secure in Iustitia. Another way to put this is that only in Iustitia are they enforced in reality. Understanding why this is so requires going beyond the policy framework.

The second and closely related reason is that “enforcement” need not be limited to violent acts of state institutions. When social norms develop and maintain dependable ground-level sanctions, this too is enforcement.[236] Far from stretching our understanding of “justice,” this better fits with ordinary language. For instance, consider how much of what is commonly called “social justice” activism is frequently directed at the reform of social norms, not just legal changes.[237]

It is telling that strands of contemporary political philosophy that recognize the importance of social norms as sources of people’s compliance with putatively just state demands concern themselves primarily with questions about the state’s inculcation of social norms—they treat such norms simply as further targets of public policy.[238] What is strange about such a framing is that state-made laws themselves are just social norms of a particular kind. The ability of states to inculcate compliance with a set of norms is presumed by the possibility of legislation.[239] Where states have trouble obtaining the compliance that is necessary to the success of its policies, the instrumental variable appears to be endogenous. We have just as much reason to see people acting justly as a feature of other norms and institutions besides state-made law. State-made law ought not be regarded “as a largely autonomous tool for securing justice and fair cooperation,” but one set of norms among many—with no monopoly on justice.[240]

C. The Ideological Danger of the Policy Framework

There is a danger that in fetishizing state policy as the pinnacle of our concerns about justice, we entrench or legitimize the very real injustices perpetuated by the state. The policy framework invites us to imagine the very best functions the state could perform, and then turn the potential performance of these functions into a kind of justification for the existence of the actual state, and with it, the things it actually does. The direct inference from principles of justice to state policies uncritically presupposes the notion that without a state, there is no justice. Therefore, as a minimal condition of creating a just society, or even mitigating some injustices at the margins, we need a state. The state is the tool and the focus of justice.

The policy framework “overmoralizes” the state, in invoking what it could accomplish in accordance with justice, as an explanation for its existence or legitimacy.[241] Its constant invocation of a thoroughly idealized version of a real, historically shaped social institution obscures the very real injustices perpetuated by the state, in large part because of its particular institutional structure, and privileges the potential good functions it could, in principle, perform.[242] For example, by asserting that municipal police forces have the purpose of protecting people from crime, and that they therefore ought to be given generous leeway when they victimize innocent people in the process, actual police force’s actual injustices are entrenched.[243]

If articulating principles or theories of justice in terms of state policies did not represent an implicit endorsement of the actual state, then there would be no reason for political philosophers to pick out this particular institution as their favored justice machine. One rarely if ever hears a political philosopher articulate some principle of justice and then say, “and therefore, the family ought to allocate everyone a sufficiently advantageous share of opportunities for welfare.” Or “and therefore, private associations must guarantee each agent her fair share of social and economic capital.” Firms, private associations, churches, cities, universities, or international nongovernmental organizations are never charged with being the institution that so obviously must be charged with guaranteeing everyone their just entitlements through policy.[244] When these institutions are invoked as vehicles for justice, it is usually government regulation of them that is the locus of the discussion.[245] Or else, it is expected that they provide some evidence that the selected institution is the most appropriately suited to the particular task at hand. The primary function of these institutions is, presumably, readily acknowledged by political philosophers to not be securing justice, yet the same is true of the state. States are not mere “machines for dispensing justice.”[246] An entity qualifies as a state if it asserts that it is entitled to serve as the final authority regarding the use of force within a geographical territory and if it exhibits the capacity effectively to maintain its dominance in that territory. It is not clear why we should assume that an institution with these features would necessarily seek to act justly or to foster justice. To expect it to as a matter of course results in the kind of moralization Levy rightly highlights.[247]

It might be argued that the juridical finality of the state makes it the focus of justice. On such an account, when individuals and other social institutions fail to comply with justice, the state can use its coercive power to resolve whatever problem might follow from noncompliance. Once the state settles a matter, there is no further legal remedy, given that any lower-level legal remedies take place within the juridical space of the state’s authorization. That is why political philosophers talk about state policy rather than what the family, the firm, etc., should do, because ultimately the state has the legal capability to correct matters when those intermediary institutions fail to comply with justice.

The compliance problem affects the state just as much as any other social institution, however. The monopoly on force being conditionally justified by its effective use of that force to ensure compliance with justice does not entail that that is how its monopoly is in fact used. We must ask: What happens when the entity with juridical finality does not comply with justice? How can that finality be justified when it is not itself operationalized to assure compliance with justice?

The fact is that there is no metaphysically ultimate juridical finality, there is only what society happens to acquiesce to.[248] While the state has the power to intervene in intermediary social institutions, the state’s authority itself depends upon an array of other social norms ensuring compliance with the rules that constitute it. “[S]overeignty—where it exists— depends on rules, is constituted by rules, and so cannot intelligibly be regarded as the source of all the rules that make up the legal system.”[249] If noncompliance is a problem, then it is also a problem for state action.

The state has ultimate de facto authority over us; we therefore want it to use that authority justly. Unfortunately, this does not entail that it will do so, nor that we should justify the power on the basis that it might. The good intentions theorists have in supporting the state’s power for some particular end are not mechanically infused into the state’s actual operations. Institutions do not necessarily create the conditions for their own success;[250] they must be judged in accordance with how well they deal with difficult conditions within which they actually operate.[251]

“Concentrated power,” as Milton Friedman reminds us, “is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.”[252] The policy framework promotes support for the state, and hence its power, on the basis that this power could be used for justice. This risks lending legitimacy to the state’s many historical and ongoing injustices at the expense of underplaying or even tarnishing non-policy-based alleviations of injustice, particularly those that might simultaneously erode state power.

The rhetoric of justice can sometimes foster injustice. This is particularly true when we use terms with obvious referents in the messy, real world to denote ideal, or idealized, states of affairs. For example, since most people use “capitalism” to refer to the economic system that obtains in the present in many parts of the world, riddled with privileges that render markets anything but free, when some libertarians use “capitalism” to refer to a system featuring genuinely unfettered markets, this can provide ideological cover for those rigged markets.[253] Similarly, when luck egalitarians emphasize that those who are responsible for their disadvantages have no claims of justice on the resources of others, they may be unwittingly supporting invasions of the private lives of the worst off in order to verify that they are “deserving” welfare recipients and not “scroungers.”[254] A similar thing is true of the state as it is of capitalism and notions of desert.

While, when many political philosophers say “the state” they have in mind some perfect state that has never existed and may never exist, “the state” in fact refers to a very real thing to most people. The fact that philosophers envision states with all sorts of properties real states do not in fact have does not alter the rhetorical effect. Consider the following analogy, borrowed from Michael Munger, between theorizing about states and how someone might similarly theorize about unicorns.[255] In Munger’s hypothetical, there are no unicorns in the real world, yet they are constantly invoked to solve the real world’s problems. Through their magic, unicorns can move heavy loads quickly and efficiently around the world, so the unicorn-theorist argues we should use them to solve all our transportation needs. Of course, if you invoke a unicorn as a solution to real social problems, no one would imagine you were offering a serious proposal. But while, as far as we know, “unicorn” has no referent in the real world, “the state” does. Saying that unicorns can solve all our transit problems does not encourage outrageous expectations of, say, real-world horses. But talking about the mythical state—the one that exists only in the minds of political philosophers—does lead people to embrace certain attitudes toward real states. As Jacob Levy describes this process,

Political philosophers are prone to the following fallacy: If we knew precisely what justice demanded and had access to a government that would implement it, we would have a unified system of rights and responsibilities and authority; therefore we know that a disintegrated system is not part of what justice demands; therefore, we know that justice prohibits a disunited system.[256]

Indeed, the policy framework privileges the state in much the same way social contract theory often does: there is a presumption in favor of the state actually doing what we want it to, at least well enough to justify our allegiance. Karl Widerquist and Grant S. McCall spell out this problem:

Contractarians devote pages and pages of normative argument to support the apparently strong criteria that the state is only justified if it makes everyone better off than they would be in its absence. Yet, with little or no argument, they usually conclude that the criterion is fulfilled, and they seldom even address the question of what to do when the criterion is unfulfilled.[257]

The policy framework imputes moral purpose to the state even though its actual function tends to go against that purpose. Employing the policy framework thus means providing rhetorical cover for state injustice. To avoid doing this and to undermine the deleterious influence of the policy framework, we should consciously resist use of it. We propose that resistance take the form of adopting methodological anarchism. Methodological anarchism draws a bright line between abstract principles of justice and concrete proposals for specific state policies—or even specific sorts of policies. It embodies a thoroughgoing institutional agnosticism about how we ought to enact justice. For example, imagine that we agree on some general sufficientarian principle, in accordance with which everyone is owed the ability to realize some minimal level of welfare. We cannot reason directly from this principle to the claim that the state must provide some sort of a social safety net. We can only reason to the claim that there ought to be a safety net. After comparative institutional analysis, we may conclude that this social safety net should take the form of a state-funded, state-delivered program. However, we might conclude instead that it demands a rebirth of something like pre-welfare state mutual aid societies. In either case, social institutions attempt to provide a safety net. The question is which method is successful, which one can be depended upon.

Importantly, this is not a consequentialist claim that perhaps the goals of justice could be better achieved beyond the state. It is a conceptual decoupling of justice and the state. The state is not a justice machine through which a society speaks and acts, as Nozick claims. It is just one among many institutions that might be thought capable of exhibiting or fostering justice. Its actions have particularly far-reaching effects—hence political anarchists’ focus on its abolition— but it is still just one institution among many. Methodological anarchism involves first acknowledging that it is analytically erroneous and morally dangerous to reify society as the state, and then refusing to do so.

III. From Theory to Practice: The Promise of Methodological Anarchism

Not only does methodological anarchism point to a new way of viewing justice, it opens up conceptual space for a different way of seeing political action. Within the policy framework, with concerns of justice tied to state’s regulations, laws, and constitutions, political action is naturally aimed at changing these regulations, laws, and constitutions. Political action can take the form of voting, running for office, lobbying for or against legislation, or campaigning for candidates or referenda. It may also come in the form of civil disobedience or educating the public, but the aim of that civil disobedience and education is still always to eventually effect a change in public policy. Political action as understood within the policy framework might even come in the form of revolution, where the aim is to entirely replace one constitution with another. What these forms of political action—which we will refer to broadly as “reform and revolution”— share is that the central, guiding aim is always to change the things states do.

A. Direct Action

It is in contrast to reform and revolution that we understand direct action. “Direct action” refers to attempts at directly addressing issues of justice without mediation through state channels.[258] A program of direct action can have as one of its many aims an eventual policy change, but it need not do so, and it is never limited to doing so. Within the policy framework, it can be difficult to see how direct action helps achieve justice. We might make do with direct action when putatively appropriate state policies look unlikely, but there is a sense that something is missing in terms of justice. Methodological anarchism makes possible more enthusiastic endorsements of direct action. It thus helps to build an important bridge between political philosophy and the real world, because many concerns of justice typically reified as policy programs have also been pursued through direct action. There is an entire world of human association that political philosophy has ignored in its reliance upon the policy framework.

This is not just the judgement of wild-eyed political anarchists; it is also the verdict of mainstream social science. For instance, the work of Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom has shown how sophisticated forms of social organization can use social capital to sustainably manage common ecological resources without reliance on the state.[259] Similarly, anthropologist and political scientist James C. Scott shows how many forms of successful socioeconomic organization are illegible to states, and sustaining these forms of organization can often only be achieved through actively resisting attempts by states to force legibility onto a society.[260] Scholars like Ostrom and Scott show that reform and revolution’s fundamental assumption, that the state is necessarily the ultimate site of social change, is simply false. To make this general point clearer, we will now discuss its application to various specific domains. The following examples are meant only as a brief glance at what sorts of institutions beyond the state might enter conversations about justice between methodologically anarchist political philosophers.

B. Direct Action: Social Safety Nets

Several theories of distributive justice require the provision of a social safety net. It is often argued that the fact that this is a matter of distributive justice means that this social safety net should not be seen as a form of charity. Rather, it should be understood that those benefitting from this safety net are simply receiving benefits to which they are entitled. It is often further argued that that dependence on charity can place the poor in a position of subordination. If Person A’s continued existence depends on Person B’s benevolence, Person B is effectively in a position to interfere arbitrarily in Person A’s life. We therefore need institutions that dependably provide a social safety net without making those who need it dependent on the good graces of their neighbors. Historically, this has been achieved successfully through direct action.

Before the rise of the welfare state, a robust social safety net existed in the form of mutual aid societies.[261] These private associations were not providers of charity, and they were not viewed as if they were. Their funds came from the pooled resources of members, provided with the expectation that they would receive the societies’ benefits once they needed to do so.[262] Among the benefits that these societies provided were access to orphanages and old-age homes, life insurance, and health and accident insurance.[263] They were especially successful in insuring healthcare. At one point, members were able to secure a year’s worth of benefits for the price of a day’s wage.[264] Thirty percent of Americans over 20 belonged to mutual aid societies in 1920, with even higher numbers among minority ethnic and religious groups.[265]

C. Direct Action: Checks on Private Power

Another concern of justice, especially for neo-republicans and relational egalitarians, is ensuring checks on private power. Elizabeth Anderson makes this especially salient by framing powerful employers as “Communist dictatorships in our midst.”[266] Modern workplaces may not have the same powers of repression available to modern states, but they can still be the most sharply felt sites of oppression for many people.

That we need institutional checks on private power does not entail the conclusion that state regulation is required. For there is a ready and obvious case of a private institution meant to combat employer power: that of the labor union. When successful, labor unions provide institutional checks on private power by raising costs for employers who do not accept their demands. There is no conceptual reason to treat this check as any less dependable or real than the checks provided by state regulation.

In fact, political anarchists frequently argue that such private checks are more dependable than state regulation, and act accordingly. The histories of anarchism and radical labor politics are deeply intertwined, as is made most clear by wildcat unions like the Industrial Workers of the World. For a recent example of labor unions engaged in direct action completely unaided by state policy, we can look to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a union not certified by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).[267] That union, which represents immigrant farm workers without NLRB certification, has won better wages and work conditions without ever relying on state labor laws. Among the companies it has won victories over are Walmart, Taco Bell, Publix, and other large chains. CIW’s successes have not occurred despite its lack of NLRB certification, but because of it. Its primary tactics, focused on pressuring companies higher up the supply chain, almost entirely fall under the category “secondary action,” illegal for NLRB-certified unions. The CIW’s successes highlight the capacity of unions to check the private power of employers without any recourse to the state.[268]

D. Direct Action: Protection from Violence

Whatever their disagreements regarding other matters, most theorists of justice share a concern with seeing people protected from violence. Virtually everyone who is not an anarchist, then, assumes that this is a job for the state and its police force. Those functions are often seen as the state’s most basic, as is implied by the phrasing in some libertarians’ endorsement of the “minimal state.” Here too, direct action has worked to supply justice beyond the state.

One such case is Threat Management Center, which has helped defend people in the Detroit area from crime for nearly twenty years. According to its founder, as of 2013 it had served 1,000 homes and 500 businesses, and it uses that money to fund free protection for people in poorer areas that cannot afford it.[269] It is committed to de-escalating violence, embracing a hard rule that its personnel will only shoot second—doubtless in part because, unlike the police, they are legally equal with ordinary people.[270]

E. Direct Action: Remedies for Violence Done

Direct action has also been used in providing moral repair after violence has already occurred. In cases where violence occurs in communities skeptical of or averse to seeking aid from the state’s legal system, assorted organizations have engaged in direct action to offer more constructive responses than state institutions. Creative Interventions is one such example, formed in 2004 by organizers with ties to both the anti-violence and prison abolition movements.[271] Its approach emphasizes restorative justice, focusing on those most closely affected by instances of violence, but also putting them in a larger community context.[272] Creative Interventions seeks to discover the full context of the harm done—its causes, impact, and potential for redress—and out of that context, develop goals toward repair.[273] While the founders of Creative Interventions see the project in political terms, they make no assumptions about the politics of those they work with.[274]

F. Direct Action: Routing around Bad State Policies

When injustice is created by bad state policy, one way to fix the problem is to seek to change the relevant policy through reform or revolution. Another option is to route around the state or clean up its mess through direct action. Consider the United States’ war on drugs—often considered a paradigmatically unjust policy by many philosophers.[275] One case of direct action responding to the drug war and its consequences is the creation of the Silk Road, a now-defunct online marketplace for illegal drugs.

In an interview with Forbes magazine, the Silk Road’s founder explicitly framed the project in political terms, emphasizing that it was “about standing up for our rights as human beings and refusing to submit when we’ve done no wrong.”[276] Importantly, the idea was not just civil disobedience against the war on drugs, but protection from it. By providing a platform allowing people to trade illegal drugs more openly, the Silk Road carved out a space in which drug laws had less power to restrict freedom. That space helped mitigate prohibition’s negative consequences, since it helped allow for features like a rating system that ensured product quality. The Silk Road itself was shut down in October 2013, and Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for being its alleged mastermind. However, various imitators still exist today.

G. Beyond Reform and Revolution

Fully assessing the merits of direct action as an alternative to reform and revolution would take us too far from our present purposes. However, it is worth noting a few considerations that point in direct action’s favor.

Compared to revolution, direct action involves much less blood and general chaos. It is also worth remembering that a new government born out of military violence will prove authoritarian. Even in the case of non-violent revolution, there are powerful knowledge problems associated with trying to build a new constitution from scratch and imposing it anew on people who were accustomed to its predecessor. Direct action does not pose the same problems as full-scale revolution because direct action works on a piecemeal basis: we need not change everything to change anything.

Compared to reform, direct action avoids the hurdles inherent to dealing with governments. States are predictably resistant to positive change, and this can be seen from a variety of perspectives. Public choice economics predicts that state actors will tend toward exploitative policies with concentrated benefits and dispersed costs, determined by the differential access to the political process potential beneficiaries have.[277] It also predicts that regulatory agencies won’t be particularly helpful in systematically restraining sources of predation and oppression because they will often be created or captured by the very interests they are intended to check.[278] Indeed, there is no a priori reason to think that, given the ends public office can be used for, they will not be sought for those very ends.[279] The regulatory state offers open-ended returns on any costs invested in capture. New Left Marxists[280] as well as radical libertarians[281] essentially agree that the state tends to act as the executive committee of the ruling class. Even when it looks like it is restraining the power of big business, this will usually function to benefit the corporate class as a whole.

Centralized power structures like the state will be used to entrench privilege—because people in society who are already privileged will almost necessarily have better access to the state due to that privilege. This means that when state actors face pressure from the oppressed, they will favor symbolic actions to quell that resistance over substantive changes that would challenge their power.[282] These problems with reform are avoided in direct action, where those with a clear interest in justice may pursue it directly, without having those pursuits frustrated or warped by opposing interests, nor having to convince a legislative coalition before action is taken.

H. Practicing Safe Politics

Another benefit of methodological anarchism is that, by turning our attention to direct action, it encourages us to practice safe politics. This point is best understood in light of recent arguments by philosophers Michael Huemer and Jason Brennan for political abstinence.

Huemer’s critique of political action is a suggestion that political actors join doctors in ensuring to “first, do no harm.”[283] Huemer finds it near-impossible to consistently follow this principle while also engaging in political action. This is because political actors essentially have no idea what they are doing, and are therefore much more likely to do harm than good. The first reason for this is widespread political ignorance—ignorance of the identities of political representatives, their policy positions and voting records, institutional facts about government, the details of particular policies under consideration, the social science and philosophy surrounding those policies, etc.[284] That ignorance is the predictable result of rational (whether or not altogether conscious) assessments of the costs and benefits associated with gaining the relevant information. The instrumental benefits of acquiring knowledge are exceedingly low, given that the average person has almost no chance in personally affecting public policy. The costs of obtaining that information are often very high, requiring extensive research into not only voting records and policy details, but also relevant social science and philosophy. Therefore, people remain ignorant.[285] Since obtaining information needed to determine what actions are just or will foster justice is costly, people pursue the easier goal of presenting themselves as pursuing justice.[286] This leads us to strong, yet ill-informed beliefs, which we treat as precious—since these beliefs are tied up with our self-perception, we resist threatening information.[287] Even experts are overconfident about political questions, with their predictive records only barely exceeding those that might be expected to occur by chance,[288] in part due to inherent difficulties with the predictive capacities of social theory.[289] Taking political action in the face of high levels of ignorance—on one’s own part and on the part of those who can be expected to participate in and respond to one’s efforts—is highly dangerous, so Huemer advises against it.[290]

Jason Brennan outlines the ways in which democratic politics turns people into “civic enemies.” In the United States, strong majorities of both Democrats and Republicans are less likely to hire opposing-party members independent of qualifications.[291] As with political ignorance, political enmity is a predictable product of incentives.[292] First, democratic politics presents us with constrained, suboptimal choices.[293] Second, victory is monopolistic—a victory for one means all others lose.[294] Third, that monopolistic political victory will be imposed using actual or threatened violence.[295] Thus, your political opponents in a democracy are people who wish to prevent the realization of your preferences by forcing you to accept the realization of their contrary preferences. This creates a zero-sum world, where disagreement is always a threat.[296]

The kinds of problems Huemer and Brennan highlight occur when politics is framed in terms of what we have called “reform.” Direct action eliminates these problems, and therefore allows us to participate in politics safely. The knowledge necessary for programs of direct action is easier to acquire than the knowledge needed successfully to implement programs of society-wide reform. For example, you don’t need to know how to successfully provide stable living arrangements for everyone in poverty; you only need to know how to provide for those in your chapter of a mutual aid society. Furthermore, a political actor implementing a program of direct action has a more intimate connection to and personal stake in the results of the direct action, and thus has an incentive to care more about getting things right. For instance, Creative Interventions participants found themselves continuously interrogating their politically formed assumptions about the dynamics of interpersonal violence, since those beliefs had more concrete and visible effects.[297]

Direct action also heals many of the wounds left by reform’s politics of enmity. Our options for political improvement by means of direct action are constrained only by what we can imagine and get away with. Programs of direct action are obviously non-monopolistic—those who believe they can do better are always free to develop their own alternatives. Perhaps most importantly, direct action (unlike reform and revolution) has no necessary connection to violence.[298]

From within the policy framework, we are faced with a troubling dilemma. Humans are indeed political animals, but when politics means policy, acting on our natural political impulses is typically immoral. Methodological anarchism offers a way out, one that enables us to avoid harming and hating our neighbors without retreating into political abstinence.

IV. From Practice to Theory: What Direct Action Reveals

By opening up new paths to political goals, direct action offers escape from the stagnation and animosity of electoral politics. Something similar is true of how methodological anarchism reshapes conceptual territory. The lines between different theories fall differently when the questions our classifications consider go beyond state policy.

For example, consider the claim that as a matter of justice, people ought to stand in relationships of equality, with no person or group of persons dominating any others. This is recognizably a statement of relational egalitarianism, as advocated by philosophers like Elizabeth Anderson and Samuel Scheffler.[299] Consider also the claim that each person is endowed with a set of natural rights acting as side-constraints on others’ actions, and that these include rights to appropriate, own, defend, and exchange property. This is recognizably a statement of Lockean libertarianism, as advocated by philosophers like Robert Nozick and Eric Mack.[300] These views are typically taken as obvious and unambiguous enemies. Relational egalitarians often defend redistributive taxation, robust state regulations of employer-employee relationships, and other policies clearly at odds with libertarian rights. If one group is right about which policies justice requires, the other is wrong. Libertarians, then, have reason to deny relational egalitarianism altogether, and relational egalitarians have reason to deny libertarianism altogether. Arguments for and against those total denials are well worn, and unlikely to sway theorists already committed one way or the other.

More interesting permutations can be advanced once we leave the policy framework. Suppose that we grant natural rights libertarianism. It does not follow from the strictures this puts on state policy that relational egalitarian demands must be discarded. Libertarian rights put strictures on the use of force and fraud, but they do not say much about forms of collective social pressure stopping short of violence. It may still be the case, then, that justice demands robust social norms of a kind that develop and maintain relationships of social equality, and that those norms may be enforced through various means of non-violent social coercion. For one such case: suppose that the aforementioned method of direct action against private power, stateindependent labor activism, is as effective as its proponents claim. Strikes, boycotts, and other pressure campaigns can then be seen as the social enforcement of relational egalitarian justice. On such a picture, relational egalitarianism would not be eliminated by the success of natural rights libertarianism, it would just be repositioned.[301] Similarly, the bare relational egalitarian requirement of non-domination would not rule out a libertarian conception of rights. It must be further argued that social enforcement is insufficient,[302] and that violence is an acceptable means of shoring up the difference.[303]

While we are sympathetic to this general picture, our point in raising it here is not to defend it. Rather, the foregoing is meant to show the sorts of conceptual space made available by clearing away the policy framework. When theories of justice are uniformly shoved into rough policy approximations, this creates brute incompatibilities not present in more abstract statements. Accordingly, the greater variation in practical implementation offered by methodological anarchism reveals greater variation in theoretical explanation. There is still significant disagreement, but it takes place on a terrain that affords more philosophical mobility. With access to subtler points of partial agreement, this reduces the risk of stalemate. Both practically and theoretically, methodological anarchism helps us break free from political stagnation.

V. Conclusion: The Policy Implications of Rejecting the Policy Framework

Rejecting the policy framework does not make state policy irrelevant, nor do arguments for a politics of direct action conclusively rule out ever participating in efforts designed to foster reform—or, indeed, in extreme cases, in revolution. Methodological anarchism simply puts those efforts in context, offering a greater awareness of alternatives. Seeing the state as just one relevant institution in society among many doesn’t mean ignoring the fact that it is, indeed, a relevant institution. That the state’s laws cast a backdrop of violence over everything else renders it particularly important, even for the methodological anarchist.

Odd as it might sound, then, there are important policy implications of rejecting the policy framework. Though methodological anarchism does not directly entail political anarchism, it does present at least two important reasons to move closer in that direction.

One reason methodological anarchism points toward policy-negativity is that, with direct action on the table, justice will often most forcefully demand that the state to get out of the way. For example, among explanations given for why earlier mutual aid societies fell to the wayside is that licensure laws worked to combat mutual aid societies’ model of insurance and delivery of medical care.[304] We can therefore see how a case for liberalizing or even abolishing licensure laws could be made on distributive justice grounds, since such laws limit the range of available social safety nets.

Rejecting the policy framework should also lead us to reject particular policies because of the demystification of the state that comes with embracing methodological anarchism. It cautions against the naïve view in which state laws seem to bark from the heavens, “Fiat iustitia!” It is essentially this methodologically anarchist point that legal theorist and trans liberationist Dean Spade makes when he argues that LGBTQIA activists should “focus less on what the law says ... and more on what impact various legal regimes have on distressed populations.”[305] In that spirit, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a transgender legal advocacy group founded by Spade in 2002, argues against hate crimes legislation:

[H]ate crime laws ... expand and increase the power of the ... criminal punishment system. Evidence demonstrates that hate crime legislation, like other criminal punishment legislation, is used unequally and improperly against communities that are already marginalized in our society. These laws increase the already staggering incarceration rates of people of color, poor people, queer people and transgender people based on a system that is inherently and deeply corrupt.[306]

This point can be generalized. Because states are not justice machines, whose pronouncements can be taken as the pronouncements of society itself, state policies that express recognition for certain individuals are not the be-all-and-end-all of efforts designed to foster the social equality of those individuals. When we need not rely upon a particular state policy to express recognition, we can turn our attention to the concrete costs and benefits of that policy. Given the internal dynamics of state power, even expressively benign policies can work to re-entrench existing social problems and create others. With the state demystified, we can reject those policies and instead seek direct action alternatives.

This brings us back to where we were at the start of this chapter. For part of what makes political anarchism so absurd to its critics is that the policy framework renders government “just another word for the things we do together.” In those terms, the abolition of government sounds like the abolition of society and collective action, as shown by questions like “Who will feed the hungry? Who will keep us safe? Who will build the roads?” Because those asking these questions speak a different methodological language, they cannot understand the anarchist reply: “We will.”[307]

Anarchism’s critics might still find that answer lacking. Entering into a serious conversation about it, though, requires speaking the same language. Justice and politics cannot be definitionally to refer only to concerns of the state. They instead are features of social institutions and social norms broadly. It is implausible that solutions to injustice cannot be found beyond the state, or that the anarchists’ “We will” is never the right answer to their critics’ questions. Even for those who cannot accept the conclusions of political anarchism, methodological anarchism usefully expands the scope of political philosophy.

The policy framework is thoroughly lacking as a tool of analysis when its implicit premises are pushed to their limit. And employing this framework privileges an institution that has been an enormous source of injustice throughout its history, and thereby risks legitimizing such injustice. Political philosophers, then, should reason, write, teach, and speak within the terms of methodological anarchism. That is, they should come to see the restrictiveness of the policy framework itself, and liberate themselves from its confines.

Acknowledgements

Earlier drafts of this chapter have been presented at the Manchester Centre for Political Theory seminar, February 2016; Association for Private Enterprise Education conference, April 2016; the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Society inaugural meetings, March 2017; and the Loyola Chicago Graduate Philosophy Conference, October 2017. We are grateful to those audiences for their comments and feedback. We also thank Jason Brennan, Andrew I. Cohen, Alex W. Craig, Nathan Goodman, M. Scott King, Mark Pennington, Karl Widerquist, Liam Shields, Steven Zoeller, and the editors of this volume for useful discussions.

5. What is the Point of Anarchism?

Aeon J. Skoble

I. Introduction

Anarchism is the position in political philosophy which denies the authority or necessity of political authority. To oppose political authority is not to oppose authority. Dentists generally know more about teeth and tooth care than non-dentists; classical historians generally know more about the Peloponnesian War than non-historians. Unlike medical or historical authority, political authority is not a claim about knowledge, but a claim about power. The ruler does not necessarily claim to know more, but rather claims to be justified in exercising power over others.

The suffix “archon” refers to rulers, so, just as monarchism recommends a single ruler, anarchism recommends no rulers. But rulers exist, so the word “anarchism” is not a metaphysical claim, but a normative one. “Atheism,” by contrast, uses a similar negation-implying prefix, but it is not a normative position. The atheist denies that God exists. Anarchism does not deny that rulers exist; rather, it denies claims that rulers are justified, that they are entitled to the authority they assert. Rulers are not likely to give up their power just because some philosophical argument says they should. So it’s reasonable to ask of the anarchist, What is the point of the arguments you are making? In this chapter, I intend to establish that the anarchist’s position is worth advancing and has very real consequences even in a world in which political authority is persistent.

II. Some Clarifications

Before proceeding, let me clarify a couple of additional terms. By “states” or “the state,” I am not invoking the US-specific distinction between a state government and the federal government, but rather the idea of a “state” as a reasonably well-defined geographical area in which there is a centralized political authority. The authority could be monarchical, democratic, republican, or oligarchical; any kind of government that has authority in the relevant geographic area will qualify. In any kind of state, then, the concept of “ruler,” the thing the anarchist wants to do away with, is in play, whether there is one ruler, twelve, 535, or what have you.

The anarchist’s claim is not that one form of government is illegitimate and that another would be; it is that no rulers’ claims to power over others are legitimate. Sometimes, people who oppose a particular government are accused of being anarchists (indeed, sometimes they even self-describe that way), but, when their goal is to replace the state with a different sort of state, they are actually not anarchists, any more than opponents of one religion qualify as “atheists” for embracing one or more different religions. Hence the slogan “smash the state” might be an anarchist’s, but also might not be, depending on whether the sloganeer’s goal is to eliminate all centralized political authority, or to replace an existing state with another—to substitute democratic socialism, say, for oligarchy. If we’re speaking precisely, it’s only anarchism if the goal is no rulers at all.

In addition, to be an anarchist is not to oppose social order generally. “Anarchy” is often used to connote chaos or disorder, yet the anarchist’s argument is typically something to the effect that social order is possible without coercive, centralized authority. So the anarchist distinguishes “society” from “state” or “government.”

Arguments for anarchism typically include one or more of the following points:

1. Coercion is detrimental to human flourishing and so should be minimized if not eliminated.

2. People have rights, and states necessarily violate rights.

3. The levels of cooperation necessary for social order emerge organically and do not require coercive imposition.

4. Political actors are self-interested and seek their own advantage rather than the common good, so we should favor institutions that deny power to such actors.

5. Political institutions get captured by mechanisms that favor groups who receive concentrated benefits at the expense of the majority over which costs are dispersed.

6. Putative rationales for state authority are unpersuasive, but the burden of proof rests with supporters of such authority.

7. Collective means cannot be morally superior to individual means if the ends are not themselves morally legitimate.

8. Political institutions erode our cooperative natures and make us worse people.

9. The reality of human pluralism makes the existence of alternative arrangements for the maintenance of social order desirable.

This list is not intended to be exhaustive; these are merely some of the more common arguments offered in support of anarchist conclusions.

III. The Limits of Arguments for Anarchism

Suppose for a moment that I have written a philosophical treatise demonstrating with sound reasoning that all arguments justifying state authority are flawed, that society could be expected to function and flourish in the absence of coercive political structures, that social order and dispute resolution would emerge from voluntary arrangements.[308] Would all political philosophers familiar with my devastating arguments likely embrace anarchism? The astute reader will have already noted that philosophy doesn’t work that way. There may be plenty of agreement with whatever you have argued, but agreement is virtually always accompanied by dissent. Some of the dissent is rooted in good pedagogical practice—effective teachers present both sides of a dispute and invite students to draw their own conclusions. But a large part of it is due to the very nature of philosophical arguments. Since they’re very complex, there are many avenues for disagreement. Any interesting argument will likely contain so many premises and so many inferences that a person looking for a way to disagree will surely have several options to choose from. This may be due to a perverse contrarianism or emotional attachment to a prior belief, or it may be sincere, rational disagreement with some presupposition or implication. In any case, it’s not uncommon for people to look at the conclusion of an argument, decide they disagree, and then review the argument looking for ways in which it (must have) gone wrong. After all, if the conclusion is false, some part of the argument must contain a flaw. Since for most people anarchism simply must be false, it wouldn’t matter (for them) whether an argument for anarchism were (actually) sound.

But people do sometimes change their minds on the basis of philosophical arguments. Taking the long view of the history of philosophy, we can see many examples—the most relevant for present purposes being arguments for anarchism itself. Every philosophical proponent of anarchism was raised in a society with rulers in which a narrative justifying state authority was widely embraced. So that there are any philosophical anarchists at all is evidence that it’s at least possible to make effective, persuasive arguments.[309]

Suppose again for a moment that I have indeed written a philosophical treatise demonstrating with sound reasoning that all arguments justifying state authority are flawed, that society would function and flourish in the absence of coercive political structures, and that social order and dispute resolution would emerge from voluntary arrangements. Suppose, too, that—amazingly—the vast majority of philosophers agreed that I was correct. What would happen? What would likely not happen is that the government would disband and all people holding power would renounce it. Broadly speaking, there are two reasons why that is not what would happen.

The first is that people who have power tend to like having power and will be reluctant to give it up. This happens so rarely that when it does, everyone knows about it and finds it remarkable. In general, people with power want to preserve, and if possible, expand their power.

The other reason is that most people think political authority is necessary. Even when they disapprove of some particular ruler or form of government, most people think the occurrence of the flaws to which they object just means they should support a different ruler or a different form of government. For example, most Democratic voters want to replace a Republican president with one from their own party, not to eliminate the presidency. Opponents of James II wanted to install a different monarch, not to eliminate the monarchy.

As it happens, the second reason is much more important than the first. If people didn’t think states were necessary, they would likely wrest power from those seeking to retain it or persuade them to give it up. The robust persistence of the first factor is due to the prevalence of people’s belief in the necessity of the state; and indeed, this belief is why the use of violent means to deal with the authorities’ grip on power is certain to fail.

IV. Rejecting Anti-state Violence

As long as most people think there should be some ruler, any violent action against the ruler will result in the installation of another ruler.[310] The death of the holder of a particular office represents a vacancy to be filled; it does not eliminate the office, or people’s perception that the office needs to be occupied. When anarchist Leon Czolgosz assassinated President McKinley, it didn’t end the presidency, it just meant that Theodore Roosevelt became president. Removing current members of the government doesn’t remove the idea of government. The vacuum would be filled immediately, and no one’s beliefs about the ideas of spontaneous order and social rules, or the relationship between liberty and human flourishing, or the coercive nature of government would likely be changed.

Besides that, I suspect the use of violence would be immoral under all but the most extreme circumstances. In dystopian fiction, in which the human spirit is crushed by a totalitarian state, heroic protagonists often use violent means that are portrayed as justified.[311] In the sort of scenario they’re confronting, perhaps it would be, but in the actual world we live in, the violence wouldn’t meet the threshold for legitimacy. Most people think the state is justified, and the state is so intertwined in everyday life that it’s hard to argue that every single participant is culpably participatory.

If you go down to city hall, there’s a clerk in the water department’s office sorting through water meter readings and depositing people’s checks for overuse fees. It’s just not coherent to claim that this person is the moral equivalent of a concentration camp guard. So when, for example, Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, he was mistaken to think it was a morally legitimate target. Most of his victims were more like the water department clerk than the death camp guard, and a number of his victims were children in a day care facility. As McVeigh, and Leon Czolgosz before him, learned the hard way, violent action doesn’t change people’s minds the way they perhaps hoped it would. The violence is thus immoral in all but the most extreme cases, and largely ineffective in any event.

V. The Significance of Arguments for Anarchism

So, the use of violent means directed against rulers doesn’t produce anarchism, and philosophical arguments demonstrating the soundness of anarchism don’t produce anarchism. So, the question stands, what is the point of anarchist argument? I think there are two sorts of answers to this, and while I intend to focus on one of them in the remainder of this chapter, I want to at least mention the other: that philosophical arguments need not have practical points—their aim is truth, and as long as an argument is logically pushing towards truth, it need not have any further practical value. However, I think there is a practical point to the anarchist’s argument, even given the persistence of statist thought amongst most people.

That point is that anarchism is only possible when people’s ideas about government and authority change. This is why violent means are not only immoral, but certain to be ineffective. Changing minds requires persuasion, but, even if persuasion is unlikely to lead people to embrace anarchism, reiterating good anarchist arguments can be effective in another way: it can help people rethink the nature and justification of authority generally. A philosophical examination of the justification for government power will necessarily include a consideration of the scope of that power. This can have the salutary effect of getting more people to see that the more we rely on coercion to accomplish social goals, the more we erode civil society. The clearer it becomes that the state’s authority is limited, the clearer it should become that state power should be limited. The more thoroughly it is demonstrated that state power tends to be captured by special interests and used for the private benefit of rulers and their cronies, the more evident it will become that the rulers’ rhetoric doesn’t match their actions.

Consider another way to think about this point. Some people have said the state is a necessary evil, grudgingly accepting the idea that coercion is bad, state actors are frequently self-interested, and so on. The anarchist’s response to this position is typically to argue that the state is not, in fact, necessary. But, as is obvious, people resist this conclusion regardless of how cogent the arguments supporting it may be. However, there’s also a good deal of complacency in the way contemporary people view the state—many take it as axiomatic that we need the state, and that it’s natural for the state to perform this or that function, or even that the state helps to create society. Anarchist arguments can help such people think about the parameters of state power. If the state is at best a necessary evil, then we have good reason to limit its power even if anarchism is false; whereas if the state is a positive good, we have far less rationale for limiting its power. The anarchist’s ultimate preference is for others to agree that state coercion is unjustified. When they don’t, however, it is surely preferable for them to think that the state is a necessary evil than to regard it as an unalloyed good. So, even failing to persuade others of the truth of anarchism, the anarchist is nevertheless working towards creating a freer world by persuading others to see the state’s downside.

Anarchist theory can therefore be seen as both aspirational and incremental. To say “We will never reach anarchism, so stop wasting your breath!” is to miss the point. Reframing the case for coercive authority structures as warranting skepticism and scrutiny rather than acquiescence and complacency serves a very real purpose even if it’s true that, at least for now, most people are likely to reject anarchism.

A person could ultimately reject anarchism while still learning something from the anarchist’s critique of the state. For example, rather than automatically assuming that state actors are exclusively or primarily motivated by concern for the common good, a person might come to recognize ways in which rulers’ actions preserve their own power and wealth. Coming to see factors like this more clearly has the potential to change someone’s default reaction from “This state activity must be good, albeit in some way I don’t see” to “I wonder if there is a non-coercive way to accomplish the worthwhile goal this activity is supposed to serve and, if there’s not, whether this really is a desirable goal.” A person might come to understand that regulations such as occupational licensure are rhetorically defended as serving the common good but they actually represent the use of the state’s coercive power to benefit a small group at the expense of the group’s competitors and the general public. A person might come to see ways in which state control of dispute resolution incentivizes mass incarceration. The anarchist should welcome such changes in public perception of state power even if the majority of people still do not accept anarchism.

It is thus worthwhile, not pointless, to continue to try to impress upon people the moral deficiencies of coercive authority structures. To make the case against the state is to undermine the idea that coercion is necessary for social order, or that it is beneficial to human society. It is to point the way towards the continual need to scale back the scope of state power. It is to affirm the priority of liberty and its necessary connection to human flourishing, and to keep us mindful of the ways in which the state, and our often unthinking obedience to it, hinders that flourishing.

Part II: Figures and Traditions

6. Anarchism Against Anarchy the Classical Roots of Anarchism

Stephen R. L. Clark

I. Making a Consensual Community

There may somewhere in the multiverse be intelligent creatures who must cope by themselves, like baby turtles, from the moment that they hatch: C. J. Cherryh has perhaps come close to imagining such unashamedly egoistic creatures, “kif,” in her Chanur sequence.[312] How precisely such creatures would come to treat their conspecifics, how they would learn to communicate or bargain with them for whatever individual advantage, is a matter, so far, for baffled speculation. No readers of this volume are likely to be so alien. We were all born to human parents, taught a mother tongue, and imbued with whatever unexamined attitudes our parents or carers—and their companions—shared. Even in adulthood we are dependent animals, requiring the company and services of uncounted others. As Aristotle observed,

the man who is isolated, who is unable to share in the benefits of political association, or has no need to share because he is already self-sufficient, is no part of the city, and must therefore be either a beast or a god.

(Aristotle Politics 1.1253a30: 1995, p.11)

Even the imagined Cyclopes, “clanless and lawless and hearthless” (1.1253a5, citing Homer Odyssey 9.114—5), at least have neighbours who may come running to understand their cries for help. Even they must have households of some sort, in which to beget and bear and rear their offspring. Even they must find their mates from somewhere more or less compatible. “Each of them,” said Homer, “rules over his children and wives” (Politics 1.1252b20). Such simple households are perhaps replicated amongst the poor even of larger unions: “the poor man, not having slaves, is compelled to use his wife and children as attendants” (Politics 6.1322b40: 1995, p.250). Unsurprisingly, being born as wholly dependent creatures, we depend upon our parents or carers, and find ourselves, long before we have any political opinions or rational arguments, bound by affection (mostly) and respect for these larger figures.

The male parent is in a position of authority both in virtue of the affection to which he is entitled and by right of his seniority [he is typically several years older than his wife]; and his position is thus in the nature of royal authority.

(Politics 2.1259b10: 1995, p.33)

Of course, we also grow up, and grow bigger. Adolescent rebellion against parental authority is likely universal in our species (and in many other mammalian kinds): or rather, rebellion against particular authorities in the hope of ourselves becoming such authorities. The impossible question in Greek rhetoric, it is of some interest to note, was “Have you stopped beating your father yet?” (Diogenes Laertius Lives 2.135; see also Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 7.1149b8). The rebel, to modify a remark of Chesterton, does not disrespect authority—he merely wishes to have such authority for himself, so as to respect it more perfectly.[313] As Chesterton concluded, the really dangerous criminal is the modern political philosopher, who genuinely does disrespect the whole notion of “authority” (a point to which I shall return).

Households may turn into clans, retaining the parental hierarchies into which we are born and reared, or else they may find common cause with other households near at hand, partly to demarcate the land that counts as “theirs” and partly to exchange their surplus goods and special crafts. Plato’s account of such a development is apostrophized as merely a “city of pigs” by Glaucon (Plato Republic 2.372d), but perhaps it is not even, really, a “city” or “township” (polis) at all, but—exactly—a collection of households with no particular common interest in the character and goals of its human agents. “A city cannot be constituted from any chance collection of people, or in any chance period of time” (Politics 5.1303a25[314]), though that is the model that social contract theorists have often assumed—as if we were indeed the solitary super-turtles (so to speak) that I imagined earlier!

Any city (polis) which is truly so called, and is not merely one in name, must devote itself to the end of encouraging goodness. Otherwise, a political association sinks into a mere alliance, which only differs in space [i.e. in the contiguity of its members] from other forms of alliance where the members live at a distance from one another.

(Aristotle Politics 1.1280b6[315])

One likely form of authority for a clan or for some other slightly larger social form will indeed be the royal: “just as household government is kingship over a family, so conversely this type of kingship may be regarded as household government exercised over a city, or a tribe, or a collection of tribes” (Politics 3.1285b30[316]). One advantage, at least for the stability of the system, of a merely dynastic royalty is that it does not depend on the merit of the king that he be king, though his authority may indeed be reduced, and his inheritance rendered illegitimate, if he fails too openly in his quasi-parental duties. But maybe the very claim to be “royal,” and to require the sort of affection, respect and proper fear that children may feel for their elders, creates the notion of merit: how is it that this one person, or this one line of descent, “deserves” the office?

We may imagine one set of circumstances in which it would be obviously better that the one group should once and for all be rulers and one group should be ruled. This would be if there were one class in the city surpassing all others as much as gods and heroes are supposed to surpass mankind—a class so outstanding, physically as well as mentally, that the superiority of the rulers was indisputably clear to those over whom they ruled.

(Politics 7.1332b20[317])

But once it becomes clear, or widely suspected, that the king and his lineage are not so surpassingly great, his subjects may prefer some more egalitarian system—leaving aside the moments when they replace the king with a sometime-popular despot (one probably unconstrained by family feeling or tradition). After all, even kings—especially kings—depend on others to advise and act for them (Politics 3.1287b30); why then might not the king’s “friends” and servants do the job without him? Why might they not in their turn solicit support and agents from the common folk? A similar moral may issue from Plato’s Republic: if the only people we could trust to rule us with intelligence and integrity must be philosopher-kings, and we cannot find such anywhere, perhaps we should be content instead with the “least worst” constitution, in which “every individual can make for himself the kind of life which suits him” (Republic 8.557b).

Two further problems arise for royalty which may be answered through a more egalitarian solution. The first is simply that—like parental authority in the household—it may easily become despotic: obedience will then be enforced by threats of violence, as though subjects were no more than slaves. Only those of a “slavish” disposition—in Aristotle’s view, barbarians—could put up with this for long: “these barbarian peoples are more servile in character than Greeks (as the peoples of Asia are more servile than those of Europe); and they therefore tolerate despotic rule without any complaint” (Politics 3.1285a20; see also 7.1327b25[318]). The better route is a form of community spirit that allows citizens to “live as they like,” each taking an equal share in any collective decision-making:

Such a life, they argue, is the function of the free man, just as the function of slaves is not to live as they like. This is the second defining feature of democracy [the first being that all citizens should have equal shares in the making of collective decisions]. It results in the view that ideally one should not be ruled by any one, or, at least, that one should [rule and] be ruled in turns.

(Politics 6.1317b10[319])

The second problem, by Aristotle’s account, is that a city, a polis, is not after all just the same as a household, or even as a clan, and is not best served by too strict a unity. This is Aristotle’s chief complaint against Plato’s Republic (Politics 2.1261a20), that a polis is composed of distinct households and individuals of many kinds and functions. Citizens must have property of their very own, even if there is also some shared property. But how then shall the polis be at peace, if not by affectionate agreement? A merely contractual theory of state-formation, as though some chance collection of lawless persons had come together to swear a pact of mutual defence and forbearance, wholly neglects the need for a common custom underlying all explicit laws and regulations, and presents us with the obvious problem that we cannot now be reasonably bound by any such contracts made by our brigand ancestors (especially if there is no record of any such sensible compact)! It is better to accept that we are all born into communities with their own customs and bonds of affection and respect, and that the question before us is rather how we would prefer to manage our social relations, what simple changes we might wish to make, or realize we have already made. We no more need to make up all the customs by which we live than we need to make up our languages. Fortunately so: “When antient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From that moment we have no compass to govern us; nor can we know distinctly to what port we steer.”[320]

How far do we need any overt laws and regulations additional to common custom? After all,

there is no advantage in the best of laws, even when they are sanctioned by general civic consent, if the citizens themselves have not been attuned, by the force of habit and the influence of teaching, to the right constitutional temper—which will be the temper of democracy where the laws are democratic, and where they are oligarchical will be that of oligarchy.

(Politics 5.1310a18)

And if the citizens are indeed thus attuned, what need is there for further legislation, or any “government” beyond the self-regulation of the whole civic community? Aristotle indeed acknowledges that

heterogeneity of stocks may lead to faction—at any rate until they have had time to assimilate. A city cannot be constituted from any chance collection of people, or in any chance period of time. Most of the cities which have admitted others as settlers, either at the time of their foundation or later, have been troubled by faction.

(Politics 5.1303a25[321])

Such factions may lead to war, and be suppressed by violence—so making the members of the subject (that is, the subjugated) population, effectively, into slaves. This is certainly not to advise the outlawing of all immigration, but to acknowledge that native-born and immigrants will need time, and patience, to adjust.

But even if we don’t have to make up the customs and communities in which we live, may there not be some profit in imagining how they might, acceptably, be arranged (as political theorists from Democritus to Rawls have done)? What would we reasonably do to rescue ourselves from the imagined “war of each against all”? There is a certain ambiguity in what seems to have been a standard ancient opinion, turning on the imagined “lawlessness” of the days before civil community:

For the laws are what bind cities together, and as the soul perishes when the body has perished, so the cities are destroyed when the laws are abolished. Hence, the theologian Orpheus hints at their necessity when he says ‘There was a time when every man liv’d by devouring his fellow Cannibal-wise, and the stronger man did feast on the weaker ... (for when no law was in control each man maintained his right by force of hand, even as it is permitted to fishes and beasts of the wild and the winged ravens and vultures, each to devour the other, for justice exists not among them), until God in his pity for their misery sent to them law-bearing goddesses, and men admired these for the way they stopped the lawless cannibalism more than for the way they civilized life by means of the fruits of the earth.’ Hence, too, the shrewd Persians have a law that on the death of their king they must practise lawlessness for the next five days, not in order to be in a state of misery but in order to learn by experience how great an evil lawlessness is, inflicting, as it does, murders and rapine and things which are, if possible, worse, so that they may become more trusty guardians of their kings.

(Sextus, Against the Professors 2.31—3;[322] see also Hesiod, Works and Days 274—9)

Are we to suppose that we need kings (that is to say, bullies) or rather a sense of justice, fair play, shame (without which kings and their subjects will certainly degenerate)? Or is this “Orphic” imagining, this thought experiment, merely a projection back into pre-history of the actual Mediterranean experience, in which cities were all, implicitly, at war with each other (Plato Laws 1.626a)? What might really bring us a peace that is more than a word? Is anarchy really “lawless”?

Both monarchical and more egalitarian constitutions may issue at last in violence, and despotic control of their subjects. This is not immediately to say that the rulers of such cities will be seeking their own advantage rather than their subjects’ (which is the criterion by which both Plato and Aristotle identify degenerate constitutions), but it is clearly very likely that, whatever excuses they may offer, all such violent rule will also be literally despotic. Only those (if any) who really should be considered slaves or slavish should be treated as if they were slaves, having no conception of their own of a good life for themselves and for their kin, nor any will to achieve it. Whether there are such people as “natural slaves” (who live and behave as slaves whatever the constitution under which they live) is maybe moot. That Aristotle would consider the complaisant subjects of such violent and coercive rule as he observed in eastern empires to be slaves is not. But those who are not thus slavish deserve much better.

Yet it cannot, perhaps, but appear very strange, to anyone ready to reflect on the matter, that it should be the function of a statesman to be able to lay plans for ruling and dominating neighbouring cities whether or not they give their consent. How can something which is not even lawful be proper for a statesman or lawmaker?

(Politics 7.1324b25[323])

Coercion is improper, whether it is of conquered peoples or of the other members of the statesman’s polis. And coercion may sometimes be covert, depending on deceit by statesmen and laziness amongst subjects. The twin principles of a democracy are on the one hand that the decisions of the demos, the people, rule, and on the other that all citizens live as they choose (which is not necessarily quite the same as living as they—for the moment—please). Clearly those principles may conflict, if—for example—the poor, being “in the majority,” expropriate the property of “the rich,” or some majority moral opinion is enforced on those who flatly disagree.

Political community depends on real consensus, founded in the fact that every citizen has a share in collective decision-making—and no decisions are enforced even by stable majority factions on a recognized minority. This can hardly be possible if the supposed polis is the size of Babylon or anything we would now call a “nation-state” (see Politics 3.1276a24).

A city composed of too few members is a city without self-sufficiency (and the city, by its definition, is self-sufficient). One composed of too many will indeed be self-sufficient in the matter of material necessities (as a nation may be) but it will not be a city, since it can hardly have a constitution.

(Politics 7.1326b[324])

Of course we may, if we are “free” by temperament and education, accept that not every collective, dialectical decision is as we personally wish, but once it is clear that almost all the collective decisions go against our own and our friends’ votes and arguments, the city is on the brink of war: a faction may be as tyrannical as any despot, and must be resisted.

What if the poor, on the ground of their being a majority, proceed to divide among themselves the possessions of the wealthy—will not this be unjust? ‘No, by heaven’ (someone may reply); ‘it has been justly decreed so by the sovereign body.’ But if this is not the extreme of injustice, what is? Whenever a majority takes everything and divides among its members the possessions of a minority, that majority is obviously ruining the city.

(Politics 3.1281a11[325])

Not all decrees are necessarily just ones, even by local standards. Whether the rich hold their property justly in the first place may also be moot. But the chief moral is that a properly political community is both broadly self-sufficient and self-governing, and that all attempts to rule by violence or fraud are improper. David Keyt identified the clearly “anarchist” implications of Aristotle’s principles (as also Plato’s).

Aristotle defines a deviant constitution as one under which the rulers rule for their own advantage (Politics 3.1279a19—20). He goes on to claim that deviant constitutions are characterized by their use of force (3.1281a23—24; see also 3.1276a12—13), that they are contrary to nature (para phusin) (3.1287b37—41), and that they are unjust (3.1282b8—13). Aristotle does not explicitly connect these three claims with each other or with his definition. But the derivation of the anti-coercion principle shows how they can be linked together. That the rulers in a polis with a deviant constitution must use force to maintain themselves in power is a consequence of the nature of their rule. For deviant constitutions are all despotic (3.1279a19—21; 4.1290a25—29; 7.1333a3—6). Under such a constitution the rulers, looking only to their own advantage, treat those outside the constitution, the second-class citizens, as slaves (see 3.1278b32—37 and 4.1295b19—23). Since these outsiders are free men (3.1279a21; see also 4.1292b38—41), there can be no question of their enduring such treatment willingly (see 4.1295a17-23). Thus, under a deviant constitution there is always a group of subjects who obey their rulers only because they are forced to. In a democracy it is the rich; in an oligarchy, the poor; in a tyranny, the free (for tyranny see 3.1285a25—29; 5.1314al0—12). Given the Aristotelian equation of the forced and the unnatural, it follows at once that deviant constitutions are contrary to nature.[326]

II. The Point and Peril of Ethical Concern

So far there is a clear agreement on the part of a wide range of classical writers with one of the staple doctrines of an anarchist philosophy. Political authority cannot rest upon coercion, and the ideal form of human community will be both self-sufficient and self-governing. Everyone who is capable of reaching and acting on a decision about what to do, everyone who has a working conception of what will make a life worth living, must have a say in collective decisions. We cannot avoid the necessity of such collectives, even by wandering away into the wilderness and surviving by our own singular endeavours (a project that only a few exceptional individuals can accomplish, and they only with a lot of luck). Even they will, almost certainly, have to come to some agreement with any neighbouring tribes and cities, even simply to be left alone. But might not simple treaties be enough for us? Might we not agree merely to bring any goods for exchange to some central market, and even conclude a pact of mutual defence against any who would attack that market, or our households? Even the necessity of finding mates from outside our immediate families might be managed by, as it were, the marriage-mart, perhaps with appeals to some recognized “sacred” elements? Such treaties will not be long sustained unless the parties all find an agreeable profit in them, and are all sufficiently alike in what they consider a “fair” trade, or a “just” defence, or a “proper” marriage partner, but there need be no considerable concern for how householders manage their own affairs at home.

A polis, on the other hand, so Aristotle concluded, is dedicated to some particular conception of what a good life may be. The end of the city is not mere life; it is, rather, a good quality of life.

Otherwise, there might be a city of slaves, or even a city of animals; but in the world as we know it any such city is impossible, because slaves and animals do not share in happiness [eudaimonia] nor in living according to their own choice. Similarly, it is not the end of the city to provide an alliance for mutual defence against all injury, nor does it exist for the purpose of exchange or [commercial] dealing. If that had been the end, the Etruscans and the Carthaginians would be in the position of belonging to a single city; and the same would be true to all peoples who have commercial treaties with one another. It is true that such peoples have agreements about imports; treaties to ensure just conduct; and written terms of alliance for mutual defence. On the other hand, they have no common offices to deal with these matters: each, on the contrary, has its own offices, confined to itself. Neither party concerns itself to ensure a proper quality of character among the members of the other; neither of them seeks to ensure that all who are included in the scope of the treaties are just and free from any form of vice; and they do not go beyond the aim of preventing their own members from committing injustice against one another. But it is the goodness or badness in the life of the city which engages the attention of those who are concerned to secure good government. The conclusion which clearly follows is that any city which is truly so called, and is not merely one in name, must devote itself to the end of encouraging goodness. Otherwise, a political association sinks into a mere alliance, which only differs in space [i.e. in the contiguity of its members] from other forms of alliance where the members live at a distance from one another.

(Politics 3.1280b6[327])

This latter possibility in turn is the root of another form of anarchist philosophy, less community minded and more in line with what would now be considered “right-wing anarchism” or “libertarianism.” The sophist Lycophron, it is said, expressly claimed that the law was only a contract about allowable claims upon one another, without any concern to make the citizens virtuous or just. We know too little of Lycophron to conclude that he therefore promoted the notion of a “minimal state” or “conflict management agencies” concerned only to assess conflicting claims about ownership or injury, still less that he had a working “social contract” theory about our proper obedience to the sort of civil authority that might emerge from what would once have been only a paid service.[328] But that idea, of “justice” as an arrangement between contending parties, saving them from undue harm while requiring them also to forego undue profit (as Glaucon proposes in Plato Republic 2.358e), can also be considered an element in the development at least of liberal politics. An element only, and a risky one: Herodotus also noted the possibility that civil authority began with a general agreement to acknowledge the good judgement of a particular man considered “wise.”

As the Medes at that time dwelt in scattered villages without any central authority, and lawlessness in consequence prevailed throughout the land, Deioces, who was already a man of mark in his own village, applied himself with greater zeal and earnestness than ever before to the practice of justice among his fellows. It was his conviction that justice and injustice are engaged in perpetual war with one another. He therefore began his course of conduct, and presently the men of his village, observing his integrity, chose him to be the arbiter of all their disputes. Bent on obtaining the sovereign power, he showed himself an honest and an upright judge, and by these means gained such credit with his fellow-citizens as to attract the attention of those who lived in the surrounding villages. They had long been suffering from unjust and oppressive judgments; so that, when they heard of the singular uprightness of Deioces, and of the equity of his decisions, they joyfully had recourse to him in the various quarrels and suits that arose, until at last they came to put confidence in no one else.

(Herodotus 1.96–7[329])

The conclusion of the story has Deioces established as an absolute monarch, with a palace at Ecbatana. The “equity of his decisions,” it turns out, was in the end only a gambit, to achieve monarchical power of a sort that Herodotus spends his Histories quietly rebuking and contrasting with the willing obedience of (some) Greeks to an impersonal Law. Demaratus, for example, responds to Xerxes’ baffled enquiry about how so few Greeks should hope to stand against so many of his army that they are free, but also obedient to Law, “which they fear much more than your subjects fear you” (7.104).[330]

So also Herodotus credits the ascent of the Athenians to their “freedom”:

It is plain enough ... that freedom is an excellent thing since even the Athenians, who, while they continued under the rule of tyrants, were not a whit more valiant than any of their neighbours, no sooner shook off the yoke than they became decidedly the first of all. These things show that, while undergoing oppression, they let themselves be beaten, since then they worked for a master; but so soon as they got their freedom, each man was eager to do the best he could for himself.

(Herodotus 5.78)

This trope, of the “free” Greek or Westerner against the naturally “servile” Easterner, is not one that we should now endorse, but it remains significant for our understanding of what “freedom,” eleutheria, might mean, and why it is not to be equated with any simple rule of non-interference or even the more difficult attempt at compromise between competing interests. Freedom is a way of living together as equals. A merely “minimal” state, or an alliance, may have no interest in the character of its members, or the way they manage their households, so long as they keep their agreements. But this condition is bound to be unstable: those who keep their agreements only from fear of retribution, and esteem their “freedom” only so that they can get what they currently desire, may be easily corrupted, and likewise expect their partners to be corrupt. Bargains between desperate brigands, or even complacent burghers, have little force: notoriously, it is hard to ensure cooperation even in the possible partners’ ultimate self-interest, when it so often makes selfish sense for either party to defect. The only solutions we seem to have discovered are either to concede sufficient power to Leviathan (monarchical or republican) to suppress rebellion, or else to rear us all in virtuous habits of a proper sort. Anarchists—and Aristotle—reject the option of Leviathan: Aristotle concluded that all poleis must be concerned with the virtue of their members, since our goal is not merely survival, life on whatever terms, but a recognizably good or worthwhile life.

The city as a whole has a single end. Evidently, therefore, the system of education must also be one and the same for all, and the provision of this system must be a matter of public action. It cannot be left, as it is at present, to private enterprise, with each parent making provision privately for his own children, and having them privately instructed as he himself thinks fit. Training for an end which is common should also itself be common. We must not regard a citizen as belonging just to himself: we must rather regard every citizen as belonging to the city, since each is a part of the city; and the provision made for each part will naturally be adjusted to the provision made for the whole.

(Politics 8.1337a21[331])

This may be a challenge to a merely “libertarian” philosophy, but not to a more sophisticated anarchism. Anarchists, almost above all others, must have a respect for virtue as this is commonly understood.

But what exactly does Aristotle’s virtue require? Much of what he says of virtue, and its importance for any life worth living, should be uncontentious:

No one would call a man happy who had no particle of courage, temperance, justice, or wisdom; who feared the flies buzzing about his head; who abstained from none of the extremest forms of extravagance whenever he felt hungry or thirsty; who would ruin his dearest friends for the sake of a quarter of an obol; whose mind was as senseless, and as much deceived, as that of a child or a madman.

(Politics 8.1323a25[332])

But he is also confident that different sorts of virtue, different kinds and levels of goodness, are appropriate for different classes within the polis. How exactly any particular polis orders its affairs or ranks its virtues is a matter for that polis: “self-government” is perhaps a more contentious notion than he allows, if there are always decisions to be made (or customs to be followed) about who counts as a contributing agent. Even when he speaks of such people as are not “naturally” slaves as being themselves “free,” as individuals and as members of the polis, he expressly excludes women, children, farmers, mechanics, day labourers, and any other persons incapable, by temperament or occupation, of participating in needful political offices. Nor—as he well knew—were all actual slaves also “natural” slaves. Ancient Greek “democracy,” by modern liberal standards, was restricted to the freeborn, native, few, even if it allowed more say in the polis than overtly oligarchical regimes. Tyrants and demagogues, he even suggested, were likelier to give support to slaves and women—as both being good informers against their lords!

Kings are maintained and secured by their friends but it is characteristic of tyrants to distrust them above all others, for whereas everyone wants [to overthrow tyrants], it is their friends who have most power to achieve this. The methods applied in extreme democracies are thus all to be found in tyrannies. They both encourage feminine influence in the family, in the hope that wives will tell tales of their husbands; and for a similar reason they are both indulgent to slaves. Slaves and women are not likely to plot against tyrants: indeed, as they prosper under them, they are bound to look with favour on tyrannies and democracies alike—of course the people likes to act as absolute ruler. This is the reason why, under both these forms of government, honour is paid to flatterers, in democracies to demagogues, who are flatterers of the people, and, in the case of tyrants, to those who associate with them on obsequious terms—which is the function of the flatterer. Tyranny is thus a system dear to the wicked. Tyrants love to be flattered, and nobody with the soul of a freeman can ever stoop to that; a good man may be a friend, but at any rate he will not be a flatterer.[333]

(Politics 5.1313b29)

One further common excuse for the restriction was that only those who could defend the city were legitimately its rulers: so Athens allowed poorer folk to play a part because it was more dependent on the oarsmen of its navy than on armed infantry or the still more limited cavalry:

In Athens the poor and the people generally are right to have more than the highborn and wealthy for the reason that it is the people who man the ships and impart strength to the city; the steersmen, the boatswains, the sub-boatswains, the look-out officers, and the shipwrights—these are the ones who impart strength to the city far more than the hoplites, the high-born, and the good men. This being the case, it seems right for everyone to have a share in the magistracies, both allotted and elective, for anyone to be able to speak his mind if he wants to.

(Ps-Xenophon, Constitution 1.2[334])

Another was that “banausic” occupations limited intelligence and were likely to cripple bodies: a properly “liberal” education, suitable for and supportive of “freedom,” would not allow children to take up such occupations (as professional musicians, craftsmen, slave-masters). Some might nowadays add computer nerds, scientists, and bureaucrats to the list of “banausic” persons!

Occupations are divided into those which are fit for freemen and those which are unfit for them; and clearly children should take part in useful occupations only to the extent that they do not turn those taking part in them into ‘mechanical’ types. The term ‘mechanical’ [banausos] should properly be applied to any occupation, art, or instruction which is calculated to make the body, or soul, or mind of a freeman unfit for the pursuit and practice of goodness.

(Politics 8.1337b[335])

From which it might follow that Aristotle himself would not approve the Athenian mode of civic defence, as requiring people to have a say in the collective decision-making (as defenders of the city) who could not, by their education and occupation, fulfil that task.

The author we call Ps-Xenophon was yet more explicit in his disdain for “the worse sort of people”:

Everywhere on earth the best element is opposed to democracy. For among the best people there is minimal wantonness and injustice but a maximum of scrupulous care for what is good, whereas among the people there is a maximum of ignorance, disorder, and wickedness; for poverty draws them rather to disgraceful actions, and because of a lack of money some men are uneducated and ignorant.

(Ps-Xenophon 1.5[336])

Not only their character but their constitution makes them unreliable:

For oligarchic cities it is necessary to keep to alliances and oaths. If they do not abide by agreements or if injustice is done, there are the names of the few who made the agreement. But whatever agreements the populace makes can be repudiated by referring the blame to the one who spoke or took the vote, while the others declare that they were absent or did not approve of the agreement made in the full assembly. If it seems advisable for their decisions not to be effective, they invent myriad excuses for not doing what they do not want to do. And if there are any bad results from the people’s plans, they charge that a few persons, working against them, ruined their plans; but if there is a good result, they take the credit for themselves.

(Ps-Xenophon 2.17[337])

But this must be a corruption of any preferred constitution. If the people ignore the claims of honour and civil friendship, how long can their lordship last? Such chaos will be replaced, sooner or later, by some form of despotic rule, since the people themselves will be shown to be incapable of ruling themselves, or standing by their decisions. And maybe Aristotle was not wholly wrong to think that some occupations, some educations, unfit us for any share in collective decision-making. Those wholly absorbed in, for example, making bridles are not best placed even to train horses, let alone manage the cavalry or the conduct of a war. The same applies—though Aristotle does not explicitly say so—to those absorbed in healing the sick: a doctor does not deliberate about whether to heal a patient, but only how (Nicomachean Ethics 3.1112b12-15). But whether or not time and public effort should be expended, say, on the healing arts is exactly what a civil community may sometimes have to determine, without regard to the fixed options of particular crafts and craftsmen. Should any effort be made to rear disabled or otherwise “defective” children? Should elderly males be encouraged, or even allowed, to procreate?

The question arises whether children should always be reared or may sometimes be exposed to die. There should certainly be a law to prevent the rearing of deformed children. On the other hand, if the established social customs forbid the exposure of infants simply to keep down the number of children, a limit must be placed on the number who are born. If a child is then conceived in excess of the limit so fixed, a miscarriage should be induced before sense and life have begun.... It remains to determine the length of time for which [men and women] should render public service by bringing children into the world. The offspring of elderly men, like that of very young men, tends to be physically and mentally imperfect; and the children of old age are weakly. We may therefore fix the length of time for which procreation lasts by reference to the mental prime. This comes for most men—as some of the poets, who measure life in seven-year periods, have suggested—about the age of 50.

(Politics 7.1335b19[338])

The Aristotelian polis, in short, may begin to feel oppressive, even without a distinct organ of government, a distinct class of governors. There must be officers to oversee all manner of implicit regulations (see Politics 1321b12-1322b16), but these duties should be shared amongst the citizens. What sanctions Aristotle proposes for his imagined (or reported) rules may be unclear: it may be that mere public oversight, and consequent embarrassment, will be enough to do the work (and exile of the offender be a last resort). “To be under the eyes of office-holders will serve, above anything else, to create a true feeling of modesty and the fear of shame which should animate freemen” (Politics 7.1331b1[339]). So also with decisions about the extent of “private” property: it may be oppressive to remove excesses of land or money from “the rich,” but no civil community will long survive gross inequalities. Either citizens will agree to share or moderate their wealth, or some will find themselves expelled, or the city will descend into war and tyranny. But its continuance will still depend upon the actual, not merely the assumed, agreement of its citizens.

III. Enemies of the Political

One of the strangest comments on anarchistical theory is the suggestion that “anarchists maintain that no questions are political questions.”[340] On the contrary, anarchists are bound to be considering politics—that is, the proper management of self-governing communities freed from domination.[341]

The anarchists conceive a society in which all the mutual relations of its members are regulated, not by laws, nor by authorities, whether self-imposed or elected, but by mutual agreements between members of that society and by a sum of social customs and habits—not petrified by law, routine or superstition, but continually developing and continually re-adjusted in accordance with the ever-growing requirements of a free life stimulated by the progress of science, invention, and the steady growth of higher ideals.[342]

What customs need to be preserved, what modified or adjusted? What practices can be helpfully accepted, and what would be, inevitably, corrosive? Most of these questions are to be answered, precisely, by the citizens of whatever polis, not by theorists, however sensible. Consider an illuminating comment by David Brooks, writing in 2016 about the USA:

We live in a big, diverse society. There are essentially two ways to maintain order and get things done in such a society—politics or some form of dictatorship. Either through compromise or brute force. Our founding fathers [that is, of the USA] chose politics. Politics is an activity in which you recognize the simultaneous existence of different groups, interests and opinions. You try to find some way to balance or reconcile or compromise those interests, or at least a majority of them. You follow a set of rules, enshrined in a constitution or in custom, to help you reach these compromises in a way everybody considers legitimate. The downside of politics is that people never really get everything they want. It’s messy, limited and no issue is ever really settled. Politics is a muddled activity in which people have to recognize restraints and settle for less than they want. Disappointment is normal. But that’s sort of the beauty of politics, too. It involves an endless conversation in which we learn about other people and see things from their vantage point and try to balance their needs against our own. Plus, it’s better than the alternative: rule by some authoritarian tyrant who tries to govern by clobbering everyone in his way.[343]

Better also than the suggestions of an uninvolved political theorist!

But it is still possible to identify some risks and even some opportunities: the most obvious risk is the one described by Herodotus, whereby some agency originally hired to help settle disputes, or facilitate decisions, in a suitably friendly, dialectical way becomes, by degrees, the Master. The temptation to correct the obvious errors of an Aristotelian polis leads quickly to a novel despotism: “the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good.”[344] An associated peril lies in the management of common property: may not such management encroach by careful and seemingly reasonable steps on any remaining “private” property? Even the most “right-wing” or libertarian of political theorists cannot wholly escape the problem, as though everything could be sensibly partitioned as the singular and unquestioned property of single citizens, inherited by steps which may often have been wholly unjust. Conversely, it is all too easy for what should be common property to be appropriated for “private” use and management. In the words of the seventeenth-century protest against enclosures:

An identical crime is committed by colonialists who seize what they imagine to be “unowned” land or wilderness, without attention to the needs and uses of the “native born.” Who owns what, and what such ownership involves, are plainly “political” questions, not merely “legal” ones (to be answered solely by reading documents endorsed or created, exactly, by the thieves). Nor can they be answered “neutrally,” by appeal to some universally acknowledged principle, since it is exactly such principles that are in dispute between differing communities and classes. We may, perhaps (as Aristotle hoped), slowly discover at least what practices are likely or certain to be destabilizing failures, ridiculed by all later generations. Amongst those foolish practices, it seems, are both fully collectivist responses and fully idiotic ones (where “idiotic,” despite its connotations, means only “individualized”). The super-turtles may perhaps be able to lay claim to their own personal space and property, and bargain by their personal skill and strength with every other turtle. We are born and reared and live within communities we did not build, and share the products of many generations’ effort (which were often poorly rewarded).

On the one hand, not all property within the polis should be purely collective, to be used only and entirely as the whole consensus decides. On the other, no particular citizen should ever have so much property as to overwhelm all others. In what Aristotle considers the normal, or “natural,” shape of a community there are natural limits on accumulation: no one citizen and no household can plausibly enjoy, own, manage, or maintain more than some definite amount of land or other form of wealth. The creation of money to facilitate exchange makes a difference: there is no natural limit on how much money could be accumulated by careful management (or sheer luck). And this is made most evident when money itself becomes something to be bartered or rented out, at whatever rate of interest the lender may require. Usury is hateful, and unnatural (Politics 1.1258b1).[346] Dante, for that reason, placed usurers (bankers) in the same circle of hell as “sodomites” (Inferno 17; see also Leviticus 25.36)! The actual sin of Sodom, incidentally, had more to do with the use of wealth than is now commonly remembered, or Dante noted: “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy” (Ezekiel 16.49). The duties of free citizens, eleutheroi, include—are almost defined by—generosity: that is the virtue especially of free men, eleutheriotes (Nicomachean Ethics 2.1107b9-16). That is why there should be personal, “private”’ property (Politics 2.1263b10). But the unlimited accumulation of such wealth, beyond what any one citizen or household could reasonably use or enjoy or even manage efficiently, is certain to destroy the sort of companionship essential to the polis. This same accumulation may result in a global “unfettered capitalism,” of an “anarchic” rather than “anarchistical” kind: mere “lawlessness,” allowing those with the power to attempt whatever they please (not necessarily to achieve just what they please). That sort of “anarchy” is actually merely oligarchy.

The other chief enemy of the “political” (that is, the careful and companionable sorting out of the problems of collective life) may seem, by contrast, to be ethically high-minded. Even Aristotle, despite his attention to the different morals and manners of differing communities and institutions, was as sure as any other ethical philosopher that virtue and virtuous acts were not dependent on borders. People of one city or nation may suppose that different acts are decent, and differing characters of real worth, but what was truly wrong on one side of a border cannot be right on the other, merely by people’s saying so (Cicero Republic 3.33[347]). Despots may wish us to think otherwise:

Their first end and aim is to break the spirit of their subjects. They know that a poor-spirited man will never plot against anybody. Their second aim is to breed mutual distrust. Tyranny is never overthrown until people can begin to trust one another; and this is the reason why tyrants are always at war with the good. They feel that good men are dangerous to their authority, not only because they think it shame to be governed despotically but also because of their loyalty to themselves and to others and because of their refusal to betray one another or anybody else. The third and last aim of tyrants is to make their subjects incapable of action. Nobody attempts the impossible. Nobody, therefore, will attempt the overthrow of a tyranny, when all are incapable of action.

(Politics 5.1314a20[348])

And moral relativism does indeed leave us exposed to threats and bribes.

The subjectivist in morals, when his moral feelings are at war with the facts about him, is always free to seek harmony by toning down the sensitiveness of the feelings. Being mere data, neither good nor evil in themselves, he may pervert them or lull them to sleep by any means at his command. Truckling, compromise, time-serving, capitulations of conscience, are conventionally opprobrious names for what, if successfully carried out, would be on his principles by far the easiest and most praiseworthy mode of bringing about that harmony between inner and outer relations which is all that he means by good. The absolute moralist, on the other hand, when his interests clash with the world, is not free to gain harmony by sacrificing the ideal interests. According to him, these latter should be as they are and not otherwise. Resistance then, poverty, martyrdom if need be, tragedy in a word—such are the solemn feasts of his inward faith. Not that the contradiction between the two men occurs every day; in commonplace matters all moral schools agree. It is only in the lonely emergencies of life that our creed is tested: then routine maxims fail, and we fall back on our gods.[349]

There are, in short, good practical reasons why would-be rebels and revolutionaries should at least hope that most or many of their company are sound objectivists, unlikely to be seduced away by servile fears or fancies. But the very fact of a universal ethic may begin to erode our earlier loyalties, to parents or companions, cities or sacred pledges. And this engenders yet another sort of “anarchistical” outcome: the cosmopolitan. The Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope may seem to be more obviously an “anarchist” than Aristotle, precisely because he did not acknowledge the authority either of particular princes or of ancient custom.[350] Early Stoics were similarly dismissive of many common precepts, urging instead that the better life was to “go along with nature,” to accept what usually happens in nature as the proper guide. The dead bodies of our friends, even of our family, were only meat, after all, and sexual desire and fulfilment was not limited to mates socially approved or allowed.[351] The “democratic” nostrum, that each should do as he pleases, was appropriate, at any rate, for those who reckoned themselves “wise”: “only the wise man is free, but the inferior are slaves” (Diogenes Laertius Lives 7.121).[352] It hardly mattered, in practice, whether such sages were openly atheists or else considered themselves the equal of the gods. Rejecting all established ideas of good order in the name of whatever principles they themselves saw reason to accept, they deconstructed notions like property, chastity, or even, in the end, humanity.

This was certainly not what those early Stoics would themselves have wished, as staunch moral realists. Later Stoics were indeed cautious about allowing novices to read the earlier Stoic works[353] and were insistent that we should first of all remember who and what we are (fathers, sons, and citizens) and what our local duties might be (Epictetus Discourses 2.10[354]) before seeking to think and act as “citizens of the world,” cosmopolitai, with no overriding loyalty to household, polis, or imperial dictat (see Diogenes Laertius Lives 6.63). We need the background of family life and civil sympathies ever to conceive that there are other transcendent obligations. If those earlier forms are dismissed as only the deceits of despots how shall we ever find any better standard? Must not despotic rule be simply the norm of life, and our best hope be to join the ranks of despots?

All these, my friends, are views which young people imbibe from men of science [sophoi], both prose-writers and poets, who maintain that the height of justice is to succeed by force; whence it comes that the young people are afflicted with a plague of impiety, as though the gods were not such as the law commands us to conceive them; and, because of this, factions also arise, when these teachers attract them towards the life that is right ‘according to nature,’ which consists in being master over the rest in reality, instead of being a slave to others according to legal convention.

(Plato Laws 10.890a)

It may be a lot more likely, of course, that most such would-be despots will find themselves only the tools of more successful tyrants, having no strength of mind or spirit to resist corruption. An anarchistical philosophy that is only nihilistic, a rejection of the very idea of ethical authority, will usually turn out to serve the interests of another. A better anarchistical philosophy will be the one toward which Aristotle may be seen to gesture: the ideal of a civil community (not necessarily even a single territory) small enough, self-confident enough, to preserve the ties of affection and established custom in a way that allows all those who can to share by turns in any important office, to manage their own affairs without overmuch oversight, and slowly to adapt any current customs in the light of changing circumstance and improving knowledge. There are other forms of social life than the master-slave relationship: we can, after all, be friends. Having learnt that truth from our immediate neighbourhood, we may begin to think even aliens and strangers are as human as ourselves (as Hierocles as well as Ezekiel advised.)[355] Without that beginning, thrown upon the world as if we were only turtles, we shall mostly end as slaves.

7. Kant on Anarchy

Oliver Sensen

I. Introduction

Why should one avoid anarchy, according to Immanuel Kant? Kant equates anarchy with “lack of any government,”[356] a condition in which there are no legitimate state powers.[357] He only uses the term “anarchy” eleven times in his published writings, and does not devote a separate chapter or essay to the topic. But he describes a state without a legitimate government as a state of nature, and so Kant’s discussion of anarchy then becomes the question why one should leave the state of nature, and submit to a legitimate government. The Kant literature answers this question in different ways.

In this chapter, I first describe how Kant conceives of the state of nature (see Section II). I then present a common interpretation in the Kant literature of why one should leave the state of nature (Section III), and argue for an alternative interpretation (sections IV-VII). Finally, I contrast Kant’s views with the influential conceptions of Hobbes and Locke (Section VIII). I argue that Kant conceives of the demand to leave the state of nature as a prescription of reason. However, reason does not prescribe it as a means to something else we want, such as safety, happiness, or a maximum of freedom, but as a categorical command.

II. Kant on the State of Nature

In order to talk about the importance of avoiding anarchy, Kant—like the thinkers of his time—uses a state-of-nature scenario. Unlike Hobbes, however, Kant does not believe that the state of nature would necessarily be a war of all against all, a condition in which life is “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.”[358] According to Kant, it is not necessarily the case that a state of nature would be marked by hostility or violence, or “as Hobbes puts it, a bellum omnium contra omnes.”[359] Instead, it is always possible that violence might break out, since there is no authority capable of settling disputes: “It should be called only a status belli omnium contra omnes, a condition of injustice; a legal condition ... in which the determining and deciding of what is to be law can occur no otherwise than by violence.”[360] Unlike Hobbes, who believed that even in his time there were areas in the world that were in the state of nature,[361] Kant does not believe that the state of nature ever was an actual situation; he conceives ofit merely as a concept of reason: “the status naturalis does not exist at all, and never has; it is a mere Idea of reason.”[362]

The problem arises in the first place, according to Kant, because human beings have an “unsociable sociability.”[363] Human beings have a predisposition to seek society, but also a disposition to compare themselves to others, and to try to be superior.[364] If this “crooked wood ... [of which] the human being is made”[365] stayed by itself, it would “grow stunted, crooked and awry.” So, on the one hand, the development of one’s capacities can be achieved “only in society,” but, on the other, humans’ “own inclinations make it so that they can not long subsist next to another in wild freedom.”[366] Thus, even in the state of nature, human beings would not necessarily live in solitude, but might form associations with other human beings.

Kant distinguishes human circumstances of three kinds:[367] a solitary state of nature, a social state of nature, and a state in a civil society under a government and coercive laws. Kant developed this account based on Gottfried Achenwall’s work, which he used repeatedly as the textbook for his lectures on natural law. Whereas Achenwall contrasts the state of nature to a social state, for Kant “in the state of nature, too, there can be societies.(e.g., conjugal, paternal, domestic societies in general, as well as many others).”[368] However, there would be no law or enforceable norms of distributive justice in the state of nature: “A condition that is not rightful, that is, a condition in which there is no distributive justice, is called a state of nature (status naturalis).” Kant defines “distributive justice” here as “what is the decision of a court in a particular case in accordance with the given law under which it falls, that is, what is laid down as right.”[369]

What are missing in the state of nature are therefore the three authorities that Kant regards as necessary for a rightful state.[370] A state of nature lacks a universal lawmaker, a judge that can apply the law, and a regent or police force that can enforce the law. In the state of nature “there is need, that is to say, for a universal legislation that establishes right and wrong for everyone, a universal power that protects everyone in his right, and a judicial authority that restores the injured right.”[371] The danger of violence in the state of nature arises because, without the three state authorities, everyone is entitled to judge for himself what is right, and there is no way to arbitrate disputes or rule our predation: “Now it is left to the judgement of every individual man, what he will acknowledge to be right or wrong, and he is therefore able to infringe even the freedom of another without hindrance.”[372] As a result, human beings “can never be secure against violence from one another, since each has its own right to do what seems right and good to it.”[373]

The conclusion Kant draws from this analysis is that one should leave the state of nature, and enter a civil condition under the three authorities: “when you cannot avoid living side by side with all others, you ought to leave the state of nature.”[374] But why?

III. The Incentive to Leave the State of Nature

There is a sharp divide in the Kant literature surrounding Kant’s political philosophy concerned with what is known as the “independence thesis.”[375] Some scholars argue that Kant’s legal and political philosophy is independent of his moral philosophy in that Kant provides reasons for why one should form a civil society that are independent of his moral philosophy. While Kant argues that the moral philosophy relies completely on a priori grounding,[376] he seems to provide empirical reasons for someone to leave the state of nature.[377]

Kant says, for instance, that human beings “are compelled by need”[378] to leave the state of nature, and this seems to be a very plausible claim in its own right, independently of Kant’s arguments. The state of nature as Kant describes it is a condition in which one’s life is in danger. Because of the threat of violence, one can also not develop one’s capacities fully, and one’s freedom to carry out one’s plans is severely restricted. So, if one wants the “enhancement of external freedom,”[379] or even basic safety, it is prudent to leave the state of nature and submit to the coercive laws of a civil state.

The strongest textual support for this reading is in Kant’s Toward Perpetual Peace. There, he says that the “problem of establishing a state . is soluble even for a nation of devils.”[380] By “devils” here he means beings with purely self-seeking inclinations, and his claim is that, even if one has a multitude of thoroughly selfish beings, “nature comes to the aid ... precisely through those self-seeking inclinations ... and the human being is constrained to become a good citizen.”[381] Kant’s argument that even selfish beings should enter a state is that they need laws for their self-preservation.

Kant describes the task of forming a state as follows:

Given a multitude of rational beings all of whom need universal laws for their preservation but each of whom is inclined covertly to exempt himself from them, so to order this multitude and establish their constitution that, although in their private dispositions they strive against one another, these yet so check one another that in their public conduct the result is the same as if they had no such evil dispositions.[382]

This evidence suggests that Kant bases the claim that one should leave the state of nature not on any distinctive moral considerations, but that the reason to form a state is a “Hobbesian prudential account.”[383] Not only would his legal philosophy be independent from his moral philosophy, but more importantly it would not need any further assumptions, such as the Categorical Imperative, or a metaphysically ambitious account of freedom in order to ground political normative claims.

If this is correct, however, then Kant’s argument that one should leave the state of nature would depend only on what he would call a “hypothetical imperative.”[384] On this view, one should avoid anarchy, and leave the state of nature, if one wants to increase one’s external freedom (or secure one’s self-preservation, etc.). It is then an empirical question[385] whether everyone has this desire, and whether it is the overriding desire for everyone. For instance, if one is faced with a choice of a comfortable life in servitude, or a dangerous journey through the desert that might give one freedom eventually, would everyone choose to enhance her or his external freedom? The argument would also be contingent upon circumstances. There could be situations in which one perceives a weakness in one’s enemy, and where it would be advantageous to strike first, rather than subject oneself to laws that protect one’s enemy as well. But even if one could assume that all human beings have one particular, highest, and overriding desire (such as for freedom, or self-preservation), the command to avoid anarchy “would still be only contingent”[386] and not an absolute command.

However, even if the empirical evidence can ground a plausible case for the Hobbesian prudential account, there is textual evidence that Kant has something stronger in mind. In the same work in which he seems to advance a prudential justification for leaving the state of nature, Toward Perpetual Peace, Kant states explicitly that the injunction to leave the state of nature is “a principle of moral politics,” and that “this principle is not based upon prudence but upon duty”[387] and that this principle is characterized by “unconditional necessity.”[388] He views a foundation on empirical grounds as “uncertain,”[389] and puts forth “a politics is cognizable a priori,”[390] by which he means that “the human being’s own reason makes it a duty for him”[391] to exit the state of nature.

But how exactly does reason do this, and why does the duty to leave the state of nature follow a priori?

IV. The Duty to Leave the State of Nature

Kant holds that it is not just prudent to avoid anarchy and form a law-governed state, but that it is a duty to do so. A duty is something that one ought to do even if one does not want to do it: “Duty is that action to which someone is bound.”[392] A duty therefore expresses an obligation, or a necessitation; i.e., an obligation “makes necessary an action that is subjectively contingent and thus represents the subject as one that must be constrained (necessitated) to conform with the rule.”[393] Since an obligation often goes against what one wants to do, it is expressed by an imperative, and since it is not conditioned upon a desire or end one wants to produce, realize, or achieve, it is a categorical imperative: “Obligation is the necessity of a free action under a categorical imperative of reason.”[394] A categorical imperative does not derive from any end that one might seek because of a desire: “A categorical (unconditional) imperative is one that represents an action as objectively necessary and makes it necessary not indirectly, through the representation of some end that can be attained by the action.”[395] If one abstracts from all desires and ends, however, only the form of law remains: “The categorical imperative, which as such only affirms what obligation is, is: act upon a maxim that can also hold as a universal law.”[396]

Kant argues that these notions of duty, obligation, and categorical imperative “are common to both parts of the Metaphysics of Morals,”[397] to ethics as well as the political demand to leave the state of nature. He states the supreme principle of ethics as: “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.”[398] And he states the “principle of right” as: “So act that you can will that your maxim should become a universal law (whatever the end may be).”[399] So, Kant believes that there is one supreme law that expresses the essence of obligation, whether it be such political obligations as the duty to leave anarchy, or moral obligations: “Within this universal law are comprehended both legal and ethical laws.”[400]

There is, however, an important difference between ethical and juridical laws, according to Kant, but it does not lie so much in the content of the law itself but rather in the way in which one is bound to follow the law. Kant distinguishes the law that says what is commanded from one’s motive for following this law:

In all lawgiving ... there are two elements: first, a law, which represents an action that is to be done as objectively necessary, that is, which makes the action a duty; and second, an incentive, which connects a ground for determining choice to this action subjectively with the representation of the law.[401]

In ethics, one should not just do the right thing, according to Kant, but also do it simply because it is right.[402] But a legal rule demands that one engage in some outwardly observable behavior—e.g., stop at a red traffic light—although it does not demand that you do so out of a particular motive:

All lawgiving can therefore be distinguished with respect to the incentive.That lawgiving which makes an action a duty and also makes this duty the incentive is ethical. But that lawgiving which does not include the incentive of duty in the law and so admits an incentive other than the idea of duty itself is juridical.”[403]

But for juridical and ethical duties there is the same supreme law that declares that an action is a duty: “a categorical imperative is a law that either commands or prohibits, depending upon whether it represents as a duty the commission or omission of an action.”[404]

But how could there be a law that commands independently of what one desires, and why should one think that there really is such a law? The first question concerns the source of the supreme laws of duty (cf. Section V), the second question its justification (cf. sections VI and VII). I shall pursue these questions before trying to explain why the law also, on Kant’s view, commands one to avoid anarchy and form a law-governed state (cf. Section VIII).

V. The Source of Obligation

Kant rejected desires and inclinations as sources of duty because they can only provide prudential and contingent foundations for a command to avoid anarchy. Desires do not ground duties: “only practical reason ... can do that,”[405] and reason generates duties in a way that its principle “is given a priori by pure reason.”[406] What does it mean to say that pure reason gives a principle, and that it does so a priori? How does Kant conceive of the origin or source of the principle of duty? The idea is that a moral command is something “our own.faculty.provides out of itself.”[407] Independently of what one desires, or how one actually deliberates, one’s own reason prescribes “a universal law which we call the moral law.”[408]

Kant does not conceive of identifying the moral law as a matter of discovering any sort of independent reality—of a world of, say, Platonic universals. The moral law thus cannot be discerned by means of “any intuition, either pure or empirical.”[409] Rather, “reason.with complete spontaneity.makes its own order according to ideas.according to which it even declares actions to be necessary.”[410] Reason prescribes duties independently of and prior to experience, “as soon as we draw up maxims of the will for ourselves”[411]—in short, a priori.

Kant calls the source of the law of duty “autonomy,” or the “law-giving of human reason.”[412] In his theoretical philosophy, Kant argues that reason provides out of itself a priori laws that govern the function of our cognitive faculty, and he argues that practical reasoning about what one is obligated to do incorporates an a priori constitutive principle of reason with respect to our desires: “the understanding is the one that contains the constitutive principles a priori for the faculty of cognition.; for the faculty of desire it is reason, which is practical without the mediation of any sort of pleasure.”[413]

Kant’s alternative is, therefore, that the law originates directly from one’s own reason. This does not mean that the law is innate, in the sense that God, “an implanted sense[,] or who knows what tutelary nature[,] whispers to it.”[414] A law that was implanted in us by God or by evolution or some other aspect of nature would not be strictly necessary. If moral laws or obligations were based on some contingent feature of our existence, they would, Kant maintains, “lack the necessity that is essential to their concept.” They would merely have, at best, a “subjective necessity, arbitrarily implanted in us,”[415] but not an absolute necessity.

If, for instance, our sense of morality were a product of cultural evolution, we would have a very different conception of moral requirements if we had evolved under different circumstances. Imagine two tribes, one of which has developed under conditions of famine for thousands of years, while another has lived in a region that is prone to tsunamis. The first tribe might have survived because its members had adopted a rule calling for them to share food and to assist others more generally. The second tribe might have survived because its members had adopted a rule enjoining: “Run first, then come back for survivors.” The rules of each tribe might be deeply ingrained, and psychologically each rule might appear to the members of the tribe accepting it as a necessary command. But, in fact, on the story envisioned here, the commands endorsed by both tribes are historical in origin, and thus contingent. A law can be innate without being strictly necessary.

If Kant’s view is not based on empirical, historical, or biological considerations, it is also not based on an ambitious metaphysics. He does not envision obligation as based on a non-natural, supersensible property. The foundation of duty as he understands it is “mixed with no anthropology, theology, physics, or hyperphysics and still less with occult qualities (which could be called hypophysical).”[416] Rather, he argues, moral commands are the spontaneous but necessary products of our reason, a way our reason necessarily functions pre-consciously.

VI. The Conditional Argument

Why should one think that human beings possess a faculty that immediately and spontaneously prescribes necessary duties? Kant gives two arguments in favor of the autonomy of reason. The first one is a conditional argument: only autonomy can yield unconditional obligation. By itself, the argument only shows that “if duty is a concept that is to contain significance and real lawgiving for our actions it can be expressed only in categorical imperatives.” But this strategy leaves open the question whether “there really is such an imperative,”[417] and Kant gives a second argument in order to support belief in the reality of the supreme law of duty.

The first argument builds on the idea that we hold duties to be necessary and universal:

Everyone must grant that a law, if it is to hold ... as a ground of obligation, must carry with it absolute necessity; that, for example, the command ‘thou shalt not lie’ does not hold only for human beings.[418]

At first, this is just an assumption about our ordinary beliefs, but as such it has received backing from empirical science.[419] The second step of the argument is the claim that experience can never yield conclusions marked by strict universality and absolute necessity.[420] Only a priori judgments can feature these qualities—as for instance, the analytic judgment that all bachelors are unmarried. If a statement is necessary and universal, it must be an a priori proposition: “Necessity and strict universality are.secure indications of an a priori cognition.”[421]

Conversely, Kant argues that “all possible”[422] groundings of duty other than “the fitness of. [the will’s] maxims for its own giving of universal laws” would yield “heteronomy.”[423] And heteronomy cannot ground unconditional obligation: “heteronomy of choice, on the other hand, not only does not ground any obligation at all but is instead opposed to the principle of obligation.”[424] But why does Kant believe that all alternative theories yield heteronomy, and why does he think that heteronomy cannot ground obligation?

Regarding the first question, Kant argues that any alternative theory ultimately depends upon a desire as the reason a certain rule is prescribed:[425] (i) Suppose one assumes that moral laws come from society, then one still needs a desire to fit into this society and be rewarded in order for those laws to be applicable to oneself. (ii) Or suppose one believes that moral laws are ultimately based on our sentiments. In this case, one has obviously granted that morality is based on feelings and desires.[426] (iii) Kant even argues that a non-natural moral realism, according to which moral requirements are (non-natural) moral properties that are part of the fabric of the world, would ultimately be based on desires. His reason is that all knowledge begins with the senses.[427] This is one of the main results of his Critique of Pure Reason. We do not have an intellectual intuition that could intuit non-natural properties:

we cannot cook up … a single object with any new and not empirically given property … Thus we are not allowed to think up any sort of new original forces, e.g., an understanding that is capable of intuition of its object without sense.[428]

So, in order to detect non-natural value properties, one would need some kind of sensibility. Since one could not discover non-natural properties with one’s five senses, the only remaining available way for one to detect them would by means of a feeling.[429] But if a feeling is the foundation of a rule, then “it would, strictly speaking, be nature that gives the law.”[430] Since nature rules our feelings and desires, our reason would not give its own law as in the case of autonomy, but would receive the law from outside itself—and this is heteronomy.

Heteronomy cannot yield obligation, according to Kant, because the feelings and desires that are basic, on his view, to heteronomous approaches to moral judgment are constantly in flux: people’s feelings and desires vary over time, and one person’s feelings and desires differ from those of others. Thus, these feelings and desires “can never be assumed to be universally directed at the same objects”;[431] any principles based upon them would “be very different in different people.”[432] But even if there were something that everyone wants all of the time, any command based upon a universal desire would still be conditioned and contingent.

Wherever an object of the will has to be laid down as the basis for prescribing the rule that determines the will, there the rule is none other than heteronomy; the imperative is conditional, namely: if or because one wills this object, one ought to act in such or such a way; hence it can never command ... categorically.[433]

Desires are contingent and relative, and cannot ground a necessarily and universally binding law. However, so far the argument has only been conditional:

By explicating the generally received concept of morality we showed only that an autonomy of the will unavoidably.lies at its basis. Thus whoever holds morality to be something and not a chimerical idea without any truth must also admit the principle of morality brought forward.[434]

VII. The Unconditional Argument

Kant recognizes that an additional argument is needed to show “that there really is such an imperative.”[435] He does not claim to be able to demonstrate why the human mind prescribes the moral law to human beings: “all human insight is at an end as soon as we have arrived at basic powers or basic faculties.”[436] But he believes that he can show that reason really does prescribe this law. If experience cannot yield necessity,[437] but if he can show that the law is necessary, then it must be independent of experience; it must be a priori: “We can become aware of pure practical laws.by attending to the necessity with which reason prescribes them to us and to the setting aside of all empirical conditions to which reason directs us.”[438]

Kant presents a thought experiment in order to show that we are aware of the necessity of morality. He envisions a case in which no desire speaks in favor of the morally right action, but in which one’s desires favor the immoral alternative. Kant invites us to inquire of someone

whether, if his prince demanded, on pain of ... immediate execution, that he give false testimony against an honorable man whom the prince would like to destroy under a plausible pretext, he would consider it impossible to overcome his love of life, however great it may be.[439]

We can easily structure the example in a way designed to ensure that no desire speaks in favor of refusing to give false testimony. So: the agent has a powerful position at court, and would like to retain this position; he loves his life and family; he does not believe in an afterlife; he does not believe that any good will come from his inaction because someone else will give the false testimony if he does not; and so forth. Even if one construes the thought experiment in this way, the agent still can be envisioned as believing that giving false testimony would be morally wrong, and that he should refuse the prince’s request: “he is aware that he ought to do it.”[440] Even if no desire speaks for an action, it can still be perceived as necessary.

Kant does not rest his argument on our sense that the moral command is necessary, though. Rather, he uses our sense of what we ought to do to establish that we are justified in believing that we are free: “He judges, therefore, that he can do something because he is aware that he ought to do it and cognizes freedom within him, which, without the moral law, would have remained unknown to him.”[441] Freedom, here, is the ability to act independently of one’s desires, and if no desire inclines one to make a morally required choice but one nonetheless has a sense that one can act morally, then one has a sense that one is free, even if he “would perhaps not venture to assert whether he would . [make the moral choice] or not.”[442] In this context, freedom is assumed to be in some way causally efficacious—it should be able to move an agent towards the moral action. Kant agrees with Hume that “the concept of causality brings with it that of laws.”[443] The content of the moral law cannot be based upon desires, because the thought experiment excludes all desires as motives of the moral action. Therefore, Kant argues, only the form of the law remains, and freedom is the metaphysical ground or the “ratio essendi”[444] of the Categorical Imperative. Again, this is the same for the moral and the political law:

Since all obligation also rests on freedom itself, and has its ground therein ... Professor Kant calls all moral laws ... laws of freedom, and includes thereunder the aforementioned leges justi et honesti.inasmuch as they impose on the action the restrictive condition of fitness to be a universal law.[445]

Thus, every moral requirement, every obligation, rests ultimately on a command issued by one’s own reason: “The reason is that we know our own freedom (from which all moral laws, and so all rights as well as duties proceed) only through the moral imperative.”[446] And any duty I have to another being ultimately rests on a duty to follow the moral law enunciated by my own reason:

For I can recognize that I am under obligation to others only insofar as I at the same time put myself under obligation, since the law by virtue of which I regard myself as being under obligation proceeds in every case from my own practical reason; and in being constrained by my own reason, I am also the one constraining myself.[447]

Moral and juridical laws alike are grounded in the autonomy of reason: the “ground of obligation. rests, as has been sufficiently shown, solely on the autonomy of reason itself.”[448] But recall that legal duties only demand the “conformity.of an action with law, irrespective of the incentive to it” and trace the “legality (lawfulness)” ofan outward behavior, whereas ethical laws also demand that one act from a certain incentive, and trace the “morality” of an action.[449] The difference is relevant in practice to the ways in which a victim can claim a right from another. In both cases, the obligation arises from the agent’s own reason. However, in ethics the victim can claim a right by reminding the agent of his duty to follow the law of the agent’s own reason:

the other, having a right to do so, confronts the subject with his duty, i.e., the moral law by which he ought to act. If this confrontation makes an impression on the agent, he determines his will by an Idea of reason, creates through his reason that conception of his duty which already lay previously within him, and is only quickened by the other, and determines himself according to the moral law.[450]

This is different from the legal case. Although the juridical law, “so act externally that the free use of your choice can coexist with the freedom of everyone in accordance with a universal,” is “indeed a law that lays an obligation on me,”[451] and is “based on everyone’s consciousness of obligation,” it “cannot be appealed to as an incentive to determine his choice.”[452] One is justified in coercing the other into fulfilling his obligation: “there is connected with right.an authorization to coerce someone who infringes upon it.”[453] This is because what is wrong infringes the political law of freedom, and coercion removes what is hindering that which is commanded by the political law. It is justified by “hindering a hindrance of freedom.”[454] However, the victim does not claim her right by reminding the agent of his duty, even though the state itself is, on Kant’s view, justified in using coercion:

Thus when it is said that a creditor has a right to require his debtor to pay his debt, this does not mean that he can remind the debtor that his reason itself puts him under obligation to perform this; it means, instead, that coercion which constrains everyone to pay his debts can coexist with the freedom of everyone, including that of debtors, in accordance with a universal external law. Right and authorization to use coercion therefore mean one and the same thing.[455]

In the legal case, too, any obligation is grounded in the autonomy of the agent as a pre-conscious, necessary lawgiving of one’s own reason. The difference to the ethical case is merely that the law does not require that one act from a particular motive, only that one do the right thing.

This difference explains Kant’s statements about a “nation of devils.”[456] Kant’s point is not that beings with selfish desires justify the need to found a state on these desires. Rather, he is concerned here with the way in which one can motivate beings who know what is right, but are not motivated to do the right thing, into following their own reason. The initial problem is that, in order to establish the right constitution of a state, “many assert it would have to be a state of angels because human beings, with their self-seeking inclinations, would not be capable of such a sublime form of constitution.” The passage addresses a motivational problem. The devils already know what the right constitution of a state is in virtue of their “understanding.” However, they lack the motivation to form a state, and it is this problem that must be “soluble even for a nation of devils.” Kant’s answer to this problem is to use coercion, in order to “so order this multitude ... as if they had no such evil dispositions.”[457]

But how does Kant get from the autonomy of reason, and its law, to the command to leave the state of nature? As the “nation of devils” passage makes clear, it is one thing for the supreme law of obligation not to be based upon prudential considerations, but it is another thing to determine why one should be motivated to abide by it, and so to leave the state of nature. How does Kant explain the need to avoid anarchy?

VIII. The Duty to Leave the State of Nature

The grounding and justification of the highest law of obligation means that a human being is under this law even in the state of nature. So, even in a state of nature an agent knows what the principle of obligation declares to be morally right and just. Accordingly, “the state of nature need not, just because it is natural, be a state of injustice,”[458] and “in the state of nature, too, there can be societies compatible with rights.”[459] Even in terms of property rights, the law that governs obligation is already known in the state of nature: “in terms of their form, laws concerning what is mine or yours in the state of nature contain the same thing that they prescribe in the civil condition.”[460] Kant even argues that this must be the case, for only autonomy can ground any obligation at all (see above).

There are passages in which Kant seems to put forth a hypothetical reason for leaving the state of nature. Kant says about a subject: “unless it wants to renounce any concepts of right, the first thing it has to resolve upon is the principle that it must leave the state of nature,”[461] and that human beings accept the coercive powers of a state “so that they may enjoy what is laid down as right.”[462]

These statements can be read as offering a hypothetical reason why one should avoid anarchy: if one wants to life in a rightful condition, one should leave the state of nature. But Kant does not, in fact, postulate a desire to live in a rightful state, or a desire (because one fears for one’s safety or possession) to avoid anarchy. Rather, the command of duty holds a priori, and this means that there is also an unconditioned command to bring it about: “‘You ought to enter this condition,’ holds a priori.”[463] One should leave the state of nature because only in this way is it possible to fulfill the command of duty. Even if one knows what is in accordance with duty, achieving it “can never be secure”[464] outside a rightful condition, and so, for Kant, outside a state. The reason, again, is that outside of a rightful condition there is no lawmaker, judge, nor police capable of ensuring that justice is achieved:

It is therefore necessary, as soon as men come close to exercising their reciprocal freedom, that they leave the status naturalis, to come under a necessary law, a status civilis; there is need, that is to say, for a universal legislation that establishes right and wrong for everyone, a universal power that protects everyone in his right, and a judicial authority that restores the injured right, or dispenses so-called justitia distributiva (suum cuique tribuit).”[465]

Even in the state of nature, two tribespeople could agree that a just border to their domain is the stream that divides their territories. However, there is no lawmaker, such as a land registry, to lay down who owns the land. Furthermore, if there is a dispute, because the stream dried out in a drought, or it changed its course in a flood, there is no judge to arbitrate what is right in accordance with the law, and there is no police force to see that justice is done. So, the command to leave the state of nature is part of the command of duty. One should abide by laws that one could will to be universal, and, in order to achieve this, one should avoid anarchy.

If this interpretation is correct, then there is a clear difference between Kant’s account of why one should leave the state of nature and the accounts of Hobbes and Locke.

In contrast to Hobbes, life in Kant’s state of nature is not necessary “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.”[466] One might live in a small community, and not have much interaction with other tribes. There is not automatically a war of all against all.[467] There are important similarities between Kant and Hobbes in that, for Hobbes, too, there are laws in the state of nature, for instance, to seek peace, and to arrange one’s liberty in such a way that others grant one the same liberty one grants them.[468] However, there is no need to think that the laws Hobbes envisions as obtaining in the state of nature are more than Kantian “hypothetical imperatives.” Hobbes calls the law of reason a precept “by which a man is forbidden to do, that, which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same; and to omit, that, by which he thinketh it may be best preserved.”[469] If one wants self-preservation, and peace, one should give up certain liberties and leave the state of nature. In contrast to Kant’s, Hobbes’s account is purely prudential.

Kant’s account seems close to Locke’s. For Locke, too, has argued that in the state of nature there is a law of reason, the “law of nature.” Like Kant’s, Locke’s law of nature prescribes what is needed to protect “life, liberty, and property.”[470] However, scholars debate what exactly the foundation and content of this law is.[471] In a voluntarist fashion, it might trace the will of God, and only be binding because it is God’s command. Even if it is something that human reason can discern by itself, it seems to track objective moral truths—concerned with, say, what is good for human beings. Kant’s account differs importantly from Locke’s in this regard. Obligation is not based on the will of God, but is grounded in the autonomy of reason.[472] But it is not only the binding force but also the content of the moral law that is prescribed by reason alone and does not track any sort of independent truth. Furthermore, Kant’s account is not based on human reason per se; he argues that his principle is valid for all rational beings, even non-human ones. Finally, Kant and Locke seem to differ on the question whether the state of nature actually existed. Locke believes that it once obtained in the real world,[473] while Kant holds that it is only a thought experiment designed to clarify the justification of coercion.

Kant argues that—whatever our desires, circumstances, or human nature might consist in— there is a direct, unconditional command to avoid anarchy.

8. Barbarians in the Agora American Market Anarchism, 1945–2011

J. Martin Vest

I. Introduction

In the winter of 1949—1950 a handful of friends gathered in the home of Murray Newton Rothbard, a graduate student in economics at Columbia University and a proponent of limited government and laissez-faire. They had convened to indulge a favorite pastime—arguing—and the conversation drifted to the ethical legitimacy of the state when one of those in attendance confronted Rothbard with a particularly trenchant question. If police and courts can be established through majority fiat, he asked, “why not infrastructure or even collectivized industry?” When the gathering broke up in the early hours of the morning, Rothbard found himself still mulling the question, unable to answer it in any way congenial to his existing beliefs. Shortly after, Rothbard decided that the state would, for purposes of moral consistency, have to go.[474] Rothbard’s epiphany and the questions it provoked set the course of his activism and scholarship for the rest of his life; and, from then until his death in 1995, he worked tirelessly to spread his vision of a stateless political order, one in which government functions would devolve on freely competing individuals and firms and in which security, courts, and even law would be provided on the open market.

The relationship of Rothbard’s vision to the broader terrain of political thought has long caused trouble for the taxonomist of ideas. In this essay, I shift focus away from Rothbard and American libertarianism to detail a longer history of “market anarchism”[475]—a strain of thought of which Rothbard was just one of many brilliant expositors. This lineage, beginning with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the American individualist anarchists like Benjamin Tucker, sharply criticized “capitalism” while affirming the rightness and efficacy of private property, trade, competition, and, in some cases, even corporations or “trusts.” The entire sweep of anarchist intellectual history, however, cannot be shoehorned into the “market” mold. As we will see, anarchists like Peter Kropotkin had, by the beginning of the twentieth century, jettisoned that framework altogether, insisting on the meaninglessness of private property, scarcity, and competition. Kropotkin and other market-skeptical anarchists profoundly influenced twentieth-century anarchism. As a result, market-oriented anarchism—despite its long history—contrasts sharply in key respects with more recent iterations of anarchist ideology.

While I argue for the historical continuity and distinctness of market anarchism as a strain of political thought, it is not my intention to hypostatize that label or any other, especially given that many of the market anarchists under analysis here recognized no such descriptor. “Market anarchism” functions here as an analytical imposition on the historical record rather than an innocent reflection of it. My approach is pragmatic. Labels bundle some ideas together and exclude others, simultaneously facilitating and foreclosing on analytical possibilities. This essay employs market anarchism as (in the well-worn language of the historian’s cliché) an “analytical lens.” My intent is not to maintain that only adherents of these ideas qualify as proponents of “real” anarchism, nor to chase any anarchists, living or dead, out of the family circle.

II. Proudhon and the Individualists

Anarchists have claimed as their own such early modern figures as Gerard Winstanley and William Godwin, but the first figure to use “anarchist” self-referentially was a radical book printer from Besançon named Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Proudhon’s thought, contrary to some conceptions, owed much to liberal bourgeois market ideals. First as a youth in the bucolic French Jura in the 1810s and 1820s and then as a wandering journeyman printer, Proudhon evolved a nearly mystical love of the French countryside and its people—a love which was offset by an equally intense suspicion of the centralization and hierarchy of large cities like Paris. Importantly, Pierre-Joseph’s work as a printer also led to his engagement with the political and social thought of the prior two centuries and his interaction with the utopian socialist Charles Fourier—experiences which pushed him to ruminate on the political and social problems of the day.[476]

In 1840, Proudhon published his first major work, What Is Property? He answered the titular question with a single word—“theft.” For Proudhon, the domination of others was no more legitimate an enterprise for agents of the state than it was for proprietors, and he saw scarce difference between the claims of the monarch and those of the landlord. “The proprietor, the robber, the hero, the sovereign—for all these titles are synonymous—imposes his will as law, and suffers neither contradiction nor control; that is, he pretends to be the legislative and the executive power at once.” Governments, at their very core, institutionalized domination of man by man, and for that reason were illegitimate. In an epoch-shattering (and often quoted) passage Proudhon imagined a conversation with one of his readers in which he pointed toward a solution.

What is to be the form of government in the future? I hear some of my younger readers reply: ‘Why, how can you ask such a question? You are a republican.’ ‘A republican! Yes; but that word specifies nothing. Res publica; that is, the public thing. Now, whoever is interested in public affairs—no matter under what form of government—may call himself a republican. Even kings are republicans.’—‘Well! you are a democrat?’—‘No.’—‘What! You would have a monarchy.’—‘No.’—‘A constitutionalist?’—‘God forbid!’—‘You are then an aristocrat?’—‘Not at all.’—‘You want a mixed government?’—‘Still less.’—‘What are you, then?’—‘I am an anarchist.’

If the state could not satisfy the Enlightenment’s demand of equality for all, it would have to go.[477]

Proudhon’s program, however, did not call for the suppression of the market but for its radical expansion, a process he called the “absorption of government by the economic organism.” To begin with, his stance on property was decidedly more nuanced than his flamboyant formula suggested, representing a ratcheting up of Lockean criteria, not their suspension. By “property,” he did not mean the individual occupancy, possession, and use of things but the abstract legal title which allowed men, in absentia, to exclude others from using them. With that type of property, he argued, came the possibility of economic accumulation in the form of ground rent as well as all the attendant social ills of economic inequality. More fundamentally, that kind of property established privileges unsustained by the claims of toil. The person who works an acre of land, whether he has rented it or homesteaded it, has properly mixed his labor with its soil and is the rightful owner of all the resulting benefits, including the improvements to the land. Ground rent represents a usurpation of this right by the landlord. In the case of agricultural production,

Proudhon believed, the answer to present pathologies was simple: the abolition of rent payments and devolution of land titles to those who “mixed their labor” with the soil. With rent payments abolished, the tendency toward accumulation would evaporate, making private property in land a benign institution. Under such circumstances, “you may, without the slightest apprehension, permit the proprietor to sell, transmit, alienate, circulate his property at will.” Conversely, Proudhon argued, schemes for nationalization or collectivization of the land were productive of government-grade mischief and, at any rate, would be resisted fiercely by the peasants.[478]

Agricultural property, Proudhon believed, lent itself readily to his individualistic propertarian anarchism. Industry, on the other hand, with its high capital requirements and its dramatic division of labor, presented a thornier set of problems, and here, Proudhon argued, “every industry, operation or enterprise, which by its nature requires the employment of a large number of workmen of different specialties, is destined to become a society or company of workers.” Collective ownership of the means of production, however, this was not, and these enterprises would be run on wholly contractual and market-oriented bases. In its dealings with the broader society the worker collective must swear off all “combinations” and submit to the “law of competition.” Within the company, all positions would be open to all workers, subject to “suitability of sex, age, skill, and length of employment.” Importantly, each worker’s pay would correspond to the “nature of [his or her] position, the importance of the talents, and the extent of responsibility” and each “shall participate in the gains and in the losses of the company, in proportion to his services.” Individual workers would be free to come and go, provided all accounts were settled.[479]

Proudhon exercised a profound, if relatively short-lived, influence over the direction of radical politics in Europe, but in the United States his ideas made a longer-lasting impact. In 1848 an American named Charles A. Dana heard Proudhon speak in the French National Assembly. Impressed with what he heard, Dana returned home to the United States and wrote a series of articles on Proudhon’s thought for the New York Tribune. Around the same time that Dana was introducing Proudhon to the American public, William B. Greene, son of Massachusetts postmaster Nathaniel Greene, published his own series of articles on Proudhonian banking and credit theory, eventually brought together and published in 1850 as a pamphlet entitled Mutual Banking. In subsequent years Greene lobbied the Massachusetts state legislature (unsuccessfully) to throw its weight behind mutual banking, and he also published several translations of Proudhon’s work in the radical press, including an excerpt from What Is Property?[480]

Greene’s Proudhonianism, however, was not the only strain of anti-statist thought vying for the attention of American radicals. For decades, a handful of American intellectuals had pushed the logic of Jeffersonian individualism all the way to its logical, anarchistic, conclusion. Josiah Warren, the father of American individualist anarchism, had participated in Robert Owen’s experimental commune at New Harmony, and had come away from the experience convinced of the importance of individual sovereignty in human affairs. Unlike most of the individualist anarchists and libertarians who have followed in his train, Warren not only rejected human relationships built on force, but even looked with suspicion on human “combinations” in general. He argued that “the only ground upon which man can know liberty, is that of disconnection, disunion, individuality.” Because of this belief, Warren rejected the institution of government on the grounds that it threw men into combinations which could only cause mischief. Lysander Spooner, a decade Warren’s junior, came to similar conclusions regarding the incompatibility of government and individual liberty by extending the natural rights arguments of Jefferson and others. According to this line of reasoning, consent was an ethical prerequisite for all interactions between human beings, including the establishment and maintenance of government. But if the “consent of the governed” meant anything at all, Spooner argued, it must mean the deliberate consent of every single individual subject to the state’s authority. No “government” as such could ever meet this requirement, so the state itself was illegal according to the canons of natural law. By the end of his life Greene—and his project of Proudhonian mutualism—had become closely associated with this American individualist milieu.[481]

Greene’s importation of Proudhon brought together two great streams of anti-state thought, but it was in the work of another Massachusetts native, Benjamin R. Tucker, that their fusion was fully realized. Born in South Dartmouth in 1854, Tucker developed an interest in individualist anarchism at an early age and met many of the tradition’s rainmakers while still in his teens. In 1874, he traveled to Europe to study Proudhon’s philosophy, and soon after returning to the United States published a full English translation of What Is Property? In 1881, Tucker embarked on the project that would be his most influential, an individualist anarchist newspaper, Liberty, which he described as a “journal brought into existence almost as a direct consequence of the teachings of Proudhon, ... which lives principally to emphasize and spread them.” As if to underscore the centrality of Proudhon to Liberty’s mission, the paper’s masthead carried a quotation from Proudhon: “Liberty: Not the Daughter but the Mother of Order.”[482]

The fusion of Proudhonian mutualism and American individualism effected in the pages of Liberty produced an anarchism paradoxically more comfortable with the operations of the market than either of its parent ideologies. American anarchism’s individualism—especially in the hands of Warren—had appeared at some points in danger of drifting off into demands for economic autarky, such was its distrust of social entanglements. From the very beginning, however, Proudhon’s influence in America tempered this hyper-individualism. In his Socialistic, Communistic, Mutualistic and Financial Fragments, for example, William Greene had emphasized the deeply social character of all human enterprises, arguing that “what we possess we owe partly to our own faculties, but mainly to the educational and material aid received by us from our parents, friends, neighbors, and other members of society.” Tucker’s peculiar amalgam of the two schools moved past this recognition of human interdependence to identify market institutions as the primary site for the reconciliation of individuals’ various wants. In defiance of anarchistic common sense, he insisted that wage labor was not slavery, but rather “a form of voluntary exchange,” and therefore “a form of liberty.” Tucker even stood at the ready to defend that institution most despised by turn-of-the-century progressives and radicals—the trust. Anarchism, he wrote, “discountenances all direct attacks on [trusts], all interference with them, all anti-trust legislation whatsoever.” On the contrary, “it regards industrial combinations as very useful whenever they spring into existence in response to demand created in a healthy body.”[483]

The differences of opinion between Tucker and his anarchist forebears on these matters owed much to a subtle shift in emphasis in libertarian theory effected by Tucker. For Proudhon, the world’s evils stemmed from hierarchies—those embedded in existing property relations as well as in governments. The remedy for hierarchy and its attendant social ills, he believed, was thoroughgoing equality. For Tucker, however, the battleground had shifted onto another set of paired opposites: monopoly and competition. By supporting monopolies in the issuance of money and credit, in access to land, through the levying of tariffs, and through the protection of intellectual property, Tucker argued, the state undermined the salutary effects of competition. A truly free market, he believed, not only would undermine the coercive potential of corporations and wage labor, but would also drive down the revenues to be made through usury, rent, and profit. Competition alone, Tucker argued, would deliver to the worker the full value of his labor, and only through competition could economic justice be achieved.[484]

In 1908, Benjamin Tucker’s bookstore and print shop burned to the ground, bringing an end to Liberty and to Tucker’s participation in anarchist agitation. With his wife and daughter, he relocated to France, where he spent most of the rest of his life before dying in 1939. Tucker’s retirement, however, signaled more than the conclusion of a single propagandist’s career. Liberty had come to serve as the rallying point for an entire movement, bringing together the centrifugal tendencies of American individualist anarchism through Tucker’s forceful rhetoric and uncompromising ideological consistency. Other individualist journals existed, but none could fill Liberty’s role as the unifying voice of American market anarchism. Had the movement been healthy it might have survived the loss of its flagship journal. But years of infighting over abstruse points of theory and a slow defection of anarchists to the ranks of state socialism had weakened the movement; with the disappearance of Liberty the remaining exponents of American market anarchism were scattered to the historical winds.[485]

III. Social Anarchism

Proudhon’s rejection of the economic and political status quo, his embrace of “anarchism,” and his pyrotechnic written works inspired European radicals, many of whom embraced him as a guiding star of their movement—at least initially. Generally, while these second- and third-generation anarchists retained Proudhon’s focus on statelessness as well as his rejection of “capitalism,” they quickly moved away from his orientation toward market mechanisms. Market anarchists (like their radical liberal cousins) have often argued for the co-terminousness of market and civil society and have often subsumed within “the market” all voluntary arrangements, but the language and logics of the market have their own historical specificity. The proponents of so-called “social anarchism” embraced conceptualizations of the free society quite at odds with ideas of property, trade, and competition, and their beliefs about the stateless future throw into relief the peculiarities of market anarchism.[486]

The social anarchist tradition has always registered a profound ambivalence about its own relationship with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. On one hand, its intellectual debt to him has been too substantial to ignore. The incendiary Mikhail Bakunin acknowledged Proudhon as “the master of us all,” while Peter Kropotkin, the pacific Russian prince turned libertarian communist, claimed that “Proudhon laid the foundations of anarchism.” As late as 1937, the anarcho-syndicalist Rudolph Rocker could describe him as “one of the most intellectually gifted and certainly the most many-sided writer of whom modern socialism can boast.” From the very beginning, however, anarchists and scholars of social anarchism harbored doubts about Proudhon’s relationship to that tradition. Proudhon, Bakunin wrote, “remained all his life an incorrigible idealist, immersed in the Bible, in Roman law and metaphysics. His great misfortune was that he had never studied the natural sciences or appropriated their method.” By the middle of the twentieth century, Proudhon-skepticism had evolved into outright rejection of his relevance. George Woodcock recalled that mid-century anarchists regarded Proudhon with “suspicion and condescension,” and in a 1996 essay, activist and author Larry Gambone admitted that he had neglected Proudhon’s works for decades because of Proudhon’s ill-repute among anarchists. Albert Meltzer’s Anarchism: Arguments For and Against argued emphatically that Proudhon was a mere precursor to anarchism who never “engaged in Anarchist activity or struggle” and who had been sullied by forays into parliamentary participation.[487]

Social anarchism’s alienation from its Proudhonian origins, however, had less to do with Proudhon’s coolness toward activism or his time as an agent of the state and much more to do with genuine ideological differences with his libertarian descendants. The anarchist thinkers following Proudhon increasingly emphasized the dialectical relationship between self and other, and the inherently “social” nature of individual liberty. Because of this, they moved further and further away from private property and the attendant institutions of contract and exchange. For Mikhail Bakunin, the means of production were to be collectivized. While conceding the necessity of management, he insisted that “the management of production need not be exclusively monopolized by one or several individuals. And the managers are not at all entitled to more pay.” Equality of wages aside, Bakunin maintained some of Proudhon’s emphasis on individual productivity, believing that the lazy or intransigent are “free to die of hunger or to live in the deserts or the forests among savage beasts.” Anyone wishing to partake in the benefits of society, however, “must earn his living by his own labor, or be treated as a parasite who is living on the labor of others.”[488]

It was in the hands of the anarcho-communists—and especially those of anarcho-communism’s most famous exponent, Peter Kropotkin—that economic calculation and market activity ceased to play any role at all in anarchist theory. In The Conquest of Bread, Kropotkin derided as antediluvian the assumption that individual contributions to the social product could be measured and proportionally remunerated.

No distinction can be drawn between the work of each man. Measuring the work by its results leads us to absurdity; dividing and measuring them by the hours spent on the work also leads us to absurdity. One thing remains: put the needs above the works, and first of all recognize the right to live, and later on, to the comforts of life, for all those who take their share in production.[489]

In addition to being impossible, Kropotkin believed, the calculation of value was unnecessary. Modern science and technology had finally conquered the age-old problem of economic scarcity and, if relieved from supplying the frivolous and wasteful demands of the middle classes, the fields and workshops of Europe and the United States could easily provide “well-being for all.” A few years of such abundance, Kropotkin predicted, would cause the world to exclaim: “Enough! We have enough coal and bread and raiment! Let us rest and consider how best to use our powers, how best to employ our leisure.” The problem of incentives, Kropotkin argued, would attenuate with the disappearance of “repugnant and unhealthy drudgery,” largely a symptom of the capitalist mode of production. In general, Kropotkin believed, the ostensibly natural human inclination toward self-interest was also an artifact of capitalist society. Rather, within human beings existed a natural predisposition to altruistic behavior, bred into them by eons of evolutionary forces which, he argued, selected for intra-species cooperation rather than competition. Men and women, therefore, generally need not be compelled to contribute to the common good by the threat of starvation, as even Bakunin believed.[490]

Finally, Kropotkin went so far in his rejection of market mechanisms as to cast doubt on the benefits of trade. He cautioned readers that he did not desire “all exchange to be suppressed, nor that each region should strive to produce that which will only grow in its climate by a more or less artificial culture.” He did, however, believe that “the theory of exchange, such as is understood to-day, is strangely exaggerated, that exchange is often useless and even harmful.” Longdistance trade between communities re-introduced the threat of market calculation with all of its attendant social ills. Far better, he believed, to limit one’s dealings to the local commune where need rather than profit dictated the allocation of resources).[491]

The first years of the twentieth century, as we have seen, were hard times for the individualists, but social anarchism was just coming into its own. In the years following 1900, there arose a novel (though not entirely new) emphasis within anarchism on the revolutionary potential of labor unions, an approach which met with greatest success in Spain. There the National Confederation of Labor (CNT) had by the 1930s come firmly under the control of anarchists of the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI); when the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, the CNT/ FAI lent its rifles to the cause of anti-fascism. More than that, it instituted anarchist measures in Republican-controlled territories and by 1937 three million people lived in rural anarchist collectives. In the cities, anarchists seized workshops and factories, with Barcelona’s entire industrial plant coming under worker control. The vicissitudes of war, however, buffeted the anarchist experiment. Supply shortages disrupted industry and with it the war effort, while the threat of Franco’s looming victory pushed the CNT/FAI into closer and closer collaboration with the Spanish Republican government—itself increasingly a puppet of its only international arms supplier, the Soviet Union.

On December 16, 1939, Pravda informed its Soviet readers that in Spain “the purging of the Trotskyists and Anarcho-syndicalists has begun; it will be conducted with the same energy with which it was conducted in the USSR.” By the middle of 1937, the Spanish experiment in anarchism was finished. Two years later, Franco’s forces defeated the Republicans and ended the Spanish Civil War. The meteoric rise and fall of Spanish syndicalism seemed to exhaust libertarian energies the world over, and, in the postwar period, anarchism’s appeal as a mass movement gave way to a global preoccupation with state socialisms of various stripes. Though they had held out a few decades longer, the collectivists found themselves consigned, just like their individualist cousins, to the dustbin of history. The eclipse of libertarian thought, however, was short-lived.[492]

IV. Rothbard and Market Anarchism

The market anarchist tradition in the United States lay dormant from 1908 until the arrival of Rothbard. Born in 1926 to immigrant parents, Rothbard came of age surrounded by communists and communist-sympathizers in New Deal-era New York. Encouraged in part by his father’s individualistic tendencies, he drifted into a stubborn opposition to the leftist milieu in which he had been raised, and by his early twenties had cast his lot with the libertarian wing of the Old Right, hungrily consuming the works of Albert Jay Nock, Isabel Patterson, Garet Garrett, and H. L. Mencken. By 1949, his explorations in the libertarian tradition had led him to reject the role of government altogether. The adherents of the postwar libertarian right, however, found themselves in a pitched—and hopeless—battle with the ascendant statist forces in their midst. The “New Right,” which coalesced in the 1950s around the intellectual nucleus of William F. Buckley’s National Review, nominally sought a fusion of three widely diverging strands of right-wing thought and activism: traditionalism, Old Right libertarianism, and anti-communism. In practice, though, the New Right rather swiftly evolved to prioritize anti-communism over all other commitments, with Buckley and others advocating dramatic expansion of government to meet the Soviet threat.[493]

Many erstwhile libertarians made their peace with the new dispensation, but Rothbard was not one of them, and by the early 1960s he found himself sidelined by the gatekeepers of conservative opinion. Just as libertarianism’s working relationship with conservatism devolved, Rothbard began casting about for new alliances, and he soon found them in the emergent New Left. Publications and interviews from the sixties feature Rothbard’s recurrent appeals for a left—right rapprochement along libertarian lines; and, by the end of the decade, efforts on behalf of such a rapprochement began to bear fruit. In May 1969, Rothbard participated in the formation of the Radical Libertarian Alliance, comprising both disaffected right-wingers like himself and elements of the anti-war left. The Libertarian Party emerged from these efforts three years later. American libertarianism, birthed as a kind of left deviationism from postwar conservatism, had come into its own as a political movement. By the early 1970s, Rothbard had started to distance himself from the “cultural leftism” which pervaded the libertarian movement, and in the 1980s he shifted decisively back to the right, forming alliances with the ascendant “paleoconservative” movement associated with Patrick Buchanan and others.[494]

Despite these shifting alliances, Rothbard’s basic program remained remarkably consistent throughout his decades as an expositor of the libertarian creed. At its foundation lay natural law, which he interpreted with Locke to mean that “every man has a property in his own person,” and that “this nobody has any right to but himself.”[495] From this, Locke and Rothbard conclude, it follows that the individual’s physical efforts, “the labour of his body and the work of his hands,” belong to him as well, and that “whatsoever that he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with and joined something to it that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.”[496] In Man, Economy and State Rothbard built on this framework by deducing the economic and political outline of a society which respected in full the natural rights of every individual, concluding that such circumstances would “[lead] to the property structure that is found in free-market capitalism.”[497]

Because the concepts of freely competing police agencies and courts are central to his libertarianism, it is worth describing Rothbard’s vision of these institutions in detail.[498] In the absence of government, he argued, insurance companies would establish private security services to protect subscribers from crime and to minimize indemnity payouts. While public-option police waste time and resources extracting justice for an abstract “society,” Rothbard believed, private police could dedicate themselves to protecting life and limb and restoring stolen property to its rightful owners. If (as would often be the case) the aggressing party had his own insurance policy and his own police, the altercation could precipitate violence between police forces. But, Rothbard insists, this would be “pointless and economically as well as physically self-destructive.” In order to avoid such disruptive and dangerous eventualities (which paying customers would never tolerate, at any rate), each security firm would necessarily “announce as a vital part of its service, the use of private courts or arbitrators to decide who is in the wrong.” In practice, each party would plead his case in his own court (which may be associated with his security company). In the not-unlikely event that each court finds in favor of its own client, the case is taken to a third court, agreed on by both firms ahead of time. Its decision would be final and enforceable. At each step in the process, individuals’ and firms’ cooperation would be impelled by the ancient tactic of ostracism, with intransigent parties risking their access to private courts in the future. Finally, law itself required no centralized planning according to Rothbard. Merchant courts, admiralty law, Anglo-Saxon common law, ancient Roman private law, and ancient Irish law, he points out, were all provided by decentralized “free market” judges who built reputations for expertly applying reason and precedent to concrete legal disputes.[499]

This program’s relationship to anarchism is complex, and Rothbard’s attitude toward the older tradition reflects some of his ambivalence about this relationship. Predictably enough, he rejected the anarcho-communist project in whole, finding in it not only economic error but also a dangerous commitment to irrationalism. But he also leveled sharp criticisms at the individualists like Spooner and Tucker. He found lacking, for example, Lysander Spooner’s faith in juries, insisting on the necessity of rationally derived libertarian law. Even more trenchant were his criticisms of the earlier individualists’ understanding of profit, rent, and interest. Both Proudhon and Josiah Warren subscribed to forms of the labor theory of value. To explain the persistence of these features of economic life, then, they turned in varying degree to the notion of monopoly, arguing that the state artificially props up the privileges of landlords, moneylenders, and bosses through force. Rothbard did not deny that state power represented a thumb on the scales of economic distribution, but he did reject the notion that rent, interest, or profit derived exclusively from state-propped privilege. Rather, he pointed toward time preference, and urged the world’s individualists to investigate another school of anti-state thought:

There is, in the body of thought known as ‘Austrian economics,’ a scientific explanation of the workings of the free market (and of the consequences of government intervention in that market) which individualist anarchists could easily incorporate into their political and social Weltanschauung. But to do this, they must throw out the worthless excess baggage of money-crankism and reconsider the nature and justification of the economic categories of interest, rent and profit.[500]

Not surprisingly, the deep disagreements between Rothbard and the anarchists, as well as his affinities with the liberal tradition from Locke to Ludwig von Mises, pushed the economist away from the label “anarchism.”[501] Early in his career, he even toyed with the neologism “nonarchist” as a descriptor for his brand of libertarianism. Despite these objections, Rothbard made peace with the term, and by the late 1960s he and his growing cadre of followers had come to call their brand of libertarianism “anarcho-capitalism.” This rhetorical gesture has caused consternation ever since, both in the camps of would-be fellow travelers who balk at alliances with “anarchists” as well as among adherents of older forms of anarchism who deny the relevance of Rothbard’s vision to their intellectual tradition.[502]

V. Left-Wing Market Anarchism

Like the postwar conservative movement with which it had parted ways, Rothbardian libertarianism proved vulnerable to deviationism, and beginning in the 1970s a number of competing visions sprung up to its left. This strain of thought, like Rothbardianism before it, belongs in large measure to the broad tradition of market anarchisms, but the left libertarians have been promiscuous in their intellectual appropriations. This tendency has made theirs an intellectually dynamic school of political thought, but has also placed some of them in tension with Rothbardian libertarianism and even the broader market anarchist milieu.

One of the earliest and most consistently market-oriented of the left libertarian deviationists was Samuel E. Konkin III. Born in Saskatchewan in 1947 and raised in Edmonton, Konkin first entered political activism as an undergraduate at the University of Alberta. There he served as head of the Young Social Credit League, an organization dedicated to forwarding the bizarre economic theories of the British engineer C. H. Douglas. By 1968, Konkin had discovered libertarianism and had joined the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter at the University of Wisconsin, where he was enrolled in a graduate program in chemistry. The following year, he traveled to YAF’s national convention as a delegate, met Rothbard and other luminaries of the nascent libertarian movement, and—along with all the other libertarians—was expelled from the convention. The episode etched in stone Konkin’s commitment to the libertarian cause.[503]

Konkin’s passage through the ideological straits of American libertarianism imparted to his thinking a profound affinity for the market. In the institutions of state and economy he located the two opposing dynamics of all human interaction—the coercive and the voluntary. Konkin believed that the negation of the state entailed nothing more nor less than the universalization of the market, and he accepted the broad outlines of Rothbard’s free-market account of security, courts, and law. Konkin dissented from Rothbardian orthodoxy, however, with regard to revolutionary praxis. Means, he believed, must be consistent with ends. Since anarchism sought the abolition of political mechanisms in favor of economic ones, it followed that the suitable means to attain that end were economic and not political. Accordingly, he was appalled by the founding of the Libertarian Party, and through the 1970s evolved a body of market anarchist ideas as an alternative to the political approach favored by mainstream libertarians.

In his 1980 New Libertarian Manifesto, Konkin limned the details of a program which he called “agorism.” In Konkin’s hands, un-coerced market activity expanded from the mere end of libertarian activism to its means. The underground economy, he argued, represented the germ of a new stateless society. If freed from the quasi-religious stigmas inculcated by government and its allies, black markets would attract investment, driving profits out of officially-sanctioned activities and depriving the state of revenue. Even more importantly, as the underground economy grew in size and complexity, investors could be expected to commit an increasing amount of resources to addressing security threats, especially those posed by state actors. This, Konkin believed, would give rise to the free-market security-insurance companies of libertarian theory, and would signal the beginning of the end of government.[504]

Another pioneer in market anarchism’s leftward shift was former Barry Goldwater speechwriter Karl Hess. Hess’s relationship with market anarchism began in 1968, when, after reading an essay by Murray Rothbard entitled “Confessions of a Right Wing Liberal,” he publicly cast aside his identity as a conservative and assumed the position of Washington editor of the new Libertarian Forum. In a March 1969 article, “The Death of Politics,” Hess showcased his embrace of Rothbardian market anarchism. “Laissez-faire capitalism, or anarchocapitalism,” he argued, “is simply the economic form of the libertarian ethic” and “encompasses the notion that men should exchange goods and services, without regulation, solely on the basis of value for value .... Economically, this system is anarchy, and proudly so.” Already underway, however, was a subtle shift in Hess’s thinking away from narrow economism and toward a more open-ended understanding of voluntary action. In a piece published two months later in Libertarian Forum, Hess wrote:

Libertarianism is a people’s movement and a liberation movement. It seeks the sort of open, non-coercive society in which the people, the living, free, distinct people may voluntarily associate, dis-associate, and, as they see fit, participate in the decisions affecting their lives ... It means people free collectively to organize the resources of their immediate community or individualistically to organize them ... Liberty means the right to shape your own institutions. It opposes the right of those institutions to shape you simply because of accreted power or gerontological status.

Hess’s emphasis on consent rather than any formal political or economic arrangement could prove troublesome to anarchists hoping for an established orthodoxy. “The market,” capacious enough to enfold all voluntary interactions, could include such ostensibly anti-market institutions as collective ownership and participatory democracy.[505]

Despite its efflorescence within the libertarian movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, left market anarchism remained a muted tendency until the 1990s, when a resurgent interest in leftwing anarchism occurred in libertarian circles. These latter-day expressions of left market anarchism have included a diverse range of positions and emphases, but a broad consensus of sorts is discernible. No publication has been more influential in highlighting and forging that consensus than a 2011 collection of essays, Markets Not Capitalism, edited by Gary Chartier and Charles W. Johnson. In their introduction to the Karl Hess-dedicated volume, the editors argue that the left market anarchists adopt the historical left’s criticisms of “persistent poverty, ecological destruction, radical inequalities of wealth, and concentrated power in the hands of corporations, bosses, and landlords.” They dissent, however, from the mainstream left’s attribution of these problems to private property or market mechanisms. Absent state interference, they argue, markets evidence distinct “centrifugal” tendencies, undermining inequalities of wealth through pervasive and withering competition.[506]

Kevin Carson’s essay “Economic Calculation in the Corporate Commonwealth” elaborates one of the most sophisticated of these arguments. Rothbard had earlier pointed out that Mises’s response to the “economic calculation problem” demonstrated the limits of central planning when engaged in not only by states but also by corporations. Because corporations internalize transactions and thus insulate themselves from the pricing mechanism, Rothbard argued, they too are subject to all the calculative inefficiencies of governments. Carson builds on Rothbard’s argument by expanding the logic of Hayek’s slightly different criticism of intervention, which argued that markets capitalize on the dispersed information of individual actors. When applied to the logic of the firm, Carson points out, Hayek’s emphasis on dispersed knowledge casts severe doubt on the effectiveness of hierarchical organizations to gather and deploy information. A free market which did not prop up poorly performing corporations, then, would not only whittle down to size the mega-corporations of the “statist quo” but would also select in favor of those organized on less hierarchical lines.[507]

In addition to the leveling and decentralizing effects of stateless economies, Chartier and Johnson’s introductory essay emphasizes the politically open-ended potential of free markets and their capacity to create “spaces for social experimentation and hard-driving grassroots activism.” Free markets, they argue, foster values that include “not only the pursuit of narrowly financial gain ... but also the appeal of solidarity, mutuality and sustainability.” In some cases, this broader, more humanitarian set of values might even be necessary for the peaceful and prosperous flourishing of markets themselves. Charles W. Johnson has argued, for example, that the libertarian commitment to non-coercion represents a necessary but insufficient element of a prosperous and peaceful stateless society. In place of a “thin libertarianism” which doggedly refuses discussion of these broader commitments, Johnson encourages a “thick libertarianism” which recognizes the broader matrix of values in which any theory of politics or economics must be situated. While these broader personal commitments could be anything, Johnson argues, libertarianism itself supports and embodies a decidedly left-liberal set of values: anti-racism, anti-sexism, and egalitarianism, among others.[508]

VI. Conclusion

Particularly in its more recent manifestations, market anarchism has tended to expand the meaning of “markets” beyond the political-economic concerns of trade and competition to embrace a general emphasis on voluntary action. Karl Hess’s thought, for example, continued to evolve through the 1970s, and by the end of the decade he had tamped down much of his earlier emphasis on market activity. In a 1980 essay in the dandelion called “Anarchism without Hyphens,” he denied the relevance of economic programs to anarchism as such and offered a simple formulation to replace the congeries of anti-state “-isms” then (and now) prevalent: “An anarchist is a voluntarist.” More recently, Kevin Carson, whose work has been central in the articulation of twenty-first-century market anarchism, has expressed doubts about “the market” as a general rubric for a non-coercive society.[509]

Market anarchism is at least as old as the social anarchist tradition with which it is often compared. It is in significant ways conceptually distinct from social anarchism, notwithstanding efforts by some within and without the market anarchist tradition to shake “the market” loose from its historical moorings and offer it as a synonym for stateless human interaction. At the same time, the easy conceptual evolution from market anarchisms to non-market anarchisms (particularly on the left) suggests that something more historically complex has happened than the evolution of two hermetically sealed intellectual traditions. Why, we might ask, do market-oriented libertarians often drift off into sympathy with the broader anarchist tradition, even those variants of anarchism which have demonstrated little patience for liberal economics? One answer may be that there has always been an unarticulated relationship between the anarchist project and that realm of ordered chaos the Marxists call the “anarchy of production.” Indeed, the authoritarian left has always suspected this. Marx’s derisive characterization of Proudhonian mutualism as “bourgeois socialism” is unsurprising in the context of this chapter’s claim that Proudhon was a market anarchist. But what to make of Lenin’s rejection of the entire anarchist tradition—including its collectivist variants—as “bourgeois individualism in reverse.” If “the market” fails to encompass the full complexity of human interactions outside state coercion, it is probably also true that it is one of the closest approximations to hand, and anarchists—even the communists among them—are working from models drawn up in Manchester.[510]

The close relationship between the market and anarchism should not surprise us. Authorities have always recognized the dangers presented by the agora and its inhabitants—often late denizens of the wolf-prowled spaces beyond the city where dangerous men and ideas flourish.

Similarly, anarchists and anarchism have since the middle of the nineteenth century presented another kind of barbarian threat—a vision of what happens if modernity’s promises of life, liberty, and property or liberty, equality, and fraternity are taken too seriously. Anarchism’s threat to the established order has sometimes taken a more concrete form, as when it guided the hands of terrorists as they prepared daggers, poisons, ropes, and revolvers for the enemies of the people. Market anarchists, though a more pacific lot than the nineteenth-century propagandists of the deed, represent one more barbarian incursion, one that has reached the market and threatens to set loose all of its dangerous forces. But we probably ought not fret. There have, after all, always been barbarians in the agora.

9. Rights, Morality, and Egoism in Individualist Anarchism

Eric Mack

I. Introduction

This chapter begins with a relatively long introduction that sets the context for its primary and fairly narrow focus. That primary focus is a pivotal debate that took place in the pages of Liberty (1881—1908), the centerpiece journal of the American individualist anarchist movement that flourished in the last several decades of the nineteenth century. That debate was between contributors to Liberty who held that individualist anarchism had to be grounded in explicitly moral principles and contributors who rejected moralism in the name of amoralist Egoism. The Moralists maintained that there were sound moral principles—especially moral principles demanding respect for individual liberty—and that these sound moral principles provided the proper grounding for the individualist form of anarchism to which Liberty was devoted. The Egoists argued that the rejection of the authority of morality was the next logical step after the rejection of the authority of religion and of the state, and that anarchism was best grounded upon amoralist Egoism and self-assertion. By 1887, the editor and publisher of Liberty, Benjamin Tucker (1854—1939), had explicitly sided with the Egoists and, as a consequence, throughout most of Liberty’s history natural morality, natural justice, and natural rights were vigorously denounced in the journal that was the primary voice of individualist anarchism.

My primary purpose in focusing on this debate is to show that, while the common supposition is that the Moralists within this debate advocated a natural rights doctrine, the fact of the matter is that natural rights doctrine played no role at all in that debate. The Moralists in that debate were in fact followers of Herbert Spencer (1820—1903), who, like Spencer, often employed the vocabulary of rights but were really quite sophisticated indirect utilitarians. By the time of this debate in 1886–7, Lysander Spooner (1808–87), the great natural rights theorist of the individualist anarchism movement, was nearing the end of his life.[511] And neither Spooner nor anyone who could be described as Spoonerian was to be found among the Moralists. By the time of the Moralist-versus-Egoist debate, moralistic support for anarchist conclusions had already largely shifted from appeals to natural rights to indirect utilitarian arguments that derived from the work of Spencer. In the course of this chapter, I will explain the important difference between the natural rights approach and the indirect utilitarian approach, while documenting the indirect utilitarianism of the principal Moralists.

Robert Nozick brought the term “individualist anarchism” back into the currency of political philosophy when he used this term to designate the Rothbardian free market anarchism that Nozick himself seeks to transcend in Part I of Anarchy, State, and Utopia.[512] In a long endnote, Nozick mentions and praises these nineteenth-century American individualist anarchists in a way that suggests that their views closely corresponded to Rothbard’s natural-rights-based anarcho-capitalism.[513] Nozick especially recommends the work of the two most powerful thinkers within the group, Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker. “It cannot be overemphasized how lively, stimulating, and interesting are the writings and arguments of Spooner and Tucker.”[514] Yet there are significant differences between the standard views of the nineteenth-century individualist anarchists and Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism—both in terms of economic doctrines and in terms of the sort of moral (or amoralist) grounding offered by the proponents of these doctrines.

The individualist anarchists saw themselves as radical critics of capitalism. For capitalism, as they saw it, was a system of state-sponsored monopolies (and other restrictions on free trade) which impoverished the masses and enriched the few primarily by making it extremely difficult for agricultural and mechanical workers to acquire the capital necessary to become self-employed farmers and artisans. And this, in turn, made it extremely difficult for workers fully to capture the fruits of their labor, and enabled those already in command of capital to acquire an illicit share of the fruits of labor’s efforts. For this reason, the individualist anarchists tended to reject or at least be highly suspicious of interest and rental income and the profits of employers. In addition, the individualist anarchists tended to subscribe to something close to the labor theory of value, and this tended to lead them to the conclusion that there must be something fishy about any form of income that did not derive solely from the labor of the recipient of that income. Furthermore, most of the individualist anarchists endorsed a current-possession-and-use doctrine of property rights. This doctrine renders legitimate absentee ownership impossible—since absentee owners cannot be current possessors and users. It follows that no charge that a putative owner extracts from another party who is actually occupying and using some resources can be legitimate. So, once again rental income is condemned—along with interest income, which, after all, is merely rental income on money whose putative owner is not currently possessing and using. On the basis of these anti-capitalist conclusions, the individualist anarchists often labeled themselves “socialists”[515] while insisting that their radically anti-statist socialism—grounded in the recognition of genuine private property rights, the sanctity of voluntary contract, and unhindered free trade— placed them in strong opposition to all forms of state socialism.[516] Strikingly, it was precisely because of these characteristic economic features of nineteenth-century individualist anarchism that Rothbard himself explicitly declined to label himself an individualist anarchist.[517]

We should note that Spooner, who is almost certainly the nineteenth-century individualist anarchist best known to contemporary free market anarchists and minimal statists, did not conform closely to the trends in economic thought I have just described. Spooner advanced a Lockean labor-mixing theory of private property rights, according to which a labor-mixer’s right to the material that he or she had purposively transformed remained in existence as long as the resulting transformation remained in existence.[518] The purposive investor of labor in some (previously unowned) land

holds the land in order to hold the labor which he has put into it, or upon it. And the land is his, so long as the labor he has expended upon it remains in a condition to be valuable for the uses for which it was expended; because it is not to be supposed that a man has abandoned the fruits of his labor so long as they remain in a state to be practically useful to him.[519]

This entails that the property right persists when the owner, for a charge, steps aside and allows another to make use of the transformed object. Spooner also held that interest income and entrepreneurial profits could be legitimate—although he thought that these would be much decreased when all coercively imposed barriers to trade had been removed. Moreover, unlike most of the individualist anarchists, Spooner never described himself as a socialist.[520]

Spooner was also a strong advocate of the type of natural rights approach to political theorizing that one sees in Rothbard and Nozick and that constitutes the framework within which the debate between the Rothbardian anarchist and the Nozickian minimal statist takes place. Perhaps it was because Rothbard saw the political doctrines of the individualist anarchists through the lens of Spooner’s natural rights approach that he held that, while he had substantial differences with the individualist anarchists on economic matters, his differences with them on political matters were minor.[521] Perhaps it was because Nozick thought of Spooner—whose most well-known work was a rights-based critique of the consent theory of state legitimacy (Spooner 1870)—as the exemplar of individualist anarchism that Nozick felt comfortable applying to the label “individualist anarchism” to Rothbard’s natural rights and pro-capitalist position.

As a result, both Rothbard and Nozick may have contributed to the view that, at least until the Moralist-versus-Egoist debate in Liberty, the natural rights approach thoroughly monopolized individualist anarchist political theorizing and that the Moralist opponents of the Egoists must, therefore, have been members of the natural rights camp. I also surmise that to some extent this belief in natural rights dominance among the individualist anarchists has arisen from the mistaken perception of Spencerian indirect utilitarian argumentation as simply being a version of natural rights theorizing. In James J. Martin’s Men versus the State—the work that remains the best overall account of the individualist anarchist movement—the defeat of the Moralists within this debate is characterized as the defeat of the natural rights view.[522] Spencerian doctrine appears within Martin’s discussion of this debate only when Tucker is cited as continuing to hold as a supposed complement to his new-found Egoism that social expediency calls for “the greatest amount of liberty compatible with equality of liberty.”[523] The identification of the Moralist camp with natural rights advocacy also appears in Wendy McElroy’s superb book on a range of important debates that took place in Liberty.[524] McElroy entitles her chapter on the Moralist-versus-Egoist debate “Egoism v. Natural Rights.” More generally, McElroy mistakenly takes Tucker’s belief in natural laws concerning the causal conditions of human happiness—a Spencerian element within Tucker’s doctrine both before and after his adoption of Egoism—as evidence for his belief in natural rights as prescriptive principles.[525] The idea that the Moralists who confronted the Egoists in Liberty in 1886–7 were natural rights thinkers appears again in the entry on Benjamin Tucker in The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. In this entry those who opposed Egoism (and who decamped from Liberty after Tucker sided with the Egoists) are described as “proponents of natural rights theory.”[526] The Wikipedia entry on Tucker similarly asserts that, when Tucker converted to “Max Stirner’s Egoist anarchism,” he abandoned his “natural rights position” and sided with the Egoists against the “Spoonerian Natural Lawyers.”[527] Tucker did indeed change his position around the time of this debate. But I hope to show that the debate that occasioned his change was not one between Egoists and Spoonerian natural law advocates.[528]

In Section II of this chapter, I spell out the differences between the sort of natural rights doctrine to which Spooner, Rothbard, and Nozick subscribed and Spencerian indirect utilitarianism. This provides the conceptual background for my claim that the Spencerian indirect utilitarianism which opposed Egoism in the pages of Liberty ought not to be conflated with genuine natural rights thinking. In Section III, I describe briefly the actual and waning presence of natural rights thinking within American individualist anarchism and point to some reasons why its presence during those last decades of the nineteenth century has seemed to be greater than it actually was. In Section IV, I will support my core contention that the Moralists who resisted the advance of Egoism in the pages of Liberty were, indeed, Spencerian indirect utilitarians. I do so by providing an account of the clash between the chief advocate of Egoism, James L. Walker (1845–1904), and his chief Moralist opponent, the Spencerian indirect utilitarian John F. Kelly (1859–1922). A further reason for recounting this debate is that, to borrow from Nozick’s remark about the writings of Spooner and Tucker, the debate between Walker and Kelly is lively, stimulating, and interesting. To my mind, it cannot be over-emphasized how subtle were the arguments of Kelly—who, as Tucker saw it, lost the debate.

II. Natural Rights Doctrine Contrasted with Spencerian Indirect Utilitarianism

Natural rights theories hold that each individual is morally bound to be circumspect in certain ways in her conduct toward all other individuals out of respect for or out of recognition of certain morally impressive properties that individuals have as persons. Natural rights theorists invoke such properties as being self-constituting or autonomous, being project-pursuers, possessing ultimate ends of one’s own, existing for one’s own purposes and not for one another’s purposes, or possessing lives of their own to live. On a natural rights view, the required constraint on one’s conduct toward others is a matter of honoring the special moral standing that other persons have in virtue of such properties—or the standing one must in logic extend to others because one has rationally claimed that standing for oneself. The basis for the required constraint in one’s conduct for others is a matter of their moral status, not a matter of that constraint’s being conducive to desired personal or social outcomes (although it may well also be so conducive).

The doctrine developed by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer—especially in its early and most libertarian form in the first edition of Social Statics[529]—is often viewed as a species of natural rights theory. Since Social Statics was the work of Spencer’s that was most influential on the American individualist anarchist movement, this view of Social Statics is one reason for the common belief that this movement as a whole was committed to the natural rights perspective. However, this natural rights reading of Social Statics is seriously mistaken. A brief precis of the crucial contentions of Social Statics should make this clear.[530] In Social Statics, Spencer maintains that the greatest (aggregate) human happiness is the ultimate good. The realization of the greatest human happiness is in accord with the Divine Will.[531] However, Spencer rejects Jeremy Bentham’s view that each choice about what particular action one should perform ought to be based upon a calculation of which available action will most advance “the creative purpose.” Instead, Spencer maintains that the only feasible route to the achievement of maximum human happiness is “to ascertain the conditions by conforming to which this greatest happiness may be obtained.” We must “find out what really is the line of conduct that leads to the desired end. For unquestionably there must be in the nature of things some definite and fixed pre-requisites to success.”[532] The crucial thing is to fix upon certain general prescriptions compliance with which necessarily enhances (or tends to enhance) general happiness, rather than to engage on a case-by-case basis in the search for the most expedient action. Spencer explicitly maintains that his dispute with Bentham is a dispute between two variants of utilitarianism—Bentham’s “empirical” utilitarianism and Spencer’s own “rational” utilitarianism.

Spencer’s development of this rational utilitarianism then proceeds by means of a somewhat surprising and underappreciated move. He asserts that the maximization of aggregate human happiness requires that no individual be precluded from achieving his or her own happiness. Hence, Spencer concludes, the maximization of aggregate happiness requires that no individual’s maximization of his or her own happiness preclude any other individual’s maximization of her own happiness. Since individual happiness is attained through the exercise of one’s faculties, the prerequisite for maximizing (aggregate) human happiness is that each individual be allowed to exercise his own faculties subject to the constraint that his exercise not prevent any other individual from exercising her own faculties. Alternatively, each may obtain “complete happiness within his own sphere of activity [as long as he does not diminish] the spheres of activity required for the acquisition of happiness by others.”[533] Thus, we arrive at the Law of Equal Freedom, according to which “every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberty by every other man.”[534] This Law of Equal Freedom is further codified in Social Statics in terms of various rights; for example, the right to personal liberty, which each individual can enjoy without infringing upon the like rights of others.

Despite this codification in terms of rights, Spencer’s doctrine is still at root utilitarian. The Law of Equal Freedom is to be followed because following it is the crucial prerequisite for the eventual attainment of “the creative purpose.” Punishing individuals for violating this principle lessens the disposition of persons over time to seek to maximize their own happiness in ways that preclude others from maximizing their happiness. At the same time, allowing individuals to attain their happiness in ways that may distress others—but do not violate their equal liberty—will lessen the disposition of persons over time to be distressed by others exercising their equal liberty. Both processes, in accordance with “the law of adaptation,”[535] lead to a harmonization of people’s interests and, eventually, to a maximization of aggregate happiness that consists in the maximization of each individual’s happiness.

III. The Presence and Apparent Presence of Natural Rights Thought inIndividualist Anarchism

Appeals to the Sovereignty of the Individual as the fundamental principle governing social relations were central in the writings of Josiah Warren (1798—1874), the acknowledged founder of individualist anarchism. Warren’s doctrine was systematically articulated by Stephen Pearl Andrews (1812–86) in The Science of Society.[536] Andrews called for “the cordial and universal acceptance of this very principle of the absolute Sovereignty of the Individual—each claiming his own Sovereignty, and each religiously respecting that of all others.”[537] And, long after its initial publication, Andrews’ The Science of Society was serialized in Liberty from October 30, 1886 through December 31, 1887; and Tucker eulogized Andrews in “A Light Extinguished.”[538] In a later issue of Liberty, Tucker honored Warren as “the first man to expound and formulate the doctrine now known as Anarchism; the first man to clearly state the theory of individual sovereignty and equal liberty.”[539] We should note, though, that, by this time, if pressed to explain “individual sovereignty,” Tucker would likely have described it as an affirmation of self-assertion rather than an affirmation of each individual’s moral rights.[540]

Many of the works that Lysander Spooner composed in the 1880s were first published in Liberty. This included his incendiary “A Letter to Grover Cleveland,” which first ran in nineteen installments from June 20, 1885 to May 22, 1886. Tucker’s lengthy and moving obituary for Spooner, “Our Nestor Taken From Us,” appeared in Liberty in May of 1887.[541] One reason one might mistakenly think that Tucker himself was a natural rights advocate—at least during his in his pre-Egoist stage— was his association with and honoring of these three authors—especially Warren and Spooner.

IV. Egoism versus Spencerian Moralism

Now, at last, I turn to the Egoist-Moralist debate. To get to the core of this debate, I focus on the most important and impressive advocate of Egoism and the most important and impressive Moralist opponent of Egoism. Our exemplar of Egoism will be James L. Walker, writing as “Tak Kak,” and our exemplar of moralism will be John F. Kelly. As I mentioned above, Tucker ends up siding with Egoism—albeit, while seeking to formulate an amalgam of Egoism and a Spencerian endorsement of equal liberty.[542] Unfortunately, I cannot explore here the complex question of how the components of that amalgam are supposed to fit together to form a worldview that is less wild than Tak Kak’s.

Walker, who was strongly influenced by German philosopher Max Stirner (1806—56),[543] initiated the debate with an essay entitled, “What Is Justice?” Walker defines justice as that which is required by a power “to which the individual owes respect and obedience” (Walker 1886a). Justice is what legitimate authority demands. Acting for the sake of justice is, therefore, always a matter of submitting to an external power. According to Walker, for most of human history people believed in justice because they believed in God. When people rejected their superstitious belief in God, they replaced it with superstitious belief in the legitimate authority of the state or society. While anarchists have rejected superstitious belief in state or social authority, they have replaced it with superstitious belief in moral authority. However, the anarchist critique of theological, state, and social authority must be extended to moral authority and, hence, to the conclusion that “there is no moral government of the world.” Not even slavery can be said to be unjust because “[t]he idea that slavery is ‘unjust’ is [merely] the idea that there is a rule or law against it.”[544]

Walker continually returns to the theme that, just as God has been overcome, so too must humanity, the substitute for God. In a passage that reminds one of Hegel’s description of Spirit transcending the sorrow of infinitude, Walker declares: “The individual who finally becomes conscious of himself is, just as he is, a universe,—humanity itself. He then knows that he has been dreaming about a something which is, after all, himself. He is incomparable.”[545] The Egoist “interests himself in any pursuit or neglects any without a thought that he is fulfilling or slighting any calling or mission or duty, or doing right or wrong. All such words are impertinent. Nothing is sacred or above him.” It follows that the Egoist has no interest in justifying his conduct; all his thinking concerns how to procure what he desires. “Justification is a piece of superstitious nonsense.”[546] “When [a man] comes to full consciousness, he sets up as his own master.” He attends to his own impulses and sentiments and is true to them—but not, presumably as a matter of principle. For the fully conscious man possesses ideas but is never governed by them. In “Egoism,” Walker says that if a man

owns himself and is awed by no command, bewitched by no fixed idea or superstition, but does everything with a sense that his acts are his own genuine, personal, sovereign choice ... then the man is an Egoist, or one conscious that he is a genuine Ego.[547]

I simply do my own will.... Those who do their own will we classify as distinct from those who act under awe and obedience to supposed moral obligations—whether conceived as commands or the equivalent impression,—from a source outside the individual telling him to submit himself and forego his own inclinations.[548]

Indeed, Walker equates being governed by “fixed” ideas with insanity. “The devotee of the fixed idea is mad.” “Egoism is sanity. Non-Egoism is insanity.”[549] “[I]deas such as ‘right,’ ‘wrong,’ ‘justice,’ etc.. are merely words with vague, chimerical meanings”—at least when they do not refer to degrees of strength or weakness. If justice in action is understood simply as the strength to perform it, “[i]t is ‘just’ to enslave those willing to be enslaved.” Doing so is at least more just that enslaving a man or a horse that resists enslavement. “There is more virtue in the criminal classes [who resist impediments to their impulses and actions] than in the tame slaves.”[550]

Walker illustrates his preference for the resistant criminal over the willing slave in a short piece entitled “Killing Chinese,” which was published along with “What Is Justice?” Walker looks with favor upon the prospect of “the willing white slaves of America” resisting the competition of “Chinamen”—who he says are “fitted by nature and heredity to remain slave[s]”—by killing some of them. Walker adds that, when those whites better understand the nature of their own unwilling enslavement, “it is very probable that there will be some dead white men.” Walker explains that anyone who is shocked by his perspective is “a victim of the fixed idea that all men are brothers—a poetical fragment dissociated from and surviving the idea of the fatherhood of God.”[551]

In a later essay, Walker is yet more enthralled by the criminal rebel who knows no bounds. “The egoist, as an irrepressible, conscienceless criminal, is the coming force, who will destroy all existing institutions.”[552] When some presently existing Egoists “prey upon the masses, they do so because the masses are exploitable material, easily beguiled filled with spiritual ideas, and entertained with moral doctrines.”[553] However, things would be different were all or most men Egoists. “It will make a great difference when many egoists become fully self-conscious and not ashamed of being conscienceless egoists.”[554] Egoists at large “will not act very benevolently toward outsiders.” However, according to Walker, if we are both Egoists, “[n]othing that I could do for you (without setting you in power over myself) could fail to be agreeable to me.” Walker asks: “Do you not begin to think that by suiting only myself I am really doing far better toward others than by throwing myself away to serve them?”[555] Similarly, Walker asserts that his own will or desires will be aligned against the individual who wrings from others the fruits of their labor. Yet here Walker’s reasoning seems to be that he may be the next victim of the wringer. The wringer may become “an obstacle to the realization of my desire.”[556] Walker tells us that, qua Egoist, he joins the theologian and the Moralist in condemning rape. However, in his case this is not a matter of law or duty but, instead, inclination. Apparently in response to the thought that, as a willful Egoist, he could just as easily have an inclination to rape, Walker asserts: “[W]hen I am well, I shall want to do well.”[557]

There are no Egoists who do not do many acts to help others. Generosity is perfectly Egoistic. There is no quality so distinctively so, in contrast to dutiful moralism. It is a flower of character, without the slightest taint or smut of moral police forces in the forum of consciousness.[558]

Walker also appeals to Stirner’s idea of a union of Egoists. Once all or most of us free ourselves from the ideas of duty and obligation, the word “justice” can be used to refer to “the rules of a union of egoists with benefits to at least balance duties; and these duties are simply a matter of contract.”[559] Still, all that Walker can mean is that Egoists living among Egoists will each know (and be known to know) that attacks upon others’ lives, liberties, and possessions are apt to trigger costly counterattacks. Thus, each will have strategic reasons to avoid such attacks (if they will be detected). As Kelly points out, Walker cannot mean that through contract individuals can place themselves under obligations to one another to abide by certain norms. For this would require belief in the “fixed idea” that agreeing to abide by certain rules places one under an obligation to do what one has agreed to do. And Walker himself rejects this idea when he denies that making a promise provides one with a reason to keep it.[560]

Kelly’s point about contracts accomplishing little or nothing unless they have a binding effect deserves to be quoted in full.

[I]t is impossible to base a society upon contract unless we consider a contract as having some binding effect, and that the binding effect of a particular contract can not be due to the contract itself. That is to say, no special obligations could be created for us by a contract unless we were under some general obligations towards each other already, one of these being the keeping of faith.[561]

As we shall see, Kelly also provides arguments for why members of a union of Egoists who do not take themselves to be obligated by their agreements will often not abide by rules compliance with which would be beneficial to them.

The last main element in Walker’s view is the claim that Egoism—at least when it is sufficiently widespread—provides the firmest basis for anarchism. This is because Egoism undermines all justifications that tyrants may offer for their authority.

Let us suppose all men Egoists. How would the pope persuade people to support him? How would Bismarck persuade Germans that they have an individual interest in holding Alsace? How would Lord Salisbury persuade Englishmen that they have an interest in holding Ireland? How would Grover Cleveland persuade us to support him and coerce the Mormons?

But for the surrender to fixed ideas and the drilling and teaching which maintains their dominion, the State and the Church would be only so many men, their sacredness gone. How long would their power endure against the surprise, ridicule, indifference, or aversion of a mass of Egoists?

Walker’s view seems to be that, in the absence of fixed, superstitious ideas, people will not desire or will to support the pope, support the holding of Alsace or Ireland, or support the coercion of the Mormons. “Egoism, therefore, points to a general letting alone.”[562] Indeed,

Egoism dissolves, not one fixed idea merely, but the habit and faith of fixity, therefore all, and furnishes the condition for the final eradication of all political domination.... We take liberty when we no longer feel bound. The bondage of idea is now the great bondage.. Authority, whether of Egoists or fanatics, can be overthrown only by Egoism.[563]

Yet might not the activities favored by these officials also be genuinely desired or willed by Egoists? Might not such Egoists agree to joint action to more effectively do as they will? Might not these Egoists “take liberty” to join together in such action when they are released from fixed ideas about rights or justice that condemn the activities favored by the pope, Bismarck, et al.? However, Walker denies this. Napoleon was possible only because

he was taken as an idol, deified and served by the unegoistic devotion of others who did the slaughtering and pillaging. To accomplish all this mischief it was necessary that there be a national spirit and a variety of other hate-breeding superstitions.[564]

Walker holds that, although Egoists will have no natural sympathy with the pope or Bismarck or Napolean, they will by contrast be disposed by natural sympathy to “give all the aid required by any Mormon woman who wanted to leave her husband.”[565] This is of a piece with Walker’s claim that the fully conscious and, therefore, conscienceless Egoist will generally have benevolent and generous feelings at least for other Egoists. “The greatest reason why a particular Ego will not rob his neighbor may be that he does not want to.” Although any gratification of taste or appetite exhibits Egoism, Walker holds that, at least in their conduct toward other Egoists, genuine Egoists will not exhibit “repulsive traits of character.”[566] Walker’s views were brought together in his posthumously published The Philosophy of Egoism.[567]

The great opponent of Walker in the 1886–7 Egoist-Moralist debate in Liberty was John F. Kelly.[568] Kelly’s first response to Walker appears almost in passing within a lengthy critical review of Henry George’s book Protection or Free Trade.[569] Kelly denounces George’s purely instrumental and case-by-case attachment to liberty, and extends this charge to Tak Kak. According to Kelly, for George,

Liberty is not a good in itself; but is something to be sought after or trodden under foot according as it seems likely to produce immediate material advantages or not. Mr. George does not believe in taking a general principle as a guide; each particular action must be judged by its results,—that is, its direct results. This doctrine, also taught by some ultra-individualists like Stirner and ‘Tak Kak,’ is really only the revival of the Jesuit maxim that the end justifies the means. As an individual murder may produce beneficial results,—say an increases of wages,—Mr. George, Mr. Stirner, and ‘Tak Kak’ ought, according to their philosophy approve of it; but the true individualist, the holder of the utilitarian philosophy in its higher form, is bound to condemn the murder, because to generalize murder, as praise of a particular murder tends to do, would disrupt society and ultimately prove injurious to the greater number.[570]

It is very striking here that Kelly invokes the stance of “the true individualist” who Kelly identifies as “the holder of the utilitarian philosophy in its higher [i.e., non-Benthamite, non-direct] form.” But what exactly is the argument offered in the final clauses of Kelly’s statement? I believe it is a subtle argument that goes as follows:

i. To praise a particular murder on the ground that it yields the outcome that should ultimately be promoted—whether that be individual happiness or the greatest happiness of the greatest number—is to praise anyone’s commission of murder if it yields the outcome that should ultimately be promoted. (This is the generalization of which Kelly writes.)

ii. If one’s praise is effective, many individuals will endorse their commission of murder when they perceive that their actions will yield optimal outcomes; and they will realize that others also endorse their own commission of such murders.

iii. But it would be profoundly socially disruptive and contrary to the interests of most (if not all) individuals for many people to endorse their commission of murder when they perceive that their actions will yield optimal outcome and to realize that many others also endorse this view. (For this would radically undercut the mutual assurance of peaceful co-existence upon which social order rests.)

iv. Therefore, for the sake of what should ultimately be promoted, one should reject the praise of any particular murder (or the deprivation of liberty involved in murder) on the ground that it yields the outcome that should ultimately be promoted.[571]

Kelly’s further conclusion is that, rather than following George in the direct pursuit of the general happiness, one should instead abide strictly by certain general norms—especially the norm against depriving individuals of their equal liberty—that enable each to pursue happiness in ways that do not injure others.

The argument explicated in propositions i—iv targets instrumental justifications of infringements upon liberty—justifications of the kind George was proposing. It does not so obviously apply to Walker’s apparently non-instrumental endorsement (in “What Is Justice?” and “Killing Chinese”) of whatever conduct toward others one truly wills to perform. Noting this, however, raises an important question about the nature of Walker’s Egoism. Does this Egoism call for one to maximize doing as one wills or desires over one’s lifetime—in which case, it will often call for one to engage in actions that one does not will or desire as the necessary means for future willed or desired action—or does it require that, at all times, one acts as one wills or desires? The tone of Walker’s proclamations suggests the latter position. The truly free Egoist will not spend much of his time submitting prudentially to the causal necessity of doing X in order to be able at some future time to do Y, even though he will genuinely will or desire Y in the future.

If this is Walker’s view, he is unaffected by Kelly’s argument that better individual and aggregate overall results are attained through common compliance with general norms. He is unaffected because his Egoism does not call for the overall maximization of one’s willed or desired preferences. On the other hand, if one does as one wills at time t¹ even when one realizes that acting contrary to one’s will at t¹ will enable one to act in accord with one’s will at t² through tⁿ, doesn’t this show one has been captured by a fixed idea—indeed, a superstition—that one must always do as one wills?

Let us return to Kelly’s argument for the indirect promotion of outcomes by way of compliance with general principles—even if this argument does not directly rebut Walker’s own version of Egoism. In his essay “Intelligent Egotism Anti-Social” Kelly repeats essentially the same argument that I ascribed to him above with the substitution of the norm against breaking promises for the norm against murder.

I must confess that I have a weakness for keeping a promise because it is a promise, and I fail to see how a civilized society can be maintained when that weakness is not general. For, if one’s promising to do a thing does not add to the probability of one’s doing it, promises disappear altogether, and contracts and concerted action become impossible except under duress.[572]

Kelly’s view is that common compliance—and the expectation of common compliance—with certain general norms is essential for the maintenance and functioning of the social order; and this in turn is essential for the attainment of individual and aggregate happiness.

Therefore, if (as Walker maintains) morality does not genuinely provide us with such norms, rules will have to be enunciated and imposed by force by a political sovereign who himself will stand above the rules which he enacts. According to Kelly, Hobbes rather than Walker grasps the logical implication of the non-existence of natural morality. “[F]rom the necessity of preserving social relations and the non-existence of natural morality ... [Hobbes] deduces despotism.”’ A union of conscienceless Egoists would require the mailed fist of a Sovereign Egoist. Hence, rather than providing “the condition for the final eradication of all political domination,” Egoism demands political domination.[573]

The initial (Hobbesian) premise of Walker’s “What Is Justice?” is that all rule or law is the command of some being with superior power. Compliance with any rule or law is submission to the commanding agent. This is what motivations Walker’s revolt against all rule and law—including moral rule and law. Kelly, in contrast, advances a Spencerian conception of moral norms. On this conception, moral norms are the concomitants of social evolution. Hence, they are no one’s commands, and compliance with them is not a matter of subordinating oneself to anyone else’s will.

Kelly thinks of societal norms as evolving though the selection of rules that are more and more conducive to individual and aggregate happiness. This process, for reasons laid out in Social Statics, moves humanity toward principles that ascribe equal rights to all individuals so that “in each generation people [are] less and less inclined to infringe on the rights of their neighbors, until at last, we have, to a great extent, become what Spencer calls organically moral.” Indeed, through this process, we will arrive at a state in which each person’s achievement of happiness will be compatible with— will even contribute to—the happiness of others. “Then we shall have reached that state which we all desire, that state in which the greatest happiness of each coincides with the good of all.”

Further Spencerian themes are present when Kelly considers the individual who is “organized so that his ‘good’ leads him to commit actions injurious to others.” In such a case,

morality has commands to utter, commands growing more and more positive with the advance of society. Persons so organized must either learn to control their anti-social impulses, or they will inevitably be weeded out, until only those are left the pursuit of whose individual ‘good’ does not interfere with the like pursuit on the part of others.[574]

Evolution selects for persons who are disposed to comply with norms which operate to promote individual and aggregate happiness.

Walker insists that, if everyone is better off acting in accord with various norms, including a norm commending the fulfillment of contracts, then everyone will so act even if he or she does not believe that such action is obligatory; i.e., is morally required by those norms. Part of the reason one may be better off acting in accord with one’s agreements will be to avoid the hostility or retaliation by one’s fellow Egoists.[575] Kelly offers a subtle game-theoretic response. He asks us to envision a society made up of intelligent Egoistic thieves. He then presents the case for simple intelligent Egoism yielding a theft-free world that would be better for everyone.

[A]ll the time spent in stealing and guarding against theft is wasted. Were all to renounce theft, the total wealth would be as great as before, and the time previously spent in stealing or preventing stealing would be available for the production of more wealth, or the enjoyment of that produced. Here, then, is a splendid opportunity for the display of the powers of intelligent egotism.

Yet, according to Kelly, these individuals will not converge on non-theft.

It is advantageous to stop stealing; each one is intelligent enough to see this; yet it is out of their power to abstain. For mark that what is really advantageous to the individual is not that he should stop stealing, but that all others should; and while this latter might be such a gain to him as to make it worth his while to quit stealing himself to secure it, yet he can have no certainty his doing so will secure it.[576]

Nor will a contract among these intelligent Egoist thieves yield a stable convergence on nontheft. For such a contract “can be of no binding effect on men who are free from the dominion of ‘fixed ideas,’ who refuse to keep a promise merely because it is a promise.” In the absence of moral principles, convergence on non-theft will only be achieved through political despotism. Hence, contrary to Walker, “[m]orality, instead of being slavery, is the condition of liberty.”[577]

Kelly’s final objection to Walker is that the normative solipsism of Stirnerite Egoism is incompatible with friendship. “Friendship implies equality, the recognition of others as like one’s self, while, according to Stirner, the ego is alone, surrounded only by things which it is for him to use to his best advantage.”

Tucker’s siding with Tak Kak against the Moralists broke the friendship between Kelly and Tucker, and Kelly’s association with Liberty. But the most poignant expression of this break was supplied by Kelly’s sister Gertrude, who had also been a frequent contributor to Liberty.

My friends, my friends, have you completely lost your heads? Cannot you see that without morality, without the recognition of others’ rights, Anarchy, in any other than the vulgar sense, could not last a single day?[578]

V. Conclusion

By the mid 1880s the radical Lockean Lysander Spooner was outside the two mainstreams of individualist anarchist thought—Spencerian indirect utilitarianism and Egoism. This is exemplified in the Moralist-versus-Egoist debate in Liberty in which the Moralists were indirect utilitarians, not natural rights advocates. This seems to reflect a more general pattern in nineteenth-century political thought wherein natural rights thinking was crowded out primarily by forms of utilitarianism or amoralist rejections of morality.

10. Transcending Leftist Politics: Situating Egoism Within the Anarchist Project

David S. D’Amato

I. Introduction

Though it is not without its forerunners, egoism as a subset of anarchist thought has its beginnings in The Ego and Its Own,[579] Max Stirner’s work of unflinching iconoclasm, published in 1844.[580] Stirner’s has been variously regarded as the most extreme, revolutionary, radical, and dangerous book ever written,[581] relentless in its attacks on all fixed ideological and philosophical systems. As one of the first truly thoroughgoing critiques of modernity, Stirner’s masterwork can be regarded as heralding many of the themes we now recognize in existentialism, poststructuralism, and postmodernism more generally; indeed, his influence on postmodern thought, though woefully underappreciated, is apparent in the works of such notable thinkers as Nobel Laureate Albert Camus, among others. Stirner’s unique variety of radical thought is also closely linked to the post-left and post-anarchist literatures; it is clear from these relationships that Stirner’s work, if it has not figured prominently in political theory more generally, has at least played an important role in helping anarchism remain self-critical and, therefore, relevant, in allowing us to evaluate, reflect upon, and ultimately move beyond established ideologies and patterns of thought. Though Engels famously named him “the prophet of contemporary anarchism,”[582] Stirner fits only uncomfortably with other anarchists of the first generation. Indeed, there is hardly a definite answer to the question of whether Stirner is an anarchist at all. In his study of Stirner, the Marxist social theorist Max Adler reads him out of anarchism, contending that he cannot be an anarchist because anarchism is a distinct ideological current only insofar as it sits “within [the] socialist labor movement.”[583] Post-left anarchists[584] have sought to refocus anarchism outside or beyond traditional preoccupations with class theory, socialism, and labor movement ideology. These anarchists throw a spotlight on an enduring truth: the left’s relationship with anarchism has always been fraught with difficulty. For if anarchism is just revolutionary workerism, then it loses its historical character as a libertarian critique or interpretation of socialism; yet if anarchism leaves its socialist roots completely in the past—and with it its traditional commitments to, for example, trade unionism and class struggle—then it arguably becomes something else, perhaps the supposedly aimless lifestylism derided famously by Murray Bookchin.

II. The Dynamics of Egoism

For the egoist, all systems of morality—indeed, all claims to objective truth—are superstitions, often positioned precariously on still earlier and more fundamental superstitions, all invented ultimately by human minds. Such superstitions are, therefore, owed nothing—no deference, duty, or devotion. They are projections of human consciousness, to be discarded as easily as they were created.[585] The individual must not allow his creatures, frozen artifacts of his “will of yesterday,” to become his commanders.[586] On this view, liberal notions of natural rights are, as Jeremy Bentham said, “rhetorical nonsense”;[587] but the egoist goes further, damning every attempt to establish a code of conduct for the individual. If morality is baseless, the egoist says, then whatever the individual wills is permissible; his power—the ability to do the thing—makes it his right.[588] Everything else is so much unfounded religious thinking.

Stirner argued that we give birth to ideas and then project them outward, only to have these ideas—our creations—lord over us and dictate our behaviors and ways of life; these ideas thus become reified, taking on a life of their own. The result is enslavement to moralities, ideologies, and religions, a condition that neuters the experience of life and subordinates the true interests of the individual.[589]

The ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon furnish an apposite contrast to Stirner’s. Where Proudhon condemns “the authority of man over man,”[590] Stirner leaves all options available to the unique individual, unmoved by moral claims against authority. Where Stirner celebrates the untrammeled “own will” of the individual, recognizing none of the limits with which justice or other aspects of morality might saddle it, Proudhon looks forward to the day when “the sovereignty of the will” and “the right of force” will “retreat before the steady advance of justice,” culminating in “scientific socialism.” While the classical anarchist is an enemy of the state, careful to distinguish government from society (for example, in Martin Buber’s conception, the political principle from the social principle), the egoist anarchist is no less an enemy of society itself.

The juxtaposition of social power and political power is an important, even central, theme in anarchist history and literature.[591] Much of anarchist thought has been a treatment of this contrast— and, accordingly, of the promise of the eventual and spontaneous emergence of the true social organism from beneath the violence and repression of the state. Since William Godwin (and before), a picture of human perfectibility has, explicitly or otherwise, permeated anarchist (and proto-anarchist) thought.[592] Human beings, sufficiently motivated by reason and guided by experience, will eventually arrive at a free society—harmonious, socially cooperative, and free of domination by the state. Egoists have ridiculed this vision as a naive delusion, oppressive in its own right and dependent for its realization on the emergence of human beings quite unlike any in history.

The tension inherent in the relationship between egoism, which acknowledges no limits on individual thought and behavior, and anarchism, which attempts to moderate individual liberty with the law of equal freedom, is aptly illustrated in the debates of Dora Marsden and Benjamin R. Tucker. Marsden, sparring with Tucker in a 1914 issue of The Egoist, writes, “We meant that the kind of people [Proudhon] describes never walked on earth: that they were unreal: figures with no genuine insides, stuffed out with tracts from the Church of Humanity and the Ethical Society.”[593]

From the outset, Stirner’s ideas put him distinctly at odds with the other classical anarchists, if indeed he can be positioned among them. The question of how to understand him in relation to those anarchists has been the subject of debate and disquiet in anarchist circles; many anarchists see Stirner’s egoism as irreconcilable with anarchism.[594]

Anarchists have always rather enjoyed defining one another out of the anarchist movement, complacently satisfied that theirs is the one true anarchism, others’ so many heresies. Unsurprisingly, many anarchists have worked themselves into a lather to excommunicate Stirner and those influenced by his thought.

Stirner would not have been troubled by this; indeed, he would likely excommunicate himself from the Church of True Anarchism, as so many egoists have. For the egoist, classical anarchism’s opposition and resistance to political and economic authority both does not go far enough and goes too far. It does not go far enough in that it leaves the myriad other potential sources of hierarchical domination and repression unexamined, elevated above the ever-fluctuating desires of the unique, subordinating the ego to various spooks. Yet it goes too far in advancing its own series of constraining concepts and precepts, in instituting “a redemptionist secular religion” founded upon highly tendentious ideas about reason and human nature.

Stirner of course denies the existence of an absolute or universal human essence, seeing in the idea a variety of unsustainable religious faith. In this way, he anticipates Sartre’s declaration that “existence precedes essence.”[595] Sartre writes similarly that “man is free and there is no human nature in which I can place my trust.”[596] The specific individual—ultimately inarticulable, his thoughts, desires, and motives ever in flux—is anterior to proposed essences and universal or absolute truths.

It is generally true of anarchism, even with all of its ideologically uncompromising variations and schools, that it resists being reduced to a static, absolute set of prescriptions or a system. Max Nettlau, the eminent historian of anarchism, exhorts anarchists not to “permit themselves to become fossilized upholders of a given system.”[597] Egoist anarchism takes this general concern, the reluctance to embrace a single formula, and extends its application, undertaking the destruction of all fixed ideas. As conceived by Stirner and others in his tradition, egoism is able to liberate anarchism from “universalist limitations,” pushing anarchists to interrogate not only capitalism and the state, but other sources of harmful authority.[598] The egoist currents therefore contend that anarchism, “encrusted with leftist clichés,” has lost some of its potency. In Stirner’s egoism, labor politics loses the traditional place of honor it enjoys in classical anarchism; but rather than filling the void with another collection of sacred idols, egoist and post-left strains of anarchism are satisfied with the void, ready to fill it with their creations. “I am not nothing in the sense of emptiness,” Stirner writes,

but I am the creative nothing [schöpferische Nichts], the nothing out of which I myself as creator create everything.

Away, then, with every concern that is not altogether my concern! You think at least the ‘good cause’ must be my concern? What’s good, what’s bad? Why, I myself am my concern, and I am neither good nor bad. Neither has meaning for me.[599]

The individual is a creator of value—indeed, the only creator of value. Each individual, faced with such bottomless absurdity, ultimately unable to brace himself against false essentials, must decide for himself what is important.

III. Egoism and Contemporary Leftist Ideologies

The obvious facial similarities between such ideas and those associated with existentialism (as found in, for example, Sartre and Camus) led to a second rediscovery of Stirner in the 1960s and 1970s.[600] Stirner’s ideas are echoed in Sartre’s notion of bad faith, the paradoxical decision to choose (freely, for our choices are necessarily free) to renounce our freedom, to deny the inescapable fact of choice and self-authorship and engage instead in self-deception.

Some Stirner scholars have contended that the resemblance is only superficial, that the existentialists, where they have engaged Stirner, have misunderstood him in important ways.[601] Arguing that, as “generalized accommodation[s] to modernity,” psychoanalysis and existentialism do not pose a serious threat to the established political order, John F. Welsh rejects proposed rapprochements between Stirner’s egoism and existentialism, specifically mentioning Sartre’s work in his

argument. Welsh argues that Camus and Herbert Read ignore key lessons of Stirner’s work and “[denude] The Ego and Its Own of its explosive content.”[602]

IV. Egoism and Poststructuralism

Saul Newman’s vital work approaches Stirner as a precursor to and a lens through which to understand poststructuralism. Certainly Stirner meaningfully anticipates attempts by poststructuralists to stress “difference over sameness and [emphasize] particularity at the expense of universality.”[603] Newman notes that Foucault, for example, has thrown into sharp relief the ways in which the universalization of “certain rational discourses”—associated with modernity—has silenced or expelled the voices and lived experiences of homosexuals, criminals, and the mentally ill, among many others.[604] Poststructuralism and anarchism seem to be in conversation, simultaneously informing one another, rather than existing in a relationship of one-way influence.[605]

Leonard Williams introduces Hakim Bey’s ontological anarchism within this context, arguing that the anti-essentialism of poststructuralism gives way to a recognition of “the local and contingent nature of political life.”[606] Bey’s post-left anarchism posits a radical break with politics, an immediate reclamation of areas of autonomy in daily life. Central to this notion is Bey’s idea of the temporary autonomous zone; the temporary autonomous zone is presented as the deliberate, immediate creation of an “Outside,” a “true space of resistance to the totality” in which the individual rejects the search for order and embraces chaos. Bey sees chaos as lying at the center of his project.

Unlike anarchists who “have been claiming for years that ‘anarchy is not chaos’”—who, like all political idealists, seek peace and order—Bey regards order “as death, cessation, crystallization, alien silence.”[607] Order here is the triumph of fixed ideas. If classical anarchists see liberty as the mother of order, egoism-tinged anarchisms question the claimed relationship between the two, content to embrace chaos, to disclaim attempts to contrive order from chaotic foundations. Indeed, egoists regard the anarchist project as a creation of those “who desire to dispel the illusory stases of order,” who see contrived attempts at order as standing in the way of “the unlimited creative potentials of chaos.”[608] Thus, in Postanarchism, Newman describes, in terms similar to Bey’s, “an anarchism of the here and now,” ontologically free and “unencumbered by [the] revolutionary metanarrative” of traditional anarchism, which identifies the eventual disappearance or destruction of state power as its goal.[609]

V. Egoism and Revolution

The idea of revolution is an important point of departure for post-left anarchism. Like other individualists in the anarchist tradition, Stirner has been dismissed by many social anarchists as bourgeois and anti-revolutionary.[610] And indeed egoists have treated the idea of revolution with a level of derision, resisting the notion that, to be free, the individual must wait for a revolution to occur at some remote moment in the future, when workers have become sufficiently classconscious. For anarchists in the post-left tradition, “the revolution of everyday life” is “the only revolution that matters,” rooted firmly in the individual’s own wants and purposes, not in political slogans and orthodoxies.[611]

Stirner’s idea of insurrection contemplates ongoing, autonomous escapes from the reaches of power instead of active struggles to fight or capture it, motivated by an inward-looking discontent with oneself rather than the “political or social act” of trying to effect “an overturning of conditions.”[612] For Stirner, political or social revolution represents an attempt to put the cart before the horse insofar as it begins by “aim[ing] at new arrangements.” Stirner says that while insurrection “has indeed for its unavoidable consequence a transformation of circumstances,” it does not start from this goal, instead contemplating

a rising of individuals, a getting up, without regard to the arrangements that spring from it. [R]evolution [aims] at new arrangements; insurrection leads us no longer to let ourselves be arranged, but to arrange ourselves, and sets no glittering hopes on ‘institutions.’[613]

Following Stirner, Renzo Novatore regarded anarchists as a “nobility,” as “aristocratic outsiders,” committed not to revolutionary social change or “the construction of a new and suffocating society,” but to the retrieval of self-creation, premised on the idea of the self-consciously “liberated Human Being” (emphasis in original and importantly not gendered).[614] This distinction deeply informs the set of projects that make up the various strains of egoist anarchism.

VI. Egoism and Lifestyle Anarchism

Collectivist anarchism bristles at the notion of a liberated individual unwilling to sacrifice herself for the holy cause of revolution. In Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm, Bookchin bemoans “a latter-day anarcho-individualism”—which he dismissively labels “lifestyle anarchism”—that he sees as “supplanting social action and revolutionary politics in anarchism.” In lifestyle anarchism, Bookchin perceives the narcissistic influence of bourgeois culture and “the antirational biases of postmodernism.” Concerned to preserve the “socialistic character of the libertarian tradition,” Bookchin expects all anarchists in good standing to demonstrate “responsible social commitment” in service to the revolution; they must participate in “organized, collectivistic, programmatic” political action, properly aware of the true meaning of freedom.[615] Strictly regimented and imposing all kinds of duties and devoirs, Bookchin’s anarchism appears positively authoritarian, reminiscent of Marsden’s remark to Tucker about the archism of anarchists. Many of Bookchin’s criticisms of “lifestyle anarchism” were anticipated by Marx in his confrontation with Stirner’s egoism. So captivated was Marx by Stirner’s thought that he dedicated three-fourths of The German Ideology to his critique of “Sankt Max.”[616] That book decries what Marx and Engels regard as Stirner’s “spiritual” and “bourgeois outlook,” as well as his supposed confusion about class categories.[617]

Many egoists have agreed with Bookchin’s position that their ideas are out of place in the anarchist tradition. Parker, for example, eventually concluded, following Marsden, that anarchism and egoism cannot be reconciled, that the former compels the individual to exalt the abstract ideal of humanity and thus to abstain from acting on his desires. Marsden classes anarchism with Christianity, understanding it as another in a long line of renunciatory systems of self-denial and control. Similarly, Marsden’s insight in her exchange with Tucker underscores egoism’s unshrinking assault on morality. “Conscience,” she writes, “takes the Ego in charge and but rarely fails to throttle the life out of him.” Correctly regarding anarchism not as a system without rules, but rather as a most exacting system of behavioral prohibitions, Marsden argues that the archism of “Armies, Courts, Gowns and Wigs, Jailors, [and] Hangmen” is “light and superficial as compared with that of our Clerico-libertarian friends.”[618] Here, it seems, Marsden had touched a nerve. Once among her greatest admirers,[619] Tucker soured on Marsden after this exchange, put off by her round rejection of anarchist ideology.

In their keenness to point out problems with treating egoism as leading to, as a form of, or as even compatible with anarchism, egoist thinkers like Marsden and Parker actually affirm Stirner’s “centrality and importance to [the anarchist] tradition.”[620] In its challenges to anarchism, Stirner’s egoism pushes anarchism to remain relevant, to incorporate new discourses and strategies, updating itself for the twenty-first century rather than remaining mired in nineteenth-century categories and ways of thinking about radical struggles.

VII. Egoism and Sexual Liberation

Daniel Guerin identifies important tensions between the egoist approach and the outmoded politics of the labor movement, among them “the endemic homophobia” in the latter and “the exclusive concern with class,” while ignoring, for example, what Guerin sees as Stirner’s “concern with sexual liberation.”[621] Marsden followed Stirner in emphasizing this concern; more recent treatments of her work note her importance as a forerunner of queer theory, her zealous resistance to facile, superficial categories, and her truly avant-garde readiness “to [extend] the status of the autonomous individual to all those who resist categorization.”[622]

The journals Marsden edited, including The Freewoman, The New Freewoman, and The Egoist, hosted spirited attacks on “the crass, ostrich-like stupidity of our national attitude on sex matters in general,” on “the heavy veil of Decency (so often the bitterest enemy of truth) enshroud[ing] practically all open discussion” of human sexuality and related matters.[623] Neither Stirner nor Marsden let repressive notions of good taste stand in the way of their probing deconstructions of sex and gender ideologies. Over one hundred years ago, Marsden challenged readers with the idea “that there is no definite reality which can be substituted as that to which Woman corresponds,” that “in itself feeling is sexless,” and that the differences between men and women are “infinitesimally small.”[624] She understands gender as a socially-constructed sacred ideal, one that exists apart from “the physical differences which are all which exist of sex.”[625] Indeed, Marsden’s radical and trailblazing efforts to transcend stale gender norms and stereotypes have drawn the ire of some feminists for allegedly “betraying and undermining [the] political, economic[,] and cultural empowerment of woman.”[626] If Marsden’s work and ideas prefigure the politics of trans and queer liberation, then such criticisms closely approximate the more general debate between radical feminists and the transgender movement.[627] Others have likewise observed the sex and gender implications of Stirner’s work. In discussing his translation of the title of Stirner’s only book, David Leopold observes that “Stirner clearly identifies the egoistic subject as prior to gender.”[628] Gender is just the kind of dominating abstraction, laden with duties and proscriptions, that Stirner is eager to explode, another (that is, apart from formal political institutions, capitalist relations, etc.) source of authority limiting the unique person.

A proper appreciation of Stirner’s ideas allows one to free oneself from both traditional gender roles and guilt or shame associated with one’s desires, “to become the owner of his own desires.”[629] Indeed, Stirner’s egoist ideas were a principal influence on Der Eigene, “the world’s first homosexual journal,” first published in 1896 and “dedicated to unique [eigenen] people” “who are proud of their uniqueness [Eigenheit] and want to insist on it no matter what the cost!”[630] The individualist anarchist John Henry Mackay, Stirner’s biographer, was an important contributor to the journal under the pseudonym Sagitta.

Through Marsden’s pioneering efforts, egoism also became a significant influence on modern art and literature. Indeed, her subeditors include influential figures of literary modernism such as Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, and no less a literary giant than James Joyce was among her contributors.

VIII. Egoism and Individualism

Assuming that they identify with it at all, egoists prefer to treat anarchism as another way of stating or explaining the importance of individual self-realization, predicated on a certain sensibility perhaps expressed in the idea that “the individual is above all institutions and formulas.”[631] And those egoists who do self-identify as anarchists frequently take care to place their individualism in the place of honor, to associate themselves with “anarchist individualism” (as against individualist anarchism).[632]

Yet even the relationship between egoism and individualism is contested, as Stirner’s ideas potentially imply a refusal to accept “the constrained and over-regulated forms of individuality on offer to us today.”[633] These constrained and over-regulated forms are associated in the literature with liberalism.[634] Stirner’s work, as well as that of today’s post-left anarchists, is not easily reduced to or understood through the lens of present-day left-right categories; it rejects ideology itself, and so naturally rejects liberalism, which, for Stirner, frees man, an abstraction, while subjecting the individual to domination and alienation.[635] Stirner regards liberalism as entailing “the normalization of the individual” through “a whole series of regulatory, judicial, medical and disciplinary procedures,” all calculated to erase “difference and individuality.”[636]

Political liberty means that the polis, the state, is free; freedom of religion that religion is free, as freedom of conscience signifies that conscience is free; not, therefore, that I am free from the state, from religion, from conscience, or that I am rid of them. It does not mean my liberty, but the liberty of a power that rules and subjugates me; it means that one of my despots, like state, religion, conscience, is free. State, religion, conscience, these despots, make me a slave, and their liberty is my slavery.[637]

Here, Stirner turns the Enlightenment—and prevailing narratives associated with it—on its head, scornful of the notion that through revolution (Stirner has in mind specifically the French Revolution) the individual had become free. The revolution and the ideas it represented had not defeated authority, had not altered or even reached the underlying structures of domination, but merely ushered in a new host of enslaving abstractions.

Stirner sees “in liberalism only the old Christian depreciation of the I,” a rebirth or reinvention of Christianity in the new terms provided by the Enlightenment.[638] Politics is just another incarnation of religion, its projects and plans so many rites and rituals, the state a new god to be propitiated again and again. With affected solemnity and self-seriousness, we line up to vote as we might have assembled to receive the Eucharist, and recognize the moral imperative of paying taxes as we might have understood the duty to tithe.

Still, rather than discarding liberalism as without value or insights, Stirner is catechizing it, eager to expose it to a searching dialectical process that yields new insights and proceeds to a higher level of analysis. His goal is to explode liberalism’s boundaries, opening space for a radical, pluralistic “hyper-liberalism,” radically accommodative of difference.[639] He offers a route of egress from the left-right political spectrum itself, indeed, from all accepted political categories and existing labels.[640]

Whether or not Stirner was an anarchist, his ideas arguably come to influence the anarchist movement first and most notably through the work of Benjamin R. Tucker, who published Steven T. Byington’s celebrated translation of The Ego and Its Own, the first in English, in 1907. Tucker encountered Stirner’s ideas through his friend and aide, the writer and publisher George Schumm, and James L. Walker, to whom Tucker referred as “the most thorough American student of Stirner.”[641]

In his important history of the American individualist anarchists, James J. Martin observes that Josiah Warren’s influence on Tucker prepared the ground for Tucker’s embrace of egoism. After participating in the utopian socialist communities of Robert Owen, Warren, careful “to preserve the SOVEREIGNTY OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL inviolate” (emphasis in original), “had dismissed altruism and subscribed to enlightened self-interest.”[642]

It is nevertheless important not to understate the extent to which Tucker’s adoption of egoism was in fact a meaningful break with those who had influenced him rather than an expression of fidelity to them. Tucker’s foremost American influences, the immediate predecessors of his explicit “philosophical anarchism,”[643] were deeply committed to fundamentally liberal conceptions of natural and inalienable individual rights. Warren himself positively invoked the Declaration of Independence and extolled “natural liberty.” Ezra Heywood, another of Tucker’s personal mentors, wrote of “the fundamental right to property.” Such earlier American individualists (other important examples include Lysander Spooner, J.K. Ingalls, William B. Greene, and Stephen Pearl Andrews) frequently called upon natural law and “the natural laws of trade” in their arguments against both the capitalist system and the state. Their individualist anarchism was, they believed, the system demanded by the cosmic order, indeed by science itself. (Tucker was, indeed, wont to call his political system “scientific anarchism.”) “There are,” J.K. Ingalls writes, “certain great laws or first principles which pervade universal Nature, and act with exceptionless uniformity.”[644] Indeed, it has been argued that individualist anarchism, particularly its American variant, was more akin to radical liberalism than to other schools of anarchist thought.[645] Much as Stirner’s thought pushed the boundaries of traditional liberalism, so did the American individualists radicalize liberalism to create their unique iteration of anarchism.

IX. Stirner and Dialectics

A consideration of the relationship between Stirner’s thought and dialectics must entail a consideration of both Hegel and Marx.

Stirner’s work emerges within the context of Hegel’s philosophy and cannot be fully understood, if understood at all, without a proper appreciation for the basic mechanics of Hegel’s dialectical process and his phenomenology.[646] Stirner “had the advantage of being taught his Hegel by Hegel,” having attended his lectures on the philosophy of religion, the history of philosophy, and the philosophy of spirit. Whether Stirner’s work follows in the dialectical tradition or explodes it is of course the subject of scholarly debate. And indeed it is possible that The Ego and Its Own, presenting a trenchant case against many of Hegel’s key ideas while employing “the distinctive triadic pattern of Hegel,”[647] does both.

Leopold contends that Stirner exploits the dialectical structure in order to develop his antiHegelian arguments, using a “self-conscious parody of Hegelianism.”[648] Welsh interprets Stirner’s egoism as a method with which to free dialectical social theory “from the Marxian shackles that are used to understand it.”[649]

X. Egoist Individualism and Communism

Despite the apparently irreconcilability between Marx’s communism and Stirner’s egoism—and the history of open hostility I have noted here—some anarchists have seen egoism as implying communism (at least anarchist communism, if not orthodox state communism). Marx and Engels themselves prosecuted “a sterile war against Stirner’s book,” quite clearly aware of its implications for their communist doctrine. Stirner’s book worries deeply about closed, self-contained, and comprehensive systems like their version of communism, which reduce humankind and its apparent classes to “large blob[s] of protoplasmic homogeneity,” to borrow the words of anarchist Laurance Labadie.[650] Still, communist anarchists have found in Stirner a radical attack on private property and, paraphrasing Stirner, a revolt against the pressure exerted by the property-owning class.

Emma Goldman, following Stirner, sees private property and capitalism as obstacles to the freedom of the individual—and she opposes these not in spite of her individualism, but because of it. Whereas state communists regard individualism itself as bourgeois and counterrevolutionary, the anarchist communist tradition treats individualism differently, and is thus able to reconcile itself to Stirner. John P. Clark credits Stirner with inspiring Goldman’s outlook “on individuality and personal uniqueness,”[651] evident in her claim “that if society is ever to become free, it will be so through liberated individuals.” To Goldman, Stirner is misunderstood, seen as “the apostle of the theory ‘each for himself, the devil take the hind one,’” when in fact his “individualism contains the greatest social possibilities.”[652]

In The Philosophy of Egoism, Walker, who frequently contributed to Tucker’s Liberty under the pseudonym Tak Kak, encapsulates another, decidedly different, possible egoist position on private property: “I have a right to what I can take and openly keep, and another has a right to take it from me if he can.”[653] Prudential concerns may encourage one to refrain from a given action, to chart a different course, but not moral considerations in the sense of normative rules outside of and independent of the individual. As a practical matter, the goal of the self-conscious egoist is to “discover where [his] true, most lasting interests lie,” “allow[ing] no moral considerations to obscure [his] view.”[654] The juxtaposition of Goldman and Walker here demonstrates the general difficulty inherent in claiming Stirner’s egoism for any political or economic doctrine.

XI. Egoism, Civilization, and Work

If egoism by definition resists all political and economic programs, it also damns society and civilization. Post-left anarchism has thus been closely related also to the primitivist tradition within anarchism, which posits civilization itself as a source—really the primary source—of domination and oppression. Primitivists associate civilization with a process of domestication that has denatured human beings and introduced hierarchical, authoritarian forms of social organization, that has removed people from the condition of wildness.[655] John Zerzan decries the reign of a “techno-scientific hegemony,”[656] a virulent monoculture infecting human beings and the natural world and precluding all other social possibilities. The political left, in Zerzan’s thought, is “discredited and dying”; its perspective “surely also needs to go” because it is irrelevant and unable to confront “the steady worldwide movement toward complete dehumanization.”[657] In fact, the left—scientific, rationalistic, and industrialist—is responsible in large part for this dehumanization, euphemistically called progress. We are possessed by the mindless desire to consume, captive to the drive for more. Primitivists argue that, prior to civilization, defined roughly as the time before the domestication of plants and animals, human beings enjoyed more gender autonomy and equality and more leisure time, affiliating in less violent societies marked by sharing and equality.[658]

The link back to Stirner and his egoist project is primitivism’s focus on denaturing processes, the ways in which modernity, technology, and civilization alienate human beings. Wolfi Landstreicher, however, offers an anarchist egoist critique of civilization that is explicitly non-primitivist, one that inquires, indeed, whether primitivism could be a positive impediment to a thoroughgoing anti-civilization project.[659] Landstreicher resists what he sees as primitivists’ reification and abstraction of what were actual relationships “between real, living, breathing human beings.” The attempt to boil such complex lived relationships down to an essential or idealized quality of primitiveness, Landstreicher argues, risks making anarchism another quest for the “eschatological vision” of a perfect future, “a program for the future” just like Marxism. It furthermore “dehumanizes and deindividualizes” the actual human beings who become the models of the primitive.

Related to its critiques of society and civilization is post-left anarchism’s battle with the labormovement-left’s naive romanticization of work. Rather than stopping at criticizing the exploitation of workers under capitalism, post-left anarchism has been critical of the social institution of work itself, even arguing, “In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working.”[660] Post-left anarchists have criticized workerist anarchism for its glorification of work and the factory as a symbol, preferring to call for more radical social interventions. Bob Black, for example, writes: “Work is much easier to glorify than it is to perform.” Similarly, Parker, arguing that anarchism will only ever appeal to a small minority, damns “the proletarian mythicists” for saddling anarchists with an “association with the dreary cult of ‘the workers.’” Parker quotes John Henry Mackay’s contention that anarchism “is not the concern of a single class,” emphasizing that it is instead “the concern of every individual who values his individual liberty.”[661] For Black, like Stirner, “ideologies like liberalism, humanism, Marxism, syndicalism, and Bookchinism” are much more alike than they are different, linked by the fact that they make demands of the individual, intent on dictating terms and establishing control over her behavior.[662] These ideological systems seek to substitute themselves for the volition of the thinking, feeling, flesh-and-blood unique, living parasitically on it. (Here, again, we have good reason to avoid sexing or gendering the unique.) Black is eager to point out that, when Bookchin “accuses rival anarchists of individualism and liberalism,” he is merely repeating the charges that Stalin casts against all anarchists.[663] He further notes that the indictment of post-left anarchists as “decadent” only reveals Bookchin’s envy and ressentiment, as the slur lacks any real meaning and serves only to identify “people perceived to be having more fun than you are.”[664] Bookchin here appears as a moral scold, bitter at “lifestylists” for rejecting his rigid, burdensome so-called anarchism.

Notwithstanding egoism’s aversion to morality, post-left anarchists have at times made conciliatory gestures in the direction of “practice-based virtue approaches” to ethical questions.[665] Newman, for example, acknowledges the desirability of cultivating “certain ethics and virtues for political struggle and autonomous experience,” identifying anarchist practices as producing “anti-hierarchical identities and values.” Stirner’s ideas connecting such values to education were very much ahead of their time; he anticipates later arguments in favor of an active and self-directed process of learning, as opposed to pedagogical approaches that treat the student as the passive recipient of the teacher’s knowledge and expertise. For Stirner, education as it exists is fundamentally and irreparably manipulative, “calculated to produce feelings in us, instead of leaving their production to ourselves however they may turn out.”[666] Welsh explains that Stirner regards education (and the process of socialization more generally) as inculcating self-renunciation, inverting the relationship between the individual and the object of his studies. Instead of dissecting and digesting the object “as an active subject,” the individual is relegated to a position of passivity, of subordination to something external and alien to him.[667]

XII. Conclusion

There is no simple, obvious answer, and quite possibly no right answer at all, to the question of whether Stirner or those he has influenced can accurately be classed as anarchists; his individualism is fundamentally different from the kind usually identified with anarchism: “Human essence, which was seen by the anarchists to be beyond the reach of power, was found by Stirner to be constructed by it.”[668] Post-left anarchism has often styled itself as neither left nor right,[669] in an effort to save the anarchist project from the individuality-stifling programs of political visionaries eager to impose their blueprints for the ideal free society. It therefore has no shortage of enemies in an anarchist community with deep historical and ideological ties to the left.

Notwithstanding any commonalities between the thinkers and ideas constituting post-left anarchism, egoist anarchism, or anarchist individualism, it is difficult to justify identifying them as a single school or movement. Indeed, to undertake such school-building would be contrary to the main thrust of Stirner’s work, that the irreducible feelings and wants of the unique person are more important and fundamental than the ideas of academics and the movements of activists.[670] These traditions want no part of the political, of its meetings, committees, leaders, or movements, spurning all the varieties of institution-building in favor of “unmediated desire.”[671] Stirner’s ideas equip anarchists with new analytical tools that discourage us from seeing in anarchism the promise of a final terminus—a post-revolution paradise. Instead, Stirner immerses anarchism in an endless recursive cycle in which power dynamics are repeatedly reconsidered in light of new circumstances and cannot be facilely reduced, for example, “to a mere function of the capitalist economy or class interest.”[672]

11. De Facto Monopolies and the Justification of the State

Ralf M. Bader

The fundamental question of political philosophy ... is whether there should be any state at all.

I. Introduction

This chapter explains how Nozick’s notion of a de facto monopoly makes room for states that are justified in claiming a monopoly on coercion despite lacking authority and despite their citizens lacking political obligation. Along the way, it establishes that political obligation and political authority are fundamentally distinct mechanisms for underwriting content-independent duties, but that neither can plausibly apply in the absence of consent.

II. The Problem of Coercion

States are coercive. They use force as well as the threat of force in order to make citizens commit or omit various actions. It is because of their coercive nature that anarchists consider states to be objectionable. They argue that only consent on the part of all those who are governed by a state can give rise to political obligation or confer the requisite normative powers on the state. The state cannot permissibly claim a monopoly on force within a certain territory unless all the individuals in that territory have consented to its rule. As a result, anarchists consider non-consensual states to be illegitimate. Such states cannot permissibly rule and are morally objectionable.

The crucial question for determining whether the state can be justified is whether it is permissible for the state to use force as well as the threat of force. On what grounds and under what conditions can the state be justified in using coercion? On the face of it, there is a strong presumption against coercion and in favour of liberty.

Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do.[674]

For the state to be justified, it may not engage in rights violations. This means that a justified state can only use coercion on the condition that doing so is permissible and does not violate any rights. The rights of individuals, however, put into doubt the permissibility of state coercion, or at least significantly restrict the scope of permissible coercion, thereby limiting the range of activities in which the state can permissibly engage.

Nozick agrees with the anarchist that states lack authority and that citizens do not have political obligation when consent is absent. In order to address the anarchist’s challenge and show that non-consensual states can be justified, Nozick attempts to show that it can be permissible for states to exercise a monopoly of force and coerce their citizens even in the absence of consent.[675] Rather than focusing on the obligations that individual citizens have, Nozick is concerned with the prerogatives that the state has and the actions that it can permissibly perform. In particular, he argues that a non-consensual state can claim a monopoly on coercion without violating the rights of its citizens.[676] States can, accordingly, be justified even though they lack authority and even though citizens lack political obligations.

III. Enforcing Duties

The moral prohibitions it is permissible to enforce are the source of whatever legitimacy the state’s fundamental coercive power has.[677]

Consensual states can have a wide scope of permissible coercion. As long as there are no limits on which rights can voluntarily be surrendered,[678] the scope of coercion that is rendered permissible on the basis of the consent of the governed is, in principle, unlimited. The scope of legitimate coercion on the part of non-consensual states, however, seems to be rather limited. In particular, it appears to be restricted to cases in which the rights of individuals are either removed or overridden.[679]

The non-consensual use of coercion can be justified straightforwardly when it comes to enforcing duties that are enforceable.[680] Coercion is justified if it is used appropriately (i.e., satisfying procedural constraints, proportionality requirements, etc.), both prospectively in order to prevent rights violations and retrospectively in order to punish rights violations and rectify past wrongs. Using force as well as threatening the use of force in order to enforce moral prohibitions that are enforceable does not amount to a rights violation. This is because the relevant rights have been forfeited by the aggressor who has violated or is about to violate someone’s rights, thereby rendering the use of coercion permissible.[681] If rights are forfeited as a result of the rights-violating behaviour of individuals, coercion on the part of the state may be permissible.[682]

Whilst the state can be justified in using coercion to enforce moral prohibitions, on the basis that enforceable duties may permissibly be enforced, this justification of coercion does not straightforwardly carry over to the enforcement of compliance with positive laws, in particular laws that—unlike laws against, say, murder—do not simply codify and promulgate natural duties. States standardly make positive laws that go beyond the narrow content of protecting natural rights and use coercion to enforce compliance with these laws. For coercion to be justified in those cases it would either have to be the case that citizens have political obligation or that the state has political authority.

IV. Obligation and Authority

There are two general mechanisms that give rise to content-independent justifications for using coercion to ensure compliance with positive laws: political obligation and political authority.[683] On the one hand, if citizens have an enforceable content-independent obligation to do what the law says precisely because it is the law, then one can use coercion to enforce compliance with positive laws.[684] If citizens have political obligation and owe a duty of compliance, then the state can be justified in using coercion to ensure compliance.[685] On the other hand, coercion can be justified if the state has the requisite moral powers to impose duties on its citizens. If the state has political authority and is able to impose enforceable duties, coercion can be used permissibly to ensure compliance.

These two mechanisms differ in important ways. The former makes law-making into a form of duty-activation, whereas it amounts to duty-creation on the latter.[686] In the first case, citizens have a general duty to do what the law says, which is then triggered by the enactment of particular laws and thereby gives rise to specific duties. These specific duties are derivative. They are derived via factual detachment from a general standing obligation that is naturally understood in terms of a wide-scope requirement: OUGHT(the law requires O-ing —— O) together with the facts about the specific laws that have been enacted. In the second case, the state exercises a moral power and creates specific duties by enacting laws, so that one acquires a duty to O because it is the law that one should O.[687] Such an exercise of a moral power creates non-derivative duties. This can be understood in terms of a narrow-scope requirement: the law requires O-ing —— OUGHt(O). In this case, there is no prior standing duty from which the specific duties are derived. Instead, there is a standing liability. Put differently: the contrast is between citizens’ being obligated to comply with a law that requires one to O and a law’s creating an obligation to O for its citizens. Although one ends up with a duty to O in each case, these duties are generated via different mechanisms. Whilst the political-obligation and political-authority models might seem to be practically equivalent and to generate the same sets of duties, they differ in important respects. Differences emerge, in particular, once one not only focuses on what actions people are required to perform and what the state may enforce but also takes into consideration to whom the duties are owed and who is being wronged in case of non-compliance. Similarly, differences emerge once one ceases to presume a fixed set of citizens but instead considers situations in which the set of citizens varies across time.

First, these mechanisms can differ in terms of the person or group to whom the resulting duty is owed. In the case of political obligation, the obligation is owed by citizens to whomever this general obligation is owed; i.e., the detached duty is owed to the same entity to whom the wide-scope conditional obligation is owed. This is standardly the state, but can also be some other agent or group of agents, such as the other members of a society, as might be thought to be the case, for instance, in the case of a social contract.[688] If x (the state) is owed political obligation by y (the citizen), then compliance with any law that x makes will be owed by y to x, even when the law concerns how y ought to treat z. If one has a standing obligation that is owed to the state, then the derived obligation to treat z in a certain way will not be owed to z (despite its being an obligation that concerns z) but will instead be owed to the state. Although the existence of the law might well give rise to reasonable expectations on the part of z, such that y ends up having (additional) reasons to comply with the law and treat z in a certain way that derive from z’s interests, the enforceable obligation that derives from y’s political obligation will not be owed by y to z but to x.[689]

In the case of political authority, by contrast, the law creates a duty that can be owed to particular individuals who are identified by the law. If x (the state) has a moral power to change the normative situation of y (the citizen), then it can create a duty for y that y owes to z. This is particularly clear when the state exercises its moral power to create rights and corresponding obligations. The resulting duties will be owed to the particular rights holders, not to the agent exercising the moral power, nor to the community of persons in whose name that agent is acting.[690] The duty created by someone who has authority need not be owed to that agent. If x exercises its authority and creates a (directed) duty for y to treat z in a certain way, then the one who is wronged in case y fails to act accordingly is the person z to whom the duty is owed, not the entity x that exercised authority and created the duty. Although violating a duty that has been created by someone who has the authority to do so conveys disrespect for that authority—i.e., one acts as if no duty had been created, as if the person did not have authority—this phenomenon of disrespect differs from wronging the one to whom the duty is owed.

To whom the duty is owed matters for the question who is being wronged. This, in turn, has various practical consequences such as to whom compensation is owed, to whom one needs to apologise, and which relationships are being impaired. It might be argued that the effects of the two mechanisms can be aligned as long as the state suitably specifies to whom compensation is owed. This, however, requires additional legislation, which means that the two mechanisms are not equivalent in the sense of giving rise to the same duties in the same circumstances. Moreover, whilst this might work when it comes to compensation, it does not work across the board. Problems arise, in particular, when one is concerned with the impairment of relationships. If y owes a duty to the state to the effect that y treat z in a certain way, then the state can make it the case that y needs to compensate z in case of non-compliance and maybe apologise to z, but the state cannot make it the case that y’s relationship with z is impaired by non-compliance, and hence cannot make it the case that the apology is an appropriate response to the wronging, since the relationship that is impaired is that in which y stands to the person to whom the duty is owed.

Second, these mechanisms differ in terms of the conditions under which a duty arises for a particular individual.[691] As long as someone has a political obligation to obey the laws of a particular state, this person has a duty to comply with all the laws of that state. If x has political obligation at t, then x is under a duty to O at t if there is a law in existence at t that requires O-ing. In the case of political authority, by contrast, the duty comes into existence at the time of the enactment of the law for all those who at that time have the corresponding liability. If the state exercises its authority at t and creates a law requiring citizens to O, then x is under a duty to O only if x is a citizen and hence is under the authority of the state at the time at which the law is enacted.

This has important implications for those becoming citizens subsequent to the enactment of the law, such as later generations. The case of subsequent generations poses no difficulties for political-obligation approaches.[692] By acquiring a political obligation to obey the laws of a particular state—e.g., by consenting to a state—one is bound to comply with the laws of that state, independently of when they were enacted. Normative powers views, on the contrary, run into difficulties. The enactment of a law gives rise to a duty for those who are subject to the authority at the time of enactment.[693] If a law is enacted at time t, yet x only comes into existence at a later time t' or only becomes a citizen at t' with the liability to have one’s normative situation changed by the law-making authority, then x will not be bound by that law. The initial exercise of the power only created obligations for those who had the liability at that time. Since x was not amongst them, the obligation needs to be created for x afresh. Put differently, becoming a citizen, on the political-authority approach, is a matter not of acquiring duties but of acquiring a liability. In order for duties to result from this liability, the authority needs to be exercised afresh; i.e., past exercises do not carry over to those who have only subsequently acquired the liability.[694]

Political obligation and political authority are not two sides of the same coin. They are different mechanisms that generate different duties and operate in different ways. These mechanisms are completely independent of each other. Contra Stephen Perry, it is not the case that we have an entailment in one direction but not the other direction, namely from political authority to the existence of a duty to obey but not vice versa. Instead, we have a forward-entailment problem in addition to the reverse-entailment problem identified by Perry. This is particularly clear when considering cases in which the state has authority but never exercises it, in which case the citizens do not acquire any obligations.[695] In order for political authority to give rise to duties, the relevant moral power must in fact be exercised. When it is exercised, its exercise gives rise to various specific duties, but not to a (general) duty to obey the law. Put differently, whenever there is a law requiring citizens to ^, there will be a corresponding duty to ^. There will not, however, be a general duty to obey the law. By contrast, a political obligation can be owed without the existence of any laws and without the activation of any duties.

Given a broad construal of the duty to obey the law (one that encompasses specific duties that can be created by law-making alongside the occurrent general duty to obey the law that can be triggered by law-making) as well as of political authority (one that encompasses both duty-creation and duty-activation), there will be entailment in both directions. The specific duties that political authority and political obligation yield (whether activated or created) will be the same when each is considered purely in terms of which actions citizens are required to perform or avoid performing (i.e., when we abstract from the question to whom the duties are owed). Given a narrow construal of each mechanism, by contrast, there will not be any entailment in either direction. As a result, the notion of political authority is not privileged over that of political obligation. Political authority and political obligation are simply two different mechanisms that operate in different ways, give rise to different duties, and can perform different justificatory work.

Whilst both mechanisms succeed in justifying the use of coercion to ensure compliance with positive laws, neither would seem to be applicable in the absence of consent. Political obligation, where this is understood as an enforceable content-independent duty to obey the laws of a particular state, can only be founded on consent. Other proposed mechanisms for explaining political obligation, such as duties of gratitude or fair play, fail to underwrite duties that satisfy the requirements of enforceability, content-independence, and particularity.[696] Although they can give rise to various pro tanto reasons, they do not succeed in generating enforceable contentindependent obligations. Similarly, given the moral equality and independence of individuals, there is no natural moral inequality between states and their citizens (of the kind that is, say, suggested by the idea of the divine right of kings). As a result, moral powers have to be acquired. In order to acquire the relevant moral powers, the state would have to be authorised by its citizens: its citizens would need to consensually confer the relevant moral powers on the state.[697]

Since only consent can give rise to political obligation or confer the relevant moral powers on the state, justified non-consensual states are restricted to enforcing natural moral prohibitions and are not allowed to coercively enforce positive laws that go beyond these prohibitions. Laws can only be enforced to the extent that they merely codify and promulgate enforceable natural duties. This means that, in order for non-consensual states to be justified, they must be minimal states, in the sense that they are restricted to enforcing natural duties. If a non-consensual state creates laws and coerces people into doing things that they are not independently obligated to do, then this non-minimal state will be acting impermissibly and will not be justified. It will be coercively enforcing laws that it has created without having the right to do so. By making citizens comply with these laws as well as by punishing them for non-compliance, it will be violating the rights of its citizens.[698]

V. The Monopoly on Coercion

The state grants that under some circumstances it is legitimate to punish persons who violate the rights of others, for it itself does so. How then does it arrogate to itself the right to forbid private exaction of justice by other nonaggressive individuals whose rights have been violated?[699]

Non-consensual states lack authority and their citizens do not have political obligation. Such states nevertheless have some fundamental coercive power.[700] The justification of coercion on the part of a non-consensual state is based on the right to enforce moral prohibitions. It is permissible for the state to employ (appropriate) force as well as the threat of force to prevent and punish rights violations. However, this is likewise permissible for everyone else. Everyone has the right to use force prospectively to prevent rights violations as well as retrospectively to punish those who have committed rights violations. In short, everyone is at liberty to enforce enforceable moral prohibitions.[701]

The state, however, claims a monopoly on coercion in a given territory.[702] In fact, this is one of the defining features of what it is to be a state (given a Weberian framework).[703] To justify the (minimal) state one must thus establish not only that it is permissible for the state to use coercion to enforce moral prohibitions but also that it is permissible for the state to claim a monopoly on coercion. In short, it has to be permissible for the state to use coercion to stop others from enforcing rights within a given territory.[704]

This means that even an ultraminimal state would seem to go beyond enforcing moral prohibitions by claiming a monopoly on coercion and thereby prohibiting and preventing private enforcement, despite the fact that there would seem to be no duty to refrain from engaging in private enforcement. As a result, it will violate the enforcement rights of those who have not consented to its rule. “If the private exacter of justice violates no one’s rights, then punishing him for his actions (actions state officials also perform) violates his rights and hence violates moral side constraints.”[705] This suggests that prohibiting private enforcement and claiming a monopoly on coercion itself amounts to a rights violation. This, in turn, implies that coercion on the part of the state in this regard at least will not be permissible. Yet, since the use of coercion needs to be permissible if the state is to be justified, this implies that there cannot be any justified non-consensual state.

Justifying the state’s claim to a monopoly on coercion is rather difficult, given that enforcement rights are universal. The state of nature is a situation of moral equality, where no one is inherently subordinate to anyone else. There is no asymmetry as regards fundamental coercive power. Instead, individuals are symmetrically situated with respect to each other. Everyone can use coercion to enforce moral prohibitions and punish wrongdoing. In a civil condition, by contrast, only the state is meant to be justified in doing so. In order for its monopoly to be justified, the state needs to occupy a privileged position.

The state uses force and claims to be justified in doing things that individuals cannot permissibly do. Why is it permissible for the state to prohibit individuals from O-ing (namely enforcing right) when it is fine for the state to O? Explaining this asymmetry is difficult because a protective association derives its rights from its members. As Nozick notes, no new rights emerge at the group level. The rights of a protective association, and likewise ofa state, have to be reducible:

the legitimate powers of a protective association are merely the sum of the individual rights that its members or clients transfer to the association. No new rights and powers arise; each right of the association is decomposable without residue into those individual rights held by distinct individuals acting alone in a state of nature.[706]

Accordingly, it would seem that one can establish the requisite moral asymmetry only by means of consent. There are two possibilities. Either individuals voluntarily transfer their enforcement rights to the state and thereby render impermissible their own engagement in private enforcement, insofar as giving up these rights implies that they are no longer at liberty to engage in private enforcement. Or a state that can impose duties (either by exercising political authority or by triggering political obligation) can prohibit private enforcement and can thus make it impermissible for citizens to make use of coercion. Yet, in the absence of consent no such moral asymmetry arises, and it is consequently difficult to explain how the state can be permitted to do things that citizens are not permitted to do.[707]

VI. The De Facto Monopoly

The non-consensual state is not normatively privileged. It does not have some special right that others lack. This means that it does not have a de jure monopoly. Only those who have voluntarily transferred some of their rights to the state and over whom the state has some form of authority stand in an asymmetric normative relation to the state. Those who have not consented, by contrast, are the moral equals of the state. The difficulty is thus to reconcile the asymmetry implicated in a monopoly with a commitment to moral equality, without relying on consent.

Nozick’s solution to this problem appeals to the notion of a de facto monopoly. Instead of having a de jure monopoly, the state merely has a de facto monopoly. The state is not normatively but only empirically privileged. Since there is no de jure asymmetry, there is no conflict with moral equality. Yet, the way in which the state is empirically privileged is nevertheless normatively significant. The asymmetry that is involved in a de facto monopoly does not concern the possession of rights but, rather, the exercise of rights. Although the state has the very same rights as everyone else, there is a right that is such that the state is the only one who is able to exercise this right. In virtue of its dominant position, the state is uniquely capable of exercising a right that everyone has.

Nozick points out that the enforcement of rights might well involve procedures which risk being unfair and unreliable and which thereby impose risks on others. He provides two arguments designed to show that this kind of risk imposition can be permissibly prohibited. On the one hand, one can appeal to procedural rights and argue that those who make use of risky enforcement procedures can be prohibited from engaging in enforcement since they would otherwise violate procedural rights. On the other hand, Nozick advances an epistemic principle of border crossing that implies that it is impermissible for x to punish y, even when y is guilty and doing so does not violate y’s right, on the grounds that x has not suitably ascertained whether or not y is guilty; i.e., x is not in the requisite epistemic position to permissibly punish y.[708]

Whilst everyone has the right to prohibit enforcement that is based on procedures that they deem to be unfair or unreliable, the dominant protective agency is in a privileged position. It is not privileged because its procedures are somehow guaranteed to be fair and reliable. Nozick does not assume the dominant agency to be epistemically privileged or to have special insight into which procedures are fair and reliable. Instead, it is privileged by virtue of its strength.[709] Its strength puts it into a privileged position because “the right includes the right to stop others from wrongfully exercising the right, and only the dominant power will be able to exercise the right against all others.”[710] The dominant agency can, accordingly, permissibly prohibit anyone else, in particular all independents (those individuals who have not consented) from engaging in private enforcement when using procedures that it deems to be unfair or unreliable. What the dominant agency deems to be fair and reliable then becomes the standard that ends up being enforced. Due to its strength, it can permissibly settle the question of what counts as a fair and reliable procedure.[711] Anything that deviates from the standards it adopts and is deemed unfair or unreliable will be prohibited. “The dominant protective agency will act freely on its own understanding of the situation, whereas no one else will be able to do so with impunity.”[712] As a result, the dominant agency has a de facto monopoly and thus qualifies as an ultraminimal state.

The notion of a de facto monopoly in this way allows for an asymmetry at the level of the exercise of a right. It thereby justifies the state’s claiming a monopoly on coercion in a way that is perfectly compatible with a commitment to moral equality.[713] In particular, it does not require any de jure monopoly that could only be established on the basis of unanimous consent on the part of all those governed by the state.[714]

VII. Conclusion

There is room for justified non-consensual states. This space, however, is very narrow and can only be filled by a state that has a de facto but not a de jure monopoly. This is the only way in which a state can permissibly claim a monopoly of force without the consent of the governed.[715] Such a state is only justified in enforcing natural rights and prohibiting those who use risky procedures from engaging in private enforcement.[716] As a result, a justified non-consensual state must take the form of a Nozickian minimal state. Non-minimal states, by contrast, can only be justified if their citizens authorise them to perform the additional activities that go beyond those required to enforce enforceable moral prohibitions.

Acknowledgements

For helpful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter, I am grateful to Roger Crisp and Johann Frick.

12 Two Cheers for Rothbardianism Cory Massimino

Cory Massimino

I. Introduction

Murray N. Rothbard (1926—1995) was an economist, historian, political theorist, polemicist, activist, and founder of the variety of market anarchism he dubbed “anarcho-capitalism.” Both his supporters and detractors too often remember him for his late-career influence on paleolibertarianism, a movement that sought to synthesize populist conservatism and libertarianism (and, in Rothbard’s case, anarchism). After his turn to paleolibertarianism, Rothbard embraced Pat Buchanan and David Duke,[717] and called for the cops to be “unleashed” to “administer instant punishment.”[718] My goal here is not to defend Rothbard’s paleolibertarianism or reconcile it with anarchism, but to explore aspects and implications of his thought quite apart from paleolibertarianism, of which there is quite a bit. Rothbard had extensive influence on other anarchists, on libertarians, on conservatives, on radical leftists, on Austrian-school economists, and on others. In light of that, I think we should give Rothbard’s work another look.

We can embrace important insights offered by Rothbard without endorsing his paleolibertarianism. We can’t reasonably regard paleolibertarianism, which he embraced during the last fifteen years of his life, as definitive of his overall position, any more than we can consider Rothbard’s prior affiliations with the Old Right[719] or the New Left[720] as somehow reflective of the authentic Rothbard. He enjoyed intra-group politicking and formed and destroyed many political alliances through the course of his life. If we want to understand his ideas, we should focus on the salient themes that can be consistently found across all his work over the course of his entire life and which guided his analytic focus throughout. We can call that bundle of themes “Rothbardianism.” My specific interpretations of Rothbard might, at first, confound critics and admirers alike, but I believe they’re all backed up by solid textual support. I hope the conversation around Rothbard can move past both cultish admiration and reflexive criticism and instead develop a sense of critical admiration for his thought.

“Rothbardianism,” I suggest, mainly consists in four broad (and usually disparate) frameworks that he attempted to synthesize and unite into a coherent whole. Rothbard thought all the sciences of human action were interrelated.[721] He was both a radical thinker, in the sense of having an integrated, root-and-branch approach to social issues,[722] and a dialectical thinker,[723] in the sense of analyzing moral, social, cultural, political, and economic phenomena from different vantage points and levels of generality in order to make apparent different aspects and interrelationships.[724] I will give a broad overview of each of Rothbard’s frameworks and the ways in which they fit together and reinforce each other in radical, dialectical fashion: (1) natural law theory in the tradition of Aristotle, (2) individualist anarchism in the tradition of Lysander Spooner, (3) liberal class theory in the tradition of Franz Oppenheimer, and (4) Austrian economics in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises. Then I will consider what other strands of anarchism can learn from Rothbardianism. Finally, I will explore potential lessons Rothbardianism can learn from other strands of thought, particularly classical and contemporary anarchism, and where the future of Rothbardianism might lie.

I want to note that Rothbard was a broad thinker and prolific writer. He was a systembuilder with many parts to his system. Boettke notes, “For those who are concerned with not just philosophizing about the world, but changing it, Rothbard provides a vision of a systematic science of liberty.”[725] There are surely aspects of Rothbard’s lengthy body of work that I won’t have time to explore here. But I hope to give a fair account of his overall thought and do justice to his legacy while also building upon it.

II. Natural Law Theory

On Rothbard’s view, morality “is a special case of the system of natural law governing all entities of the world, each with its own nature and its own ends.” The content of the moral law, then, depends upon the nature of the moral beings it concerns. But what is the essential nature of human beings? Rothbard followed Aristotle in thinking that what distinguishes humans from “inanimate objects and non-human living creatures,” who “are compelled to proceed in accordance with the ends dictated by their natures,” is the possession of “reason to discover such ends and the free will to choose” among them.[726] Rationality is the faculty that separates humanity from other natural kinds. It’s our capacity for reason that enables us to direct our actions towards specific ends of our own choosing.

Not only do humans “always act purposely”; our “ends can also be apprehended by reason as either objectively good or bad for” humans.[727] On Rothbard’s view, natural law theory provides a “science of happiness” that “elucidates what is best for man — what ends man should pursue that are most harmonious with, and best tend to fulfill, his nature.”[728] Rational deliberation is the essential feature of human beings that we are uniquely suited for and which constitutes our unique flourishing. “The function of a human being is activity of the soul accord with reason.”[729]

Central to Rothbard’s natural law theory is his individualist ontology: it is only the individual human being “who thinks, feels, chooses, and acts.”[730] Humans are metaphysically independent. Only the individual human being can develop the virtues necessary for rational flourishing. Yet the possibility of living a virtuous life presupposes the ability, or the freedom, to act according to virtue, according to one’s own moral conscious. Attempts to compel virtue eliminate its very possibility. When people are coerced, they are taken “out of the realm of action into mere motion.” Individual autonomy, self-direction, and the freedom to choose are constitutive of virtue. “To be moral, an act must be free.”[731] The social conditions of freedom generate and sustain our very ability to act morally. “Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins.”[732] The centrality of moral agency committed Rothbard to a kind of radical egalitarianism — an egalitarianism not directly committed to economic, social, or legal equality, but rather to equality of authority.[733] For Rothbard, liberty is a condition in which no human being exercises authority over another; i.e. exercises physical violence to subject another to one’s own ends. “[T]he specific equality of liberty ... is compatible with the basic nature of man.”[734]

But what about external materials, objects which are unlike our body in that we don’t possess natural agency over them? A theory of rights that doesn’t account for the material world beyond our immediate bodies treats humans as “self-subsistent floating wraiths.” Because we are embodied and because we act in the physical world, our existence necessarily requires the ability to transform nature-given resources into usable and consumable objects. Human nature necessitates not only self-ownership, but also ownership of material objects to control and use.[735] Property rights are not tacked-on additions to but specific applications of the right of self-ownership. Long calls this the “incorporation principle,” according to which the alteration of external objects such that they become instruments of my ongoing projects transforms them into extensions of myself.[736] Incorporated objects become related to me such that no one can subject them to their purposes without subjecting me to their purposes.[737]

Rothbard’s natural law theory doesn’t reject the Aristotelian insight that human nature is essentially social. On Rothbard’s view, self-ownership rights are merely the application of our social nature. Humans are metaphysically independent, but socially interdependent. Rothbard thought our social nature is best expressed by a scheme of self-ownership that enables social cooperation and protects people from being violently subordinated to others’ ends. It’s our social nature, and the freedom humans require to act on that social nature, that undergirds our obligation to respect the self-ownership rights of others.

Rothbard made a radical, dialectical case for the idea that humans were “not made for one another’s uses.”[738] He grounded such a theory in the centrality of individual autonomy, selfdirection, and freedom to choose for flourishing as rational and social beings. Natural law theory offers a system of compossible rights that are inherent in our humanity and which establishes just physical boundaries between moral agents such that agents can’t violently subordinate each other. This view has profoundly “radical and revolutionary”[739] implications for social and political thought.

III. Individualist Anarchism

Rothbard disagreed, not with the view that we’re social animals, but with the conventional implications of that view for political theory. Many political theorists see the state as a vehicle of collective decision-making in which the members of a given society come together in the pursuit of common goals. But where many see the state as a bulwark of social cooperation, Rothbard saw it as the epitome of social disintegration.

A common defense of the State holds that man is a ‘social animal,’ that he must live in society, and that individualists and libertarians believe in the existence of ‘atomistic individuals’ uninfluenced by and unrelated to their fellow men. But no libertarians have ever held individuals to be isolated atoms; on the contrary, all libertarians have recognized the necessity and the enormous advantages of living in society, and of participating in the social division of labor. The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State, including classical Aristotelian and Thomist philosophers, is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State. On the contrary, as we have indicated, the State is an antisocial instrument, crippling voluntary interchange, individual creativity, and the division of labor. ‘Society’ is a convenient label for the voluntary interrelations of individuals, in peaceful exchange and on the market.[740]

For Rothbard, the distinction between state and society is of primary importance. The state is merely a subset of society, a single institution among many. What distinguishes the state from other social institutions is its inherently compulsory and predatory nature. “Throughout history, groups of men calling themselves ‘the government’ or ‘the State’ have attempted — usually successfully — to gain a compulsory monopoly of the commanding heights of the economy and the society.”[741] Such predatory compulsion violates Rothbard’s radical egalitarianism of authority and goes against our and rational and social nature.

There are two aspects to the coercive, anti-social nature of the state. First, it’s a monopoly. That is, the state has unliterally designated itself as the sole provider of infrastructure, education, arbitration, defense, etc., within its territory. A crucial feature of the state’s monopoly status is its “control of the use of violence: of the police and armed services, and of the courts — the locus of ultimate decision-making power in disputes over crimes and contracts.” The state necessarily rests on physical coercion that precludes other people or groups of people from providing many of the goods and services it provides. The state’s monopoly over the use of violence is directly related to the second aspect of its coercive nature: taxation. “Control of the police and the army is particularly important in enforcing and assuring all of the State’s other powers, including the all-important power to extract its revenue by coercion.” Non-state entities in society (except criminal enterprises) obtain their income through voluntary trade and/or gifts, whereas states obtain their income by the use of physical coercion. This means that taxation is morally equivalent to theft, “even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match. It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State’s inhabitants, or subjects.”[742] Rothbard is heavily indebted to Spooner, who observed “that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: ‘Your money, or your life.’”[743]

Neither can a majority vote ground a voluntary relationship between any particular person and the state. Even if every state action were endorsed by a majority, this would simply amount to majority tyranny instead of any actual process of voluntary interaction. Popularity does not make the immoral moral. What of the act of voting itself? Has someone who votes in a state election thereby consented to the edicts that result from that election? Rothbard again turned to the work of Spooner, who argued that despite never consenting to the use of the ballot box, citizens are faced with the binary choice of not voting, and becoming a slave, or voting in selfdefense, and becoming a master.[744] Any such vote cannot be interpreted as consent.

Rothbard drew heavily on Bastiat, who identified the conflation of state and society as the root problem of state socialism. “Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society ... [E]very time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.”[745] Hence, opposition to state education, infrastructure, arbitration, defense, etc. is interpreted as opposition to education, infrastructure, arbitration, defense, etc., per se, when in fact there exists a whole array of proposed alternatives to state monopolies such as voluntary trade, entrepreneurship, mutual aid, and decentralized cooperation. On Rothbard’s view, these services currently monopolized by the violent, invasive, parasitic, and corrupt state should, could, and would be better provided by unhampered market processes, a view we will consider at more length in the section below on Austrian economics.

Rothbard made a radical, dialectical case that all “external government is tyranny” and that it is necessary we abolish the state because individuals have the right to govern themselves.[746] States inherently depend on violence and prevent their subjects from cultivating virtue, engaging in social cooperation, and leading flourishing lives. Any suppositions of implied consent merely serve to disguise state violence. Yet to fully understand and resist statism, we must also understand the institutions states are intertwined with.

IV. Liberal Class Theory

Rothbard followed Oppenheimer in distinguishing between two fundamental modes of social interaction, two ways of acquiring resources and satisfying one’s desires: the economic means, which consists in relying on one’s own labor and the equivalent exchange thereof, and the political means, which consists in the physically coercive appropriation of the labor of others, and the organization of which we call the state.[747] Economic means logically precede the political means because production metaphysically precedes predation. Goods must be produced before they can be appropriated. Social cooperation is prior to states, which only emerge once there exists producers to prey upon; i.e. once conquest and exploitation become viable. Statism causes social disintegration by dividing society into two classes, one that thrives on force and one that thrives on freedom, one that subsists via violent expropriation and one that subsists via voluntary production.

Rothbard argued the “ruling elite” consists in “the full-time apparatus — the kings, politicians, and bureaucrats who man and operate the State; and the groups who have maneuvered to gain privileges, subsidies, and benefices from the State.”[748] The ruling class encompasses both the state and the state-adjacent institutions that rely on expropriation for their continued existence. Rothbard lamented the “grave deficiency” of libertarians that “worship Big Business” and fail to realize that under the modern neo-mercantilist, neo-fascist corporate state, “bigness is a priori highly suspect, because Big Business most likely got that way through an intricate and decisive network of subsidies, privileges, and direct and indirect grants of monopoly protection.”[749] Rothbard argued the regulations thought to “reign in” big business were actually supported by big business in order to cartelize the economy.[750]

Rothbard consequently took a revisionist approach to the Progressive Era, which he considered a period not in which an altruistic state rescued ordinary people from robber barons, but in which “right-wing collectivism based on war, militarism, protectionism, and the compulsory cartelization of business” reasserted itself disguised in a “proindustrial and pro-general-welfare face.” Predatory robber barons were actually propped up at the expense of ordinary people. “The Old Order returned,” this time benefitting the army, bureaucracy, and corporations.[751] The dominance of the corporate, neo-mercantilist state heavily depended upon the existence of intellectuals in academia and journalism to foster a socio-cultural atmosphere conducive to statism, militarism, and corporatism.[752]

The Progressive Era reassertion of “right-wing collectivism” was not incidental for Rothbard. He argued that despite conventional categorization, socialism (of the statist variety) is best understood, not as a far left ideology, but a confused, middle-of-the-road ideology, trying to achieve the ends of freedom, dignity, peace, and progress (which were historically associated with left-wing liberalism) using the means of coercion, hierarchy, exploitation, and militarism (which were historically associated with right-wing conservatism). Socialism is conceptually unstable and doomed to fail because its conservative means are incompatible with its liberal ends.[753] Economic planning is not accidentally but inherently reactionary, modeled on feudalism and consisting in the militarization of economic activity itself.[754] Statism necessitates illiberalism.

In this light, Rothbard’s turn to paleoconservatism could be seen as an odd deviation from much of his thought because he previously considered conservatism (excluding the more libertarian Old Right) the polar opposite of libertarianism, going as far as to call conservative-libertarian fusionism “illogical and mythical.”[755] After all, if state socialism is an incoherent middle position aiming at liberal ends via conservative means, then the reverse, aiming at conservative ends via liberal means, must also be an incoherent middle position. Only liberal means can achieve liberal ends.

The military-industrial complex was central to Rothbard’s liberal class theory. He agreed with Bourne that “war is the health of the state.”[756] Rothbard went as far as to say the resources of big businesses bound up in America’s “imperialistic foreign policy” ought to be redistributed from the exploiter class back to the exploited class. “Eager lobbyists” and “co-founders of the garrison state” ought to be met with “confiscation and reversion of their property” over to homesteading workers, taxpayers, or both.[757] Rothbard considered capitalists who undertake foreign investments based on land theft against peasants no different than feudal landlords,[758] and argued the descendent of slaves were entitled to reparations[759] — though he rescinded his support for reparations after his turn to paleoconservatism.[760]

Rothbard made a radical, dialectical case against the corporate state, the military-industrial complex, and the class stratification rooted in state violence on behalf of entrenched elites. But to fully understand what undergirded Rothbard’s liberal class theory, you must also understand the nature and potential of the market processes exploited by the ruling class.

V. Austrian Economics

Underlying Rothbard’s individualist anarchism and liberal class theory was his fundamental belief in the profound benefits of mutually beneficial economic exchange. Rothbard developed his economic theories using the praxeological analysis of his teacher Ludwig von Mises, but replaced Mises’s Kantian-rationalist epistemological foundations with Aristotelian-empiricist ones.[761] In the Austrian view, praxeology is the theoretical framework within which we make logical sense of human choices and thereby interpret the actions of others.[762] Praxeological analysis has its roots in Socrates’s insight that people are motivated by what they believe to be good.[763] Socrates thought actions can be explained in terms of the beliefs and desires of the agents who perform them. “Everyone always wants good things.”[764] In this way, Socrates discovered a necessary and conceptual truth about the logical structure of human action by articulating a specific internal relationship between means and ends.

Economic analysis emerges from a distinguishing feature of individual human beings: purposeful action that employs scarce means to attain future ends, “economizing” resources by directing them towards one’s most valued desires. The existence of multiple individuals engaged in their own economizing gives rise to the possibility of interpersonal exchange as a means to satisfy ends. Mutual exchanges are exchanges in which all parties expect to benefit. The possibility of mutual beneficence is a product of the psychological, physiological, and environmental diversity across human beings, giving rise to situations wherein one party values goods and services they currently possess less than goods and services another party currently possesses, and vice versa. What emerges is a “highly complex, interacting latticework of exchanges” facilitated by specialization under the division of labor.[765] Voluntary trade best embodies individuals’ demonstrated preferences, thereby maximizing social utility at any given time.[766]

The possibility for widespread mutual exchange leads to a highly interconnected social order of peaceful cooperation that encourages sympathy, solidarity, benevolence, and friendship.[767] Market processes also incentivize entrepreneurship — the “essence of production” attributable to both producers and consumers — and the efficient allocation of scarce resources through the profit/loss mechanism of the price system. Without price signals that “telegraph” consumers’ constantly shifting preferences to producers, it’s impossible to narrow the array of technologically feasible production projects down to the economically feasible ones.[768] Prices emerging from mutual exchange are knowledge surrogates that aid our imperfect cognitive abilities in discovering the most effective way to employ scarce resources.[769]

Where mutual exchange is positive-sum, physical coercion is negative-sum, decreasing social utility[770] and encouraging hostility, violence, and war.[771] Society cannot subsist entirely on physical coercion because exploiters always needs a class of exploited on which to prey. The impossibility of total central planning is seen in the way socialist states, lacking prices that accurately reflect relative scarcities, rely on international and black-market prices to perform internal economic calculation. Rothbard extended Mises’s insights into economic calculation from socialist states to capitalist firms. Rational calculability disappears when external markets are absorbed within a single firm, creating increasingly large “sphere[s] of irrationality.”[772] Without external market prices, firms have only arbitrary symbols with which to allocate internal factors, implying a “definite maximum to the relative size of any particular firm on the free market.”[773] Without the support of the corporate state, these “islands of noncalculable chaos [that] swell to the proportions of masses and continents”[774] would likely suffer competitive losses, undergirding the Rothbardian a priori suspicion of big business.

Crucial to the development of the corporate state was the central bank, which perpetuated the war economy and class stratification by redistributing resources to rent-seeking elites via new money before the emergence of inflation-adjusted prices.[775] Monetary expansion undertaken by central banks also causes business cycles by disconnecting interest rates from genuine savings, inducing widespread entrepreneurial error, and distorting the relative prices of labor, materials, and machines. This “boom” is not a free lunch, but an unsustainable, systematic distortion of the structure of production. During the “bust,” economic actors reassert their consumption and investment preferences and liquidate their malinvestments.[776] Fiscal and monetary stimulus designed to prop up prices and induce further investment merely prevents the necessary economic adjustments and prolong the contractionary period.[777] Rothbard envisioned a system of “free banking” and 100 percent gold reserves as the most effective alternative to central banks.[778]

Rothbard made a radical, dialectical case for extended social cooperation in the form of voluntary trade. Praxeological analysis shows that mutual benefit can be realized through mutual exchange and that central planning, whether undertaken by states or firms, is doomed to fail. There are other aspects to natural law theory, individualist anarchism, liberal class theory, and Austrian economics that I don’t have the space to touch on here. But I hope to have provided a sketch of Rothbard’s thought and shown how he synthesized these four traditions into a harmonious picture that seeks to achieve human flourishing and freedom.

VI. What Other Anarchists Can Learn from Rothbard

Many anarchists have historically exhibited hostility towards natural law theory, liberal class theory, and Austrian economics. They are deeply skeptical of the system of mutual exchange and property rights that Rothbard advocated. Where Rothbard saw the potential for peaceful cooperation and mutual sympathy, many anarchists instead see the potential for anti-social competition and insatiable greed. Chomsky considers Rothbard’s vision to be a dysfunctional world of hatred.[779] Rothbard’s approach is frequently written out of many understandings of the anarchist tradition. But this robs many anarchists of the insights offered by natural law theory, liberal class theory, and Austrian economics, and how those traditions can prove valuable elements of anarchist thought. Rothbardianism offers compelling alternatives to many aspects of contemporary anarchist theory.

Some anarchists object to natural law theory because they consider it an instance of coercive imposition and external authority. Bakunin maintained that,

the liberty of man consists solely in this: that he obeys natural laws because he has himself recognised them as such, and not because they have been externally imposed upon him by any extrinsic will whatever, divine or human, collective or individual.[780]

Some anarchists, including those that later influenced Rothbard, embraced nihilism and viewed all moral claims, not just ones rooted in natural law theory, as unjustifiable impositions. Following Stirner, Tucker acknowledged only those obligations which have been voluntarily assumed.[781] Such a view immediately rules out the existence of natural rights because we are obliged to respect the natural rights of others whether we choose to or not. Moral obligations (including, but not limited to, natural rights) arise from the ongoing project we are all engaged in all the time: living life, pursuing projects, and interacting with others. Annas argues,

Happiness [in the eudaimonist sense] has the role of being, for each person, your happiness, the way you achieve living your life well. It is not some plan imposed on you from outside, or a demand made by some theory which has not arisen from your own thoughts about your life.[782]

On a eudaimonist view, it isn’t sensible to consider moral obligations unjustified external impositions.

Some anarchists accept the existence of moral obligations and rights but ground them in theories other than Aristotelian natural law theory. One option is to ground anarchism in the value of justice; i.e. respecting every individual’s inherent autonomy. Such theorists argue the authority of the state is unjust because it violates the autonomy of individuals.[783] Another option is to ground anarchism in the value of benefit; i.e. achieving the greatest consequences for the greatest number. Such theorists argue the authority of the state is harmful because it reaps bad consequences.[784] On the eudaimonist view, this is a false dichotomy. Focusing on justice alone obscures the moral relevance of benefit (and the ways in which the state is harmful), and focusing on benefit alone obscures the moral relevance of justice (and the ways in which the state is unjust). Our conceptions of justice and benefit stand in reciprocal determination, in a way similar to how “master” and “slave” are “relative to themselves.”[785] We can’t understand one isolated from the other, and vice versa. Long argues, “[J]ustice and benefit are conceptually entangled; their internal conceptual dynamic drives them into alignment with one another.” Therefore, “[s]emi-deontological considerations of justice play a role in determining what counts as good consequences; semi-consequentialist considerations of benevolence and prudence play a role in determining what counts as just.”[786] We don’t have to choose between justice and autonomy on the one hand, and benefit and good consequences on the other. States both violate autonomy and reap harmful consequences. Statism is bad because it’s both unjust and harmful.

Bookchin views natural law theory as “basically liberal, grounded in the myth of the fully autonomous individual whose claims to self-sovereignty are validated by axiomatic ‘natural rights’.”[787] Yet such rights are not “axiomatic” in the sense of being groundless. Natural law theory is grounded in the physical and social requirements for human flourishing. Natural rights constitute our duties to one another as social beings, for social relations gain their worth and meaning from being chosen. They uphold our metaphysical independence so that we have an autonomous space in which to engage in social interdependence. Instead of a static conception of community in which individuals are defined, directed, and determined by predefined roles, Rothbard’s natural law theory provides a dynamic conception of community in which different communities can be continually “formed, reformed, and modified.”[788] A society that consists in consensual relationships enables people to peacefully progress beyond old, harmful social relations and form new, beneficial ones. By rejecting any “ontological conflict” between “individualism and sociality,”[789] such an account of human nature avoids treating humans in either an “atomistic” manner (which conflates our metaphysical independence with social independence, reducing the community to a mere collection of individual entities) or an “organicist” manner (which conflates our social interdependence for metaphysical interdependence, dissolving individuals into a mere single communal entity).[790] We are both independent and interdependent beings.

Natural law theory provides a useful tool for contemporary anarchist theory. For Rothbard, natural rights are the main bulwark against state oppression and reveal state violence for what it truly is. Natural law theory provides a principled justification for anarchist political ideals, whereas other justifications — nihilism, deontology, consequentialism, atomism, and/or organicism — leave anarchism on shaky ground. Not only that, Rothbard’s natural law theory spells out the norms to which a society must adhere in order to achieve, and maintain, freedom. It grounds the legal arrangements of a truly free society and a vision of peaceful, voluntary cooperation without the state. Natural rights are integral to any account of human flourishing and freedom.

Rothbard is also written out of many understandings of anarchism because he embraced markets. Anarchism has a long history of opposing markets. Guerin, Bookchin, and other influential anarchist theorists seem unaware of market-process literature and insist that anarchism must be anti-market.[791] On the conventional view, market processes are seen as unfair forces of restraint, authority, and inequality. Rather than facilitating a desirable allocation of scare resources or improving the well-being of the majority, markets are said to disproportionally reward the powerful and harm the marginalized. Many consider exploitation, privilege, power, and hierarchy inherent to markets.[792] Rothbard’s vision has been seen as a mere “pretense of statelessness” and “a cleverly designed and worded surrogate for elitist and aristocratic conservatism.”[793] Despite their contemporary unpopularity, markets aren’t completely foreign to the anarchist tradition. Rothbard’s integration of liberal class theory and Austrian economics with individualist anarchism led to a revival of the market anarchism that was pioneered by Molinari in the 1850s.[794] “Liberal anti-statism virtually disappeared” until Rothbard revived it in the late 1950s.[795] But disregarding market-process thought is a central mistake of contemporary anarchist theory.

Traditional interpretations underrate the extent to which Rothbard’s market-process thought is deeply egalitarian. The right to exit any social relationship is a powerful check on interpersonal exploitation. Freed markets ultimately permit individuals to make their own decisions, facilitating “symmetrical” social relationships and “equality in the sense that each person has equal power” to make choices. Freed markets promote “self-responsibility, freedom from violence, full power to make one’s own decisions (except the decision to institute violence against another), and benefits for all participating individuals.”[796] Moreover, unhampered market processes — by taking the logic of separation of powers to its fullest possible extent — check authority, induce accountability, and disperse power far more effectively than arrangements that try to simulate market competition in monopolistic contexts.[797] For these reasons, it’s been suggested that Rothbard’s Power and Market should be renamed Power or Market.[798]

The truly exploitative society is one that systematically permits and enables physical coercion. Such a society is defined by asymmetrical power and hegemonic relationships. Unfree markets promote “rule of violence, the surrender of the power to make one’s own decisions to a dictator, and exploitation of subjects for the benefit of the masters.”[799] For Rothbard, the idea that trade is inherently exploitative and that “one party can benefit only at the expense of the other” (as in traditional Marxist class theories) follows fundamentally mercantilist logic, a view which ignores the consistent propensity for humans to engage in trade for mutual gain.[800]

Rothbard recognized the “natural affinity between wealth and power” and the vicious cycle it creates in which wealth is used to obtain political power, which is then used to obtain more wealth, and so on.[801] But for Rothbard the source of that social power ultimately lies in the state. Rather than preventing exploitation, forceful interference into otherwise free and harmonious exchange is best understood as the cause of exploitation. Whenever anyone wielding force (the state, the mafia, democratic federations, etc.) intervenes into market processes, a conflict of interests emerges, creating a “scramble to be a net gainer rather than a net loser — to be part of the intervening team, as it were, rather than one of the victims.”[802] For Rothbard, economic exploitation emerges from violent intervention. Dismantling political power would dismantle economic power. It’s not so much that economic power is foreign to Rothbard[803] but that he adopted a different causal explanation, and therefore, a different normative analysis of economic power from the ones usually offered by contemporary anarchist theory.

Most anti-capitalist anarchists see decentralized economic planning in the form of democratic federations and the like as the only alternative that avoids the pitfalls of both markets and states. Small-scale, direct deliberation and cooperation is meant to replace the irrationality of impersonal market processes without establishing any sort of tyrannical dictatorship.[804] But abandoning economic freedom in favor of economic planning is counterproductive to many anarchist aims. Economic planning, whether centralized within a state or decentralized within democratic federations, would reap severe calculational chaos without an ounce of egalitarianism.

The knowledge that prices convey about differing technologies, production processes, factor combinations, etc., is generated by a process of entrepreneurial rivalry in which tacit judgements about subjective preferences, expectations, and plans are reflected through voluntarily bidding for resources. This is completely different than the political rivalry entailed by economic planning. Where entrepreneurial rivalry utilizes dispersed tacit knowledge and conveys information anonymously, political institutions (centralized or decentralized) involve a direct struggle for privilege. Where entrepreneurial rivalry provides useful signals to other market participants through price changes, political rivalry only facilitates new control over the apparatus of planning. Where entrepreneurial rivalry incentivizes satisfying the desires of others better than one’s rivals, political rivalry incentivizes intimidation and deception to gain and maintain control.[805] Without the price system, anti-market anarchism would lead to widespread impoverishment and starvation.[806]

Economic planning particularly harms the marginalized by privileging the majority and enabling the domination of sexual, racial, etc., minorities who don’t conform to the singular economic plan. Economic planning creates an “aristocracy of pull”[807] by tying the ability to live (and in what fashion) to one’s social standing, thereby privileging the popular, persuasive, and charismatic at the expense of the unpopular, awkward, and disliked. Perhaps such an arrangement would yield agreeable results when community printing presses are denied to avowed white supremacists, but when a trans person needs specific medical resources, wouldn’t the increased collective decision-making power of transphobes over the “community medical resources” pose a problem in need of a solution? That solution is freed markets, which provide an institutional escape valve for society’s most marginalized — a mechanism connecting the ability to live (and how) to one’s own independent effort.[808]

Economic planning amounts to an “ambitious aspiration of entirely replacing the competitive market system with a deliberate pre-coordination of all productive activity, incorporating it into a single hierarchical structure.”[809] In light of the market-process analysis of economic planning, we must ask if it can really achieve anarchist aims. If state socialism is a confused, unstable position aiming at liberal ends via conservative means, anarcho-communism is its slightly less confused sibling, aiming at liberal ends via some liberal means (voluntary association) but also some conservative means (economic planning). The conventional anti-capitalist anarchist vision of planning shares many of the undesirable features associated with statism; not only planning but also, and despite anarchist intentions, hierarchy, bureaucracy, and domination.

Rothbardianism helps anarchists avoid the misguided temptation to try and leverage the reins of political monopolies for noble ends. Market competition, rooted in and reflective of the right to exit, is the remedy for exploitation because it is a levelling force that disperses socioeconomic power and provides people with more and better options to choose from.[810] Lavoie contends, “The citadels of power are in fact, whether they know it or not, more threatened by the spontaneous forces of the openly competitive market than by any other factor. Power thrives on coercive obstructions to market competition.”[811] This points the way towards a model of social change that takes seriously the potential for exit rights, spontaneous order, and economic exchange in helping to liberate marginalized people from institutions of domination.

Anarchists who reject market-process thought are missing out on a rich, robust account of human flourishing and freedom, on which a compelling case for anarchism heavily rests. Marketprocess thought is so important for contemporary anarchist theory precisely because it best explains how to avoid a society of violence and exploitation and how to create a society of peace and mutual gain. Moreover, market-process thought helps us imagine, and perhaps develop, effective institutional alternatives to statism. Anarchism, to be viable, beneficial, and widespread, must embrace the freedom to trade.

Rothbard’s primary contributions to contemporary anarchist theory lie in his integration of anarchism with (1) eudaimonist thought in the tradition of Aristotle, and (2) market-process thought in the tradition of Mises. Such a combination avoids the (1) analytic narrowness of nihilistic, deontological, consequentialist, atomistic, and/or organicist conceptions of anarchism, (2) impoverished models of Marxist class theory and economic planning, including statism now or federations later, and (3) impractical models of social change that discourage entrepreneurial direct action and instead devote resources to the impossible task of leveraging the state and other forms of economic planning for liberatory ends.

VII. Rothbardianism against Domination in All Forms

At the same time, if he were still alive Rothbard would have a lot to learn from other traditions of thought, particularly classical and contemporary anarchism. Rothbard and many of those he’s influenced haven’t shared the universal hostility to all forms of domination that has been historically characteristic of the anarchist tradition.[812] Rothbardianism provides a useful framework by which to approach moral, political, and economic analysis, but it’s also in search of a more comprehensive and holistic account of human flourishing and freedom. Samuels criticizes Rothbard for having an exceedingly narrow conception of interpersonal power and exploitation that blinds him to important injustices.[813] I think Samuels is correct in identifying this deficiency of Rothbardianism. But we need not jettison his core frameworks to save Rothbard from this objection. In fact, the core frameworks of Rothbardianism might prove themselves more complementary to the traditional anarchist opposition to domination in all its forms than both Rothbard and his detractors realize. In my view, Rothbard’s concern for equal liberty should extend to a rejection of interpersonal domination; specifically, the domination of women, queer people, racial minorities, children, and/or people with disabilities. A principled opposition to interpersonal domination in all forms could earn Rothbardianism that third cheer.

Rothbard focused his social analysis almost exclusively on violence, especially the violence of the state. But what about morally objectionable, yet non-violent, conduct and institutions? Rothbard discussed some institutions in league with the state that he opposed — especially the corporate state, the military-industrial complex, and their intellectual apologists. But he never extended that opposition to institutions that enforce hierarchies reflective of gender, sexuality, race, age, and/or disability. For much of his career, Rothbard denied any inherent relationship between opposition to physical coercion and other considerations; between the domains of politics and culture,[814] a position some Rothbardians still adopt today.[815] Sciabarra considers such a narrow concern for physical coercion insufficiently dialectical and therefore a form of “unanchored utopianism.”[816]

Later, Rothbard still considered opposition to physical coercion logically separable from other considerations, but not psychologically, sociologically, or practically separable, a shift that led him to endorse a culturally conservative outlook.[817] Rothbard heavily criticized the Women’s Liberation Movement;[818] endorsed “racialist science”;[819] dismissed heterosexism, ableism, ageism,[820] and other “victimologies”;[821] and looked down upon “free spirits” who didn’t want to push others around or be pushed around themselves.[822] Some Rothbardians actively endorse institutions of interpersonal domination. Hoppe contends that societies “dominated by white, heterosexual males ... patriarchal family structures ... and aristocratic lifestyle[s]” are, in virtue of such domination, more successful, more non-violent, and more prosperous, and that this “Western” model of social organization ought to be “respected and protected.”[823]

By focusing almost exclusively on the political structures of physical coercion, Rothbard left a hole in his social theory. He should have been deeply concerned with non-violent domination because “if libertarianism is rooted in the principle of equality of authority, then there are good reasons to think that not only political structures of coercion, but also the

whole system of status and unequal authority deserves libertarian criticism.” Such a system includes not just physical coercion, but also ideas, practices, and institutions rooted in submission to authority figures such as superiors in one’s personal relationships, family, workplace, and community. Even a stateless society could feature pervasive submission to authority, in which everyone “voluntarily agree[s] to bow and scrape when speaking before the (mutually agreed-on) town Chief.” Assuming such behavior is only kept in line through verbal harangues, social ostracism, glorifying the authorities, etc., no one’s individual rights would be violated.[824] While not logically incoherent, a culturally conservative outlook is difficult to reconcile with the underlying reasons for libertarian equality: the value of autonomy, self-direction, and the freedom to choose.

If individuals matter so much that none can never be justly subjected to the ends of another via physical coercion, then it seems like they must matter enough that they should just never be subordinated to the ends of another, via physical coercion or otherwise. Non-physical coercion can take the form of subjecting another to one’s ends by threatening to deprive them of their human needs such as food, shelter, mental well-being, informed decision-making, social relationships, etc. One has power over another to the extent that one can get them to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do because of their deprivation.[825] Situations of desperate need and deprivation, where no one has been physically coerced, can give rise to interpersonal domination. Opposition to the hierarchical power imbalances of interpersonal domination can be understood as relational egalitarianism, which aims to abolish all forms of oppression, exploitation, marginalization, and violence such that no one need “bow and scrape” before others as a condition of being afforded dignity. Achieving the goals of relational egalitarianism entails a “social order in which persons stand in relations of equality.”[826]

Rothbardians and relational egalitarians alike might be asking if I could really be serious in suggesting that Rothbardianism is complementary with relational egalitarianism. The reason I see such potential in synthesizing the two is because I think, despite their resistance to one another, together they can offer a comprehensive, holistic account of human flourishing and freedom. Anderson rejects such a link on the grounds that the libertarian emphasis on exit over voice fails to enable people to shape their own social situations through discourse.[827] But Long argues this is a false dichotomy that ignores the way in which exit rights help guarantee voice. After all, a relationship in which all parties are completely free to leave at any time is bound to incentivize mutual listening and concern. Whereas a relationship in which one party has no choice but to acquiesce to the other party is bound to incentivize disregard and disrespect.[828] Physical coercion is best understood as a kind of unequal relationship in which one person denies another’s “status as a discursive being,” thereby subordinating them to their own ends.[829] Violence is a particular kind of domination, though an admittedly unique one.

Coercion can come about through physical force or the leveraging of another’s unsatisfied needs. However, physical coercion is an unjust response to non-physical coercion because it’s still a kind of coercion; a kind of interpersonal domination. Domination encompasses physical coercion, which always entails one’s subordination to the ends of another but is not reducible to physical coercion and can exist without it. Freedom from physical coercion is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for freedom from domination.[830] Relational egalitarians should consider physical coercion a kind of domination and staunchly oppose both. In virtue of their opposition to interpersonal domination in all its forms, relational egalitarians are ultimately committed to Rothbardian anarchism.

Likewise, libertarians should consider physical coercion a kind of domination and staunchly oppose both. In virtue of his commitment to autonomy, self-direction, and freedom to choose, Rothbard was ultimately committed to relational egalitarianism. The same reasons that led Rothbard to oppose the involuntary authoritarianism of statism should have similarly led him to opposing Johnson’s “voluntary authoritarianism” of subservient, hierarchical social relations. Domination leaves no space for reflective deliberation nor the cultivation of virtue through one’s own volition. Human flourishing depends on fulfilling certain biological and psychological needs such that we have the “supplies” to actually achieve eudaimonia.[831] Moreover, domination, like physical coercion, undermines the humanity of the one doing the dominating. People who dominate others are not engaged in “reasoned and intelligent cooperation” any more than those being dominated are.

Neither a life of order-taking nor order-giving is fit for rational, social beings. Domination in any form is therefore incompatible with the rational and social requirements of human flourishing. Rothbard was right in seeing the state as a key cause of social power, but he was wrong in thinking it exhausted the existence of social power. The institutions that dominate women, queer people, racial minorities, children, and people with disabilities are not only mutually reinforcing with statism, but deeply unjust in their own right because they rob people of individual autonomy, self-direction, and freedom to choose. Moreover, systematic exclusion and deprivation of marginalized people prevents them from engaging in mutual exchange and improving their abilities through experience and education, thereby lowering prosperity and overall living standards for everyone. It’s worth talking specifically about at least some of these avenues of interpersonal domination, how they interact with statism, why they are worth opposing in their own right, and what they have to offer Rothbardianism.

Rothbard fervently opposed feminism and thought the Women’s Liberation Movement was characterized by bitter, neurotic, man-hating lesbianism.[832] His positions were not only dreadfully wrong but, to put it lightly, incredibly demeaning to women. I contend that Rothbard should have staunchly opposed patriarchy. Not only has patriarchy been a friend of the state, for “[d]espotism in the state is necessarily associated with despotism in the family,”[833] but it has also historically plagued women with “male entitlement, victim-blaming, and omnipresent gender roles” that enable pervasive violence, coercion, and abuse by men.[834] Patriarchy is an emergent institution consisting in various social practices that subject women to the oppression of men.

It’s no coincidence that libertarianism and feminism share common intellectual roots in nineteenth-century radicalism.[835] Both are fundamentally emancipatory doctrines. One is seeking to liberate people from state supremacy; the other, from male supremacy. A feminist anarchism must dismantle the power relations embedded in the gender stratum,[836] teach “women to take care of one another,” and work with “self-help clinics, free schools, feminist radio stations, newspapers, and domestic violence shelters.”[837] Such an approach is completely compatible with Rothbard’s core frameworks. Rothbard should have embraced not just anarchism, but anarcha-feminism.

A consistent feminism must not only oppose patriarchy, but cis-heteropatriarchy, which is the “institutionalization of heterosexuality, cissexual, dyadic, monogamous, and permanent relationships as the only possible and coherent sexuality.”[838] Queer people have been historically plagued by controls, rigid definitions, and legal boundaries that constrain diverse expressions of sexual and gender identity,[839] restricting people to narrow “boxes” of sexuality and gender.[840] Furthermore, the state’s power to “define, interrogate, restrict, and punish on the basis of gendered expectations” leads to both disproportionate police violence and bureaucracy that forces people, particularly trans people, through economically and psychologically burdensome legal hoops concerning doctors’ notes, birth certificates, state identification, passports, social security cards, etc.[841] Opposition to cis-heteropatriarchy is also an emancipatory doctrine. It seeks to emancipate queer people from cis-hetero-supremacy. An anarchism that opposes cis-heteropatriarchy must work to liberate “those who traverse gender and sex” from the “mental and physical constructs that manipulate us into subordination”[842] and use mutual aid to help “queer and trans people facing homelessness, immigration enforcement, criminalization, and other dire circumstances.”[843] Such an approach is completely compatible with Rothbard’s core frameworks. Rothbard should have embraced not just anarchism, but queer anarchism.

The same reasons that committed Rothbard to feminism and queer liberation also committed him to anti-racism. Rothbard did talk about racist oppression to an extent. He praised the Black Panthers for their ability to “aggravate the white police” and organize black youth,[844] and approved of revolutionary violence targeted at white mobs and police.[845] But he largely seemed concerned with racism only insofar as it was a political problem. Of course, racism is in fact a political problem. Over the course of centuries, state legislation and courts have created a superior class known as “whites” that benefit from “the best access to political power, property ownership, legal protection, social status, and so forth” while “other groups — namely Native Americans and African slaves — were denied access to these resources, as were most incoming immigrant groups.”[846] Focusing on the political character of racism helps illuminate the ways in which racism and statism are mutually reinforcing. But focusing solely on the political character of racism reduces the problem of racism entirely to a problem of statism. Racism also consists in various social practices that subject racial minorities to pervasive prejudice and disrespect, systematic discrimination, inferior treatment, and individual and mob violence.

Racial minorities have been historically plagued by displacement, enslavement, colonization, and oppression. Anti-racism, too, is an emancipatory doctrine. It seeks to emancipate racial minorities from racial supremacy. Anarchism can provide anti-racist politics with a lens outside of historically settler colonialist ideologies.[847] The concept of “whiteness” itself emerged as a tool to facilitate widespread land theft, dehumanizing exploitation, and the violent uprooting of entire societies.[848] An anti-racist anarchism must fight for the self-determination of racial minorities,[849] and “challenge white supremacy on a daily basis ... refute racist philosophy and propaganda, and ... counter racist mobilisation and attacks, with armed self-defence and street fighting, when necessary.”[850] Such an approach is completely compatible with Rothbard’s core frameworks. Rothbard should have embraced not just anarchism, but black and indigenous anarchism.

The same reasons that committed Rothbard to feminism, queer anarchism, and anti-racism also committed him to anti-ageism. Despite dismissing ageism, Rothbard’s analysis often embodied the concept in applying natural law theory to people regardless of age (in fact, Rothbard extended his support for childhood independence to the misguided goal of abolishing child neglect laws[851]). Rothbard considered the compulsory schooling system to be a mass prison in which teachers and administrators functioned as wardens and guards.[852] The state legal system and state education system serve to rob children of fundamental rights and “stunt their free thought, self-expression, individuality, and creativity.” The result of state-enabled ageism has been “numbed minds, conditioned for obedience, servitude and, in turn, the perpetuation and magnification of state power.”[853] But if the authority of teachers and administrators over children is unjust, so must be the authority of all adults over children — including parents. While Rothbard maintained that children always have an inviolable right to run away from their parents, and even called the parent-child relationship a form of “class struggle,” he also considered small children “a kind of property,” and granted much latitude to the treatment parents may impose on children while they still live with them.[854]

Children have been historically plagued by “loss of individual autonomy, abridged freedoms, and little participation in decision making.” Like feminism and anti-racism, anti-ageism is an emancipatory doctrine. It seeks to emancipate children from adult supremacy. An anti-ageist anarchism must “formulate an anti-authoritarian theory of parenting, education and child-rearing, and to begin the process of liberating children from an oppressive society.”[855] Such an approach is completely compatible with Rothbard’s core frameworks. Rothbard should have embraced not just anarchism, but youth liberationist anarchism.

The reasons that committed Rothbard to feminism, queer liberation, anti-racism, and anti-ageism also committed Rothbard to anti-ableism. Disability can be understood both in medical terms, as “individual physical or mental characteristic[s] with significant personal and social consequence,” and in social terms, as “physical and mental characteristics [that] are limiting only or primarily in virtue of social practices that lead to the exclusion of people with those characteristics.”[856] People with disabilities have been historically plagued by contempt, dehumanization, and exclusion. They are regularly “stigmatized, othered, and marginalized” in the form of “society’s refusal to include them in the economic, social, familial, and political life of the community” and failure to “acknowledge the diversity of the human experience.”[857] Many medical professionals often subject people with disabilities to imprisonment, abuse, and neglect.[858]

Neurodivergent people are significantly disadvantaged by the vast mazes of inscrutable bureaucracy and paperwork of state capitalism,[859] suffer disproportionate amounts of police violence, and are used as political scapegoats in discussions of crime and gun violence (despite being more likely to suffer harm than perpetrate it; one in four suffer sexual, physical, or domestic violence in any given year). Vee notes, “Our society treats those with mental illnesses as freaks at best, and criminals at worst.”[860] Like feminism, queer liberation, anti-racism, and anti-ageism, anti-ableism is an emancipatory doctrine. It seeks to liberate people with disabilities from ableist supremacy. An anti-ableist anarchism must “integrate disability justice into our workplace and community engagements” and accommodate the “physical and mental differences of those in social movements.”[861] Such an approach is completely compatible with Rothbard’s core frameworks. Rothbard should have embraced not just anarchism, but anti-ableist anarchism.

Much of contemporary anarchist theory has integrated Frye’s birdcage analogy for understanding how oppressive structures often go unseen because they systemically reduce the choices of marginalized people in interlocking fashion.

If you look very closely at just one wire in the cage, you cannot see the other wires. If your conception of what is before you is determined by this myopic focus, you could look at that one wire, up and down the length of it, and [be] unable to see why a bird would not just fly around the wire any time it wanted to go somewhere ... There is no physical property of any one wire, nothing that the closest scrutiny could discover, that will reveal how a bird could be inhibited or harmed by it except in the most accidental way. It is only when you step back, stop looking at the wires one by one, microscopically, and take a macroscopic view of the whole cage, that you can see why the bird does not go anywhere.[t]he bird is surrounded by a network of systematically related barriers, no one of which would be the least hindrance to its flight, but which, by their relations to each other, are as confining as the solid walls of a dungeon.[862]

Such an analysis is (1) radical, a methodological approach that grasps things by their roots and favors systemic change over local fixes;[863] (2) dialectical, a methodological approach emphasizing the reciprocal interrelationships among different elements in society;[864] and (3) intersectional, a methodological approach emphasizing overlapping, mutually constituting processes that do not exist independently of one another.[865] This “integrated analysis of oppression” suggests that systems of domination “operate with and through each other.”[866] Rothbardianism offers an integrated analysis of state domination, but is sorely lacking in its analysis of non-state domination. Intersectional analysis is just the consistent application of the view that humans are metaphysically independent, but socially interdependent. Lord observes, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”[867] Intersectionality acknowledges the fundamentally individualistic insight that “no one’s experience of oppression is the same.”[868]

The intersectional approach pioneered by black feminists[869] is completely compatible with Rothbard’s four core frameworks. After all, the state is not some discrete, physical thing. It consists in vast webs of interrelated practices and norms. Every interaction between an agent of the state and a subject of the state is defined by their respective social roles. The identities of politicians, bureaucrats, police officers, etc., are social constructs that emerge from patterns of interaction, creating one group of people privileged with a monopoly on legitimate aggressive violence and another group of people excluded from, and subject to, that monopoly. The state is itself a system of interpersonal domination that violates relational egalitarianism and which operates with and through other systems of interpersonal domination. Statism is another bar in Frye’s birdcage.

Most proponents of relational egalitarianism would view Rothbard’s ideas as anathema to their project, not just for his late embrace of paleoconservatism (an ideology with little concern for relational egalitarianism and a part of Rothbard’s thought I do not intend to integrate with relational egalitarianism), but for his life-long embrace of capitalism. Proponents of relational egalitarianism often consider capitalism to be another system of interpersonal domination. Williams argues, “Capitalism is premised upon having workers under the control of managers and owners,” putting them in a “disadvantaged position” and “experiencing a lack of empowerment, efficacy, autonomy, and self-management.[870] Indeed, the situation in which a majority of people spend a third of their time taking orders from authority figures like schoolchildren and prisoners seems directly at odds with the characteristically anarchist opposition to interpersonal domination.[871] Workers have been historically plagued by dehumanization, abuse, and inhumane conditions.

According to Anderson, capitalist firms are analogous to dictatorial governments in which workers acquiesce to their bosses for lack of feasible alternatives.

This government does not recognize a personal or private sphere of autonomy free from sanction. It may prescribe a dress code and forbid certain hairstyles. Everyone lives under surveillance, to ensure that they are complying with orders. Superiors may snoop into inferiors’ email and record their phone conversations. Suspicionless searches to their bodies and personal effects may be routine. They can be ordered to submit to medical testing. The government may dictate the language spoken and forbid communication in any other language. It may forbid certain topics of discussion. People can be sanctioned for their consensual sexual activity or their choice of spouse or life partner. They can be sanctioned for their political activity and required to engage in political activity they do not agree with.[872]

The pervasive domination of workers is a deep injustice that discourages autonomy, selfdirection, and freedom to choose. Anti-capitalism is an emancipatory doctrine. It seeks to emancipate workers from capitalist supremacy. Rothbardians and anti-capitalists alike might be asking if I could really be serious in suggesting that Rothbardianism, named for someone who considered “capitalism the fullest expression of anarchism and anarchism the fullest expression of capitalism,”[873] is complementary with anti-capitalism. The reason I see such potential in synthesizing the two is because I think much, though not all, of the disagreement between capitalist anarchists and anti-capitalist anarchists rests on shared mistaken assumptions.

Rothbard defined capitalism as the “right to unrestricted private property and free exchange.”[874] Yet private property, for Rothbard, didn’t necessarily entail the division between capitalists and workers that the relational egalitarian case against capitalism takes issue with. Rothbard defined private property as an “individual’s justified sphere of free action,”[875] which “emanate[s] from an individual’s fundamental natural right to own himself” and can take the form of either individual or collective ownership.[876] Rothbard didn’t consider capitalist hierarchy inherent to capitalism as such. He only considered it a useful organizational means of increasing overall economic efficacy.

Rothbard viewed capitalist hierarchy as justified insofar as it reaps mutually beneficial exchange for all parties involved.[877] But if mutually beneficial exchange could be better facilitated without capitalist hierarchy, Rothbard would’ve had no substantial objections. In fact, Rothbard once praised experiments in transforming workers into equal, independent entrepreneurs, as well as the participatory democracy practiced by the New Left. He described such projects as “monumental contribution[s] to the age-old problem of reconciling organization with the maximum independence and fulfillment of the individual.”[878] However, this affinity for participatory democracy was short-lived,[879] as was most of Rothbard’s affinity for the New Left.[880] So, while Rothbard himself dismissed opposition to capitalist hierarchy, his philosophy doesn’t completely rule it out. It is possible to jettison the capitalist hierarchy aspect of Rothbard’s thought without radically altering the overall frameworks I’ve discussed.

Rothbard was guilty of what Carson calls “vulgar libertarianism,” the tendency to conflate an ideal vision of freed markets for actually existing capitalist hierarchy, treating the latter as somehow automatically built in to the former.[881] In his analysis of the corporate state and big business, Rothbard demonstrated some awareness of that same tendency when invoked by progressives against freed markets and capitalist hierarchy (Carson terms their error “vulgar liberalism”[882]), which indicates a comparatively less vulgar outlook than many of his fellow libertarians. Nonetheless, Rothbard never opposed capitalist hierarchy as such. In mistakenly identifying freed markets with capitalism, most capitalist anarchists engage in “vulgar libertarianism” and most anti-capitalist anarchists engage in “vulgar liberalism.” This conflation only serves to bolster the power of both the state and capitalism, “rendering genuine libertarianism invisible.”[883]

By making the vulgar liberal assumption that freed markets naturally entail capitalism, anticapitalist anarchists mistakenly endorse economic planning, and by making the vulgar libertarian assumption, libertarians mistakenly endorse capitalist hierarchy. Anarchism needs an alternative to the conventional approaches offered by both capitalist and anti-capitalist anarchists. I believe Rothbardianism, properly modified to integrate a commitment to anti-capitalism, can provide such an alternative: freed-market anti-capitalism.

Freed-market anti-capitalism distinguishes between capitalism (rule by capitalists and workplace hierarchy) and markets (property and free exchange).[884] There is no reason to a priori think that freed markets promote specifically capitalist modes of economic organization, as opposed to, for instance, cooperatives, but also independent contracting, freelancing, micro-enterprises, community workshops, open-source design, desktop manufacturing, household production, mutual aid associations, and unions.[885] Johnson argues that freed-market competition would actually liberate workers from the constraints of capitalist hierarchy, and new, more experimental, autonomous, and horizontal forms of economic organization would emerge.[886]

Rothbard opposed cooperatives because he considered them subject to the same economic irrationality that afflicts economic planning. Worker ownership, according to Rothbard, would abolish external markets and reap calculational chaos.[887] But Prychitko notes that cooperatives can acquire non-labor factors not only by workers’ capital contributions, but also through purchasing, renting, or borrowing in external markets. Rothbard was wrong to conflate the cooperative model with economic planning. Worker cooperatives in no way demand the sacrifice of property rights, price signals, or profit/loss mechanisms and are, therefore, completely amenable to institutions of economic freedom. An Austrian market-process approach doesn’t rule out anticapitalist anarchism, only anti-market anarchism.[888] An anti-capitalist freed market would include horizontal modes of production, but would still have property ownership, contractual exchange, competition, entrepreneurial discovery, and spontaneous orders.[889]

Rothbard argued the efficiency of capitalist hierarchy is demonstrated by the fact that so many workers decline the opportunity to form cooperatives, and instead work for someone who has already saved up productive resources in order to earn income in advance of the sale of their products.[890] On this view, capitalist hierarchy is merely the organic result of differing preferences in saving and consumption. But in this respect, Rothbard ignored the implications of his very own liberal class theory in which modern capitalism is understood as a system of neomercantilism that protects politically entrenched big businesses from the competitive effects of market processes, artificially limits the feasible economic alternatives, and impoverishes those dependent on the corporate state via land-use rules, building codes, zoning restrictions, eminent domain, capitalization requirements, trade protectionism, occupational licensing, excessive permits, price and wage controls, onerous regulations, inscrutable paperwork, irksome inspections, burdensome bureaucracy, and inflation and taxation that favors the politically connected.[891] Capitalist hierarchy reflects not organic variations in saving and consumption preferences, but coercive privilege that “depends at root upon threats of violence that condition socioeconomic relations in wider society.”[892] Capitalism is mutually reinforcing with statism.

Indeed, Rothbard’s framework is much more congenial to anti-capitalist modes of economic organization than he realized because such arrangements could offer more efficient alternatives to large firms currently benefitting from economic privilege under the corporate state. Rothbard ultimately underrated “the extent to which the large corporation, as an island of incalculability, is insulated from the market penalties for calculational chaos.”[893] Rothbard’s own insights into economic calculation help show that freed markets would incentivize more worker management of industry in order to overcome the calculational chaos of capitalist firms. As vertical integration increases, firms become more insulated from the price system and their diseconomies of scale grow larger and larger — a process heavily magnified by the state weeding out market competitors and favoring organizational bigness.[894]

Hierarchy, whether of the state or capitalist variety, comes with severe information and incentive problems, subjecting both arrangements to pervasive irrationality. On the Austrian view, calculational chaos is a product of separating entrepreneurial from technical knowledge. While collective ownership divorces economic decisions from entrepreneurial knowledge (since such knowledge only emerges from market processes), capitalist ownership divorces economic decisions from technical knowledge (since such knowledge only emerges from production processes).[895] In aiming to best utilize technical knowledge and more efficiently allocate scarce resources to better satisfy consumer preferences, firms in a freed market would likely grant more and more autonomy to workers. Competitive pressures would therefore incentivize avoiding “hierarchy as much as possible, and [internalizing] the costs and benefits of organizing production in the same decision-makers.”[896] Consistently upholding exit in the marketplace is the best way to secure voice in the workplace.

Capitalism is a system of domination that lowers living standards through economic irrationality. But economic planning suffers the same problems. The sensible alternative that promotes both relational egalitarianism and shared prosperity is anti-capitalist freed markets. A freed-market anti-capitalist anarchism must entrepreneurially engage in horizontal alternatives to capitalist hierarchies such as cooperatives, independent contracting, freelancing, micro-enterprises, community workshops, open-source design, desktop manufacturing, household production, mutual aid associations, and unions,[897] along with practicing “direct action on the job”[898] to strengthen the bargaining power of workers, such as wildcat strikes up and down the production chain, sit-down strikes, walkouts, slowdowns, boycotts, anonymous whistleblowing, public information campaigns, sick-ins, and “working to rule” (following the rules of bureaucratic corporate mazes to the letter).[899] Such an approach is completely compatible with Rothbard’s core frameworks. Rothbard should have embraced not just anarchism, but freed-market anticapitalist anarchism.

VIII. The Future of Rothbardianism

“Rothbardianism” consists in natural law theory, individualist anarchism, liberal class theory, and Austrian economics. Rothbard synthesized such disparate intellectual traditions into a single, coherent, and fruitful framework of social analysis. Together, the defining frameworks of Rothbardianism can provide contemporary anarchism with (1) a theory of morality that takes our rational and social nature seriously, providing a compelling alternative to the impoverished theories of nihilism, deontology, consequentialism, atomism, and/or organicism; (2) a theory of anarchism rooted in that rich conception of human nature, which lays the groundwork for both liberal class theory and marketprocess thought; (3) an account of class division that captures the nexus of political—economic—cultural power more accurately than traditional Marxist theories; and (4) an analysis of human action and human interaction that takes mutual exchange seriously, thereby better informing both a critique of the state and a vision for a stateless society. To the extent that they haven’t already, other anarchists ought to integrate these core Rothbardian insights into their thought.

Nevertheless, Rothbard’s social theory has a gaping hole in its lack of concern for interpersonal domination beyond bare force. A bright future for Rothbardianism depends upon incorporating a more comprehensive and holistic vision of human flourishing and freedom. Just as Rothbard sought to liberate people from unequal authority, he should’ve sought to liberate people from unequal relationships. Just as Rothbard sought to liberate people from violence, he should’ve sought to liberate people from domination. Just as Rothbard sought to liberate people from statism, he should’ve sought to liberate people from cis-heteropatriarchy, racial supremacy, ageism, ableism, and capitalism.

Opposition to interpersonal domination is consistent, and mutually reinforcing, with (1) Rothbard’s natural law theory that emphasizes autonomy, self-direction, and free choice; (2) Rothbard’s individualist anarchist politics that consistently opposes the state, a primary purveyor and facilitator of interpersonal domination; (3) Rothbard’s liberal class theory that provides a robust explanation of social fracturing and corporate statism; and (4) Rothbard’s account of extensive social cooperation and mutual respect that occurs within market processes. Rothbardians ought to add relational egalitarianism as the fifth pillar of consistently applied Rothbardian thought. If Rothbardianism incorporates a principled commitment to relational egalitarianism, maybe it can earn that third cheer.

A Rothbardianism that embraces and integrates the value of relational egalitarianism can advocate for social justice, the “branch of justice that evaluates systemic features of society in terms of their impact on social welfare generally, and on that of the least advantaged in particular.”[900] Opposition to statism, cis-heteropatriarchy, racial supremacy, adult supremacy, ableist supremacy, and capitalism are all social justice causes Rothbardians should take up in the name of flourishing and freedom. The consistent Rothbardian should completely reject the “illogical and mythical” fusion of conservatism and libertarianism,[901] especially Hoppe’s variety, which vainly tries to fuse libertarianism with the alt-right commitment to patriarchal white nationalism.[902] Trying to combine a philosophy of emancipation and progress with a philosophy of hierarchy and traditionalism can only serve to undermine the aims of the former and disguise the aims of the latter. “In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.”[903] Rothbardianism needs a consistent means—ends framework, which only relational egalitarianism can provide.

Rothbardianism, by maintaining its core frameworks of natural law theory, individualist anarchism, liberal class theory, and Austrian economics, but working to integrate the framework of relational egalitarianism and, thus, the liberation of women, queer people, racial minorities, children, people with disabilities, and workers, can offer a harmonious, radical, dialectical, and intersectional analysis of human flourishing and freedom. My hope is that Rothbard’s approach to anarchism, suitably modified and enriched, can continue to inform and stimulate anarchist research and praxis.

13. Christian Anarchism

Sam Underwood and Kevin Vallier

I. Introduction

Biblical Christian anarchists argue that the teachings of Jesus imply a unique form of anarchism. Christian anarchists believe that followers of Jesus are called to a life of nonviolence, love, and forgiveness. This life stands in stark contrast with the “ways of the world,” which are the ways of power, violence, and coercion. Therefore, according to Alexandre Christoyannopoulos,

the starting point for most Christian anarchists is not so much a critique of the state as an understanding of Jesus’s radical teaching on love and forgiveness which, when then contrasted with the state, leads them to their anarchist conclusion.[904]

The Sermon on the Mount is the primary biblical inspiration for the positions of many Christian anarchists. Christian anarchists contend that, if we take Jesus at His word in the Sermon on the Mount, and everyone acts as a peacemaker and accepts persecution, the consequence is an anarchist society because the state depends on violence and power for its existence. Tolstoy writes that “Christianity in its true sense puts an end to government. So it was understood at its very commencement; it was for that cause that Christ was crucified.”[905]

In what follows, we will explicate the primary claims of the main biblical Christian anarchists, paying particular attention to the expressly biblical arguments they give. In Section II, we consider Christian conceptions of anarchism and Christian anarchists’ views about whether anarchic political arrangements are feasible and desirable. In Section III, we explore Christian anarchist perspectives on nonviolence, for nonviolence has historically been a central element of articulations of Christian anarchism. Then, in Section IV, we examine Christian anarchist responses to two potentially problematic biblical passages: Romans 13:1–7 and Jesus’s instruction to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” in Matthew 22:21.

In Section V, we review an unusual, recent branch of Christian anarchism, Christian market anarchism, where rights of private property are the primary structural features of political order and no state exists. Christian anarchists support both free-market capitalism and the abolition of the nation-state. Most biblical Christian anarchists have been sympathetic to socialism, though few had the economics background to give an account of how a socialist anarchist society would operate. The Christian market anarchists combine the anti-statist arguments of the mainstream biblical Christian anarchists with biblical arguments appearing to support private property rights and the value of markets. But they also much more frequently appeal to the language of natural law and natural rights, as well as to economic considerations—especially ones drawn from the Austrian school of economics—in outlining how political order should function. We conclude in Section VI by analyzing how Christian anarchists might resolve their dispute about which economic regime is aligned better to fit with Christian anarchism—capitalism or socialism.

Throughout, we rely upon the work of Christian anarchists such as Leo Tolstoy, Jacques Ellul, and Vernard Eller. We will also draw upon the work of Christian pacifists like John Howard Yoder and Walter Wink. Although these scholars do not identify as anarchists, their writings have exercised considerable influence in the world of Christian anarchism and so it is helpful to consider their arguments insofar as they have informed, and been frequently employed by, Christian anarchist writers. The Christian market anarchists are much less well known, but include Thomas E. Woods, Stephen W. Carson, and James Redford.

II. Biblical Christian Anarchists on the Definition and Feasibility of Anarchism

What do biblical Christian anarchists mean by “anarchism,” and do they see “anarchy” as a feasible state of affairs? In this section, we examine the answers to these questions offered by three of the most influential Christian anarchist writers: Leo Tolstoy, Jacques Ellul, and Vernard Eller. We will see that these authors represent distinct, but nevertheless related, perspectives on the nature and feasibility of anarchy.

A. Leo Tolstoy

According to Tolstoy, anarchism is the necessary political outcome of an ethic of radical nonviolence. Tolstoy argues that governments are fundamentally violent insofar as their power rests upon the violent enforcement of laws. Furthermore, he writes, violence is a form of slavery, insofar as to be enslaved is to be “compelled to do what other people wish, against your own will.”[906] Tolstoy maintains such slavery must be abolished, which is to say that the state must be abolished. The connection between anarchy and radical nonviolence, however, signals a significant difference between Tolstoy and the other anarchists of his day. Tolstoy explains this difference in the following way:

The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order and in the assertion that, without Authority there could not be worse violence than that of Authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that anarchy can be instituted by a violent revolution.[907]

Importantly, Tolstoy does not disagree with other anarchists about the possibility of anarchy. He does maintain a measured agnosticism regarding exactly what anarchy would look like, though. “To the question, how to be without a State ... an answer cannot be given,” he writes.[908]

What is of more urgent concern, in Tolstoy’s view, is the refusal to resort to violent methods in the pursuit of anarchy. Rather, he argues, only if people nonviolently refuse to support, recognize, or participate in government violence can anarchy begin to take shape. “[I]t is time,” he writes,

for people to understand that Governments not only are unnecessary, but are harmful and highly immoral institutions, in which an honest, self-respecting man cannot and must not take part, and the advantages of which he cannot and should not enjoy ... And as soon as people clearly understand that, they will naturally cease to take part in such deeds, i.e., cease to give the Governments soldiers and money. And as soon as a majority of people ceases to do this, the fraud which enslaves people will be abolished.[909]

For Tolstoy, then, the way of anarchy is, we might say, the way of refusal rather than of revolt, and his emphasis on refusal allows him to avoid constructing a blueprint for anarchy. Revolutionaries need some clear notion of anarchy in mind in order to impose it on others. But anarchy will take shape on its own when we cease to call upon, or acknowledge the legitimacy of, the government. As David Stephens explains, “for Tolstoy, the State could only survive with the consent of the governed; a revolution to overthrow it had to take a personal rather than a political form.”[910] Since the revolution is personal, it can take shape spontaneously.

It should be noted, though, that Tolstoy does give some indications of what sorts of societies he thinks could take shape. He speaks favorably, for example, of Cossacks of the Urals, “who have lived without acknowledging private property in land. There was such well-being and order in their commune as does not exist in society where landed property is defended by violence.”[911] Furthermore, he writes, “I know too of communes that live without acknowledging the right of individuals to private property.”[912] In this, we can read the influence of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the first thinker to call himself an anarchist, whom Tolstoy had the opportunity to meet. Proudhon famously argues that property is theft,[913] and in a letter from 1865, Tolstoy cites this position favorably, writing:

the mission of Russia in world history consists in bringing into the world the idea of a socialized organization of land ownership. ‘Property is theft’ will remain a greater truth than the truth of the English constitution, as long as mankind exists ... This idea has [a] future.[914]

Tolstoy’s ideas also remained in many significant ways consistent with some of the main currents of nineteenth-century anarchism. Like many other anarchists, Stephens explains, “Tolstoy’s political writings express an uncompromising rejection of Authority and all its trappings, a scathing criticism of Church and State, capitalism and Marxism, militarism and patriotism.”[915] It is his uncompromising rejection of violence that makes Tolstoy stand out from the rest of the anarchists of his day.

For Tolstoy, anarchy is the morally necessary negation of the violence of state, church, and capitalism. The exact forms of social organization will vary according to each community’s needs, but, in order for each community to be freed from violence and therefore able to achieve such selfdetermination, Tolstoy is convinced that we must refuse to recognize, support, or participate in government violence. This is the only way to build a new society within the shell of the old.

B. Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul’s anarchism shares much with Tolstoy’s. For both thinkers, anarchism is rooted fundamentally in a rejection of violence. As Ellul writes, “by anarchy I mean first an absolute rejection of violence.”[916] Like Tolstoy, then, Ellul consciously departs from any currents of anarchist thought which leave room for violent revolution. What does Ellul’s nonviolent anarchism look like? “If I rule out violent anarchism,” he explains,

there remains pacifist, antinationalist, anticapitalist, moral, and antidemocratic anarchism (i.e., that which is hostile to the falsified democracy of bourgeois states). There remains the anarchism which acts by means of persuasion, by the creation of small groups and networks, denouncing falsehood and oppression, aiming at a true overturning of authorities of all kinds as people at the bottom speak and organize themselves. All this is very close to Bakunin.[917]

Ellul does indeed come close to Bakunin, for Bakunin was adamantly opposed to any revolution from above—that is, any revolution which would proceed by means of seizing political power— and instead advocated action from below. “The future social organization,” according to Bakunin,

should be carried out from the bottom up, by the free association or federation of workers, starting with the associations, then going on to the communes, the regions, the nations, and, finally, culminating in a great international and universal federation.[918]

It is not only on the question of violence that Ellul departs from the mainstream of anarchist thought. “The true anarchist,” he writes, “thinks that an anarchist society is possible .... But I do not.” Ellul nevertheless maintains that “the anarchist fight, the struggle for an anarchist society, is essential.” This fight involves “the creation of new institutions from the grass-roots level.”[919] Through such bottom-up action, meaningful change is indeed possible, but, in Ellul’s view, the ideal of anarchy will always remain a pursuit rather than an accomplishment.

What Ellul and Tolstoy share is an uncompromising rejection of violence, as well as a deep suspicion of revolution, if by revolution we mean a violent attack on the existing system of social organization. Such an attack, in their view, can only result in the replacement of one system of violence with another. Christian anarchism is, rather, a call to live differently, to organize our lives anarchically, with no need for the state.

C. Vernard Eller

Vernard Eller’s Christian Anarchy: Jesus’ Primacy over the Powers relies heavily on Ellul’s work. Like Ellul, Eller views Christian anarchism as a nonviolent, non-revolutionary way of living according to the kingdom of God rather than the kingdoms of the world. For Eller, too, revolutionary action recognizes—and therefore reinforces—the worldly ways of endless struggles for power, or what he calls “arky politics.”[920] Anarchy, therefore, stands fundamentally opposed to revolution. According to Eller:

‘revolution’ is not anarchical in any sense of the word. Revolutionists are very strongly opposed to certain arkys that they know to be ‘bad’ and to be the work of ‘bad people.’ However, they are just as strongly in favor of what they know to be ‘good’ arkys that are the work of themselves and other good people like them.[921]

The Christian, according to Eller, has no such faith in the possibility of replacing a bad arky with a good, Christian one. For Eller, anarchy means “the state of being unimpressed with, disinterested in, skeptical of, nonchalant toward, and uninfluenced by the highfalutin claims of any and all arkys.”[922] More than anything, then, the Christian anarchist is indifferent to worldly power and neither submits to it nor actively struggles against it.

Furthermore, unlike both Tolstoy—for whom anarchy may indeed be a real possibility—and Ellul—for whom anarchy is not a real possibility—for Eller, the question of possibility is irrelevant. Christian anarchists, he writes, “have no opinion as to whether secular society would be better off with anarchy than it is with all its present hierarchies.. Christian anarchists do not even argue that anarchy is a viable option for secular society.”[923] Such anarchy is therefore not rooted in the same kind of antiauthoritarianism of Tolstoy and Ellul. Rather, it simply views human authorities as irrelevant to Christians. Whether these same authorities are necessary or legitimate for the non-Christian world is neither here nor there. The Christian’s goal is “the arky of God.”[924] To be sure, Eller is clear that he does not view God’s arky as authoritarian in the same way that human arkys are. “Rather than a heteronomous imposition,” he writes, “God’s arky spells the discovery of that which is truest to myself and my world.”[925] God’s arky is a struggle against earthly powers, but not through force, but the cross, self-givingness. Recognizing God’s authority therefore has much less to do with recognizing who is in charge, so to speak, and much more to do with recognizing the truth about reality. Anarchy is thus not a universally applicable socio-political vision, but is instead the proper way for the Christian to orient herself towards the worldly sources of power that try to claim her allegiance.

Eller’s concerns about whether Christian anarchists should support any kind of order at all is a theme expanded upon by some other Christian anarchists. Mark Van Steenwyk addresses the question of authority in his works That Holy Anarchist and The unKingdom of God. The title of the latter already suggests Van Steenwyk’s basic argument: if Jesus’s “kingdom” is a kingdom of love, forgiveness, and nonviolence, as opposed to one marked by power and violence, does this not suggest that this “kingdom” is something more like an anti-kingdom or un-kingdom? Van Steenwyk writes that we “need to recognize that Jesus’ kingdom isn’t the sort that one holds with an iron fist. Rather, it is an unkingdom ... Jesus is calling for a loving anarchy. An unkingdom. Of which he is the unking.”[926] Jesus’s kingdom is in every way the opposite of what a human kingdom would be. To further support the view that Jesus does not claim for himself a traditional, hierarchical, or authoritarian kingship, Christian anarchists often point to the temptation of Jesus by Satan, in which Jesus refuses Satan’s offer of political power.[927] Accordingly, Nekeisha Alexis concludes that it is possible for Christian anarchists to “embrace God as Christians and reject masters as anarchists.”[928]

III. Nonviolence

The Sermon on the Mount is central to the case for Christian anarchism. Dorothy Day writes, for example, that, for the Catholic Worker Movement, “the Sermon on the Mount is our Christian manifesto.”[929] The Sermon is taken as a blueprint for Christian living, and Christian living in accordance with this blueprint is understood to include living the way of peace and making peace with others, along with suffering persecution without resistance.[930] Most Christian anarchists insist that Christians are called to follow these teachings in their plain sense, no matter how difficult or impractical they may seem. Even though power and violence are the ways of the world, Jesus preaches peace and non-resistance, and Christians must take him at His word. As Leo Tolstoy insists, Jesus “meant neither more nor less than what he said.”[931] Thus, to follow the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount is to follow the way of radical nonviolence.

Historically, Christian anarchists have therefore been largely pacifists. Indeed, Christian anarchists often appear to have been led to anarchist conclusions precisely by their commitment to nonviolence. The place to begin understanding the biblical Christian anarchists’ commitment to nonviolence is with Jesus’s overturning of lex talionis, the Old Testament law of “an eye for an eye”: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.”[932] While some authors read Jesus’s instruction here as relevant for private or personal interactions, Christian anarchists and pacifists insist upon the significant social and political as well as personal implications of His words.

Walter Wink argues that the verb translated as “resist” is best read as referring to “violent rebellion, armed revolt, sharp dissention.”[933] Such a reading complements Christian anarchist readings of Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness. According to Christoyannopoulos, in Jesus’s rejection of Satan’s offer to rule the kingdoms of the world,

Jesus is implicitly distancing himself from the Zealots and their method, a contemporary group of Jewish rebels who wanted to overthrow Roman rule in Palestine by taking power ... His contemporaries expected the messiah to overthrow political oppressors and restore the Jewish monarchy.[934]

In both passages, then, we see Jesus rejecting violence and domination not simply in personal situations but in political situations as well.

Wink’s translation is supported, according to Kurt Willems, when we consider that “antistenai is the word repeatedly used in the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible as ‘war-fare’ and is also used in Ephesians 6:13 in the context of active military imagery.”[935] Neither Wink nor Willems advocates Christian anarchism, but Christian anarchists look to such interpretations—Wink’s in particular[936]—to defend their view of Jesus as neither violent nor apolitical, but as an exemplar of revolutionary nonviolence.

Christian anarchists argue that Jesus demonstrates the need to escape the cycle of violence, and the impossibility of doing so by violent means. Ellul, for example, appeals to Jesus’s saying that “All who take the sword will perish by the sword,”[937] from which Ellul concludes that “The law of the sword is a total law.”[938] Accordingly, Ellul writes, “violence begets violence—nothing else.”[939] For Christian anarchists, the endless cycle of violence can be broken only by nonviolent intervention.

Christian anarchists believe that Jesus points the way beyond the cycle of violence. Immediately after overturning lex talionis, Jesus provides His listeners with a pointed example: “But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”[940] According to Michael Elliott, by the victim’s refusal to engage in violence, “the cycle of violence is unexpectedly interrupted.”[941] Rather than legitimizing the attacker’s use of violence by responding in kind, Jesus challenges His listeners to— perhaps somewhat paradoxically—deny the attacker’s power precisely by offering the other cheek. As Ellul cautions, “once we consent to use violence ourselves, we have to consent to our adversary’s using it, too.”[942] Turning the other cheek is therefore seen by Christian anarchists as a radical refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of responding to violence with violence. As Tolstoy writes, “all attempts to abolish slavery by violence are like extinguishing fire with fire, stopping water with water, or filling up one hole by digging another.”[943] The cycle of violence cannot be escaped through violent means; thus, Jesus challenges His followers to disrupt this mutually accepted employment of violence.

The commitment to nonviolence sets Christian anarchists apart from most of their nonChristian counterparts.[944] However, Christian anarchists and pacifists often appeal to a prefigurative argument in support of nonviolence. Prefigurative considerations have long been central to anarchist arguments, so this appeal to prefiguration draws Christian and non-Christian anarchists closer together, even if, ultimately, they often remain separated on the question of violence. According to Nathan Jun, “[t]he ‘prefigurative principle’ demands coherence between means and ends. That is, if the goal of political action is the promotion of some value, the means and methods employed in acting must reflect or prefigure the desired end.”[945] Such coherence between means and ends is precisely what writers such as Tolstoy see as requiring nonviolence. Bart de Ligt—an anarcho-pacifist with a Christian background[946]—writes that “it is impossible to educate people in liberty by force, just as it is impossible to breathe by coal gas.”[947] Instead, he insists, “it is the task of the social revolution to go beyond this violence and to emancipate itself from it.”[948]

Prefigurative considerations thus play a central role in Christian anarchist defenses of nonviolence. It would be an oversimplification to say that any argument that relies on prefiguration is ultimately an anarchist argument. But Christian anarchists can at least claim that their nonviolence does not violate, but in fact attempts to satisfy, anarchist demands for prefiguration.

Christian anarchists also see in nonviolence possibilities for forgiveness and reconciliation that are foreclosed by violent methods. Shortly after His teachings on nonviolent responses to violence, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”[949] As Christoyannopoulos explains,

non-resistance, and its concomitant willingness to suffer unjustly, clears the ground for reconciliation because it exposes the destructive violence of the situation and makes a moving plea to overcome it. It lays bare the cycle of violence and it refuses to prolong it.[950]

The nonviolence championed by Christian anarchists is therefore motivated not only by the anarchist desire for consistency between means and ends but also by the Christian desire for forgiveness and reconciliation.

This is not to say that Christian anarchism is simply the combination of otherwise independent Christian and anarchist concerns, however. Rather, Christian anarchists view the desire for reconciliation as deeply consistent with anarchism. For, according to the Christian anarchist perspective, it is precisely this kind of reconciliation that can provide a way out of the cycle of hatred and violence and into a more just and loving society. The state operates according to lex talionis—relying on tit-for-tat violence and choosing to identify and fight enemies rather than to forgive them or to seek reconciliation. As Christoyannopoulos concludes, “for Christian anarchists, therefore, on this account as well, the state is an unchristian institution.”[951] Christian anarchists see love of enemies as fundamentally anarchic.

Regarding the potentially problematic temple-cleansing episode in the Gospel of John, John Dear and Andy Alexis-Baker argue that the passage in fact does not depict Jesus as acting violently. Dear argues that Jesus’s acting violently “would be entirely inconsistent with the Jesus portrayed throughout John’s Gospel, as well as the Synoptics.”[952] Rather, Dear writes, “most scholars agree that John deliberately paints Jesus as a righteous prophet in the tradition of Jeremiah, who engaged in similar dramatic actions.”[953] This suggests that what is important about the scene as depicted by John is not the violence per se, but Jesus’s righteous anger. Furthermore, Alexis-Baker argues that a careful translation of the Greek would be the following: “he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle.”[954] The word “both” is the linchpin here, as it limits “them” to the sheep and the cattle and no one else. Alexis-Baker concludes by also challenging the assumption that the passage shows Jesus violently attacking animals. He writes that “a makeshift whip of rope would hardly do much more than get them moving out the door.”[955] Accordingly, in the view of Christian anarchists and pacifists, the passage can be justifiably read in such a way that does not contradict the Christian ethic of nonviolence.

IV. Romans 13 and Rendering unto Caesar

The two most commonly cited biblical passages that present potential problems for the Christian anarchist thesis are Romans 13:1–7 and Jesus’s instruction to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” in Matthew 22:21, Mark 12:17, and Luke 20:25. Each passage can be read in such a way that it appears that Christians are called to be obedient, tax-paying citizens because God has ordained the governing authorities as instruments of His will. In other words, according to such a reading, a Christian cannot be an anarchist, for anarchists rebel against the legitimate authorities that God has put into power. This section will consider Christian anarchist interpretations of these passages. We will see that, for Christian anarchists, not only do these passages not seriously undercut Christian anarchist claims, but they in fact end up supporting the Christian anarchist perspective.[956]

A. Romans 13

Romans 13:1–7 is often presented as quite self-evidently teaching Christians to submit to governing authorities. D.A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, for example, write: “Serving God does not mean, Paul cautions, that the Christian can ignore the legitimate claims that government makes on us (Romans 13:1–7).”[957] Some Christian anarchists do not dispute this reading, and argue simply that Paul was mistaken. For these thinkers, “Jesus is the important teacher, and Paul is just an erring follower who has been given too much kudos by the tradition.”[958] Accordingly, these Christian anarchists—Tolstoy among them—are simply not concerned with re-interpreting Paul’s teachings when they appear to contradict those of Jesus. If Paul appears to say something contrary to what Jesus said, Jesus’s words are to be given precedence. Other Christian anarchists and pacifists, however, seek rather to re-interpret Romans 13:1–7. This desire flows from the conviction that the New Testament exhibits anarchistic and/or pacifistic tendencies, which should not be ignored because of a mere seven verses.[959]

One element of Romans 13 that Christian anarchists and pacifists find especially noteworthy is the fact that it follows immediately upon an apparent near-recitation of the Sermon on the Mount in Romans 12. Stanley Hauerwas emphasizes this fact, noting that the instruction “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities” appears only after Paul exhorts his readers to “love one another,” “bless those who persecute you,” “live in harmony with one another,” “do not repay anyone evil for evil,” “live peaceably with all,” “never avenge yourselves,” and finally, “do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”[960]

Seen in that light, Romans 13 is not a betrayal of Jesus’ revolutionary Sermon on the Mount ... but actually an exegesis of it ... In the Sermon, Jesus calls for [H]is followers to love their enemies ... In Romans 12–13, Paul is doing the same, and applying Jesus’ commandments to the authorities.[961]

From such a perspective, then, Christians are to be “subject” in the same way that they are to turn the other cheek or to give their cloak when asked for their coat: it is a way of frustrating the worldly ways of power and violence and instead overcoming evil with good.

Such “subversive subjection” is further strengthened by Paul’s words in Colossians 2:15[962] that Christ “disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.” What does it mean to be subject to disarmed rulers? Vernard Eller writes that Paul’s instruction “is sheerly neutral and anarchical counsel of ‘not-doing’—not doing resistance, anger, assault, power play, or anything contrary to the ‘loving the enemy’ which is, of course, Paul’s main theme.”[963] From this perspective, the passage teaches indifference towards government more than anything else. And this is consistent with Jesus’s cautioning against the kind of violent revolution called for by Zealots. Christians are to deny the cycle of violence and power altogether, which means simply refusing to participate in the worldly ways of power, which are the ways of violently displacing one power for another. The Christian anarchist views Christianity as a call to live otherwise than fighting for power.

However, Romans 13:1–7 appears to do more than simply present the Christian’s role as indifference towards authorities. The passage seems to go so far as acknowledging the legitimacy—indeed, God-ordained legitimacy—of the state and its violent enforcement of order. However, Christian anarchists and pacifists think that such a reading is, minimally, an oversimplification. John Howard Yoder, for example, argues that

God is not said to create or institute or ordain the powers that be, but only to order them ... Nor is it that by ordering this realm God specifically, morally approves of what a government does. The sergeant does not produce the soldiers he drills; the librarian does not create or approve of the book she or he catalogues and shelves. Likewise, God does not take responsibility for the existence of the rebellious “powers that be.”[964]

1 Samuel 8 appears to affirm such a reading. As Nekeisha Alexis writes, “God makes it clear to Samuel and the Israelites that by choosing a king the Israelites have also rejected God and the freedom God provides from oppression, injustice, war and taxation.”[965] Christian anarchists therefore do not read Romans 13 as a statement of God’s approval of governing authorities; rather, these rulers “remain living evidence of humanity’s rebellion against God.”[966]

Furthermore, Yoder writes that “the sword (machaira) is the symbol of judicial authority. It was not the instrument of capital punishment,” nor was it “the instrument of war.”[967] Not only this, but Yoder argues that “verses 3–4 did not include any services that the Christian is asked to render”;[968] rather, these verses describe the authorities as carrying out a function “which the Christian was to leave to God,”[969] meaning, in other words, that the role taken up by state authorities is one that can only rightly be claimed by God and therefore state authorities have no claim on the allegiance of Christians. According to such a reading, then, Christians are called to subjection not because of the legitimacy of the rulers but because of Christ’s teachings to love one’s enemies, to not be conformed to the ways of the world, and to overcome evil with good.

One more curious element of Romans 13:1–7 should be noted: Paul claims that “rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.” Christoyannpoulos points out that Christian anarchists “never really seem to fully make sense of” this passage: “What they do point out, however, is that it cannot mean that these authorities do not persecute good people: they crucified Jesus, Paul himself was beaten by them, and Christians were being persecuted just as Paul was writing these words.”[970] What, then, might Paul mean by saying that rulers are a “terror” only to bad conduct? One possibility is that Christians are not to fear rulers, not because rulers will not persecute Christians, but rather because, for the Christian, human rulers are not legitimate sources of authority and so are not to be heeded when their laws conflict with the teachings of Christ. Why fear the authority of those whose authority is not recognized by God? If Christians are members of Christ’s kingdom, and His kingdom is “not of this world,” then Christians have no reason to concern themselves with human kingdoms.[971]

B. Rendering unto Caesar

Jesus’s admonition to “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s”[972] presents another possible problem for Christian anarchism. Despite Jesus’s apparently instructing His followers to pay taxes—giving to Caesar what is his, which could be taken further to imply acknowledging the legitimacy of His authority—Christian anarchists read this passage as supporting rather than undermining their anarchist position. Greg Boyd and Paul Rhodes Eddy point out in The Jesus Legend that “within Palestine coins were often printed without the customary representation of the emperor on them.in deference to [Jewish people’s] sensitivity to anything that could violate the second commandment.”[973] This suggests that Jesus may in fact have been pointing out the Pharisees’ potential violation of the Second Commandment. At issue in this episode, then, would not so much be the question of taxes as the question of to whom allegiance is to be given.

Furthermore, as Jacques Ellul points out, it is with the coins that “the basis and limit of [the emperor’s] power” is revealed, for “whatever does not bear Caesar’s mark does not belong to him.” Most importantly, “Caesar has no right of life and death,”[974] for humans are made in God’s image, not Caesar’s. Dorothy Day, in her oft-quoted response upon being questioned on this passage, similarly says, “[w]hen you give to God what belongs to God, there is nothing left for Caesar.”[975] Therefore, Caesar can certainly claim no legitimate dominion over human life.

For many Christian anarchists, therefore, this passage, like Romans 13, displays an attitude of, at best, indifference to the governing authorities. It is not a call to obey, for the Christian does not owe obedience to human authorities. Neither is it a call to disobey. Indeed, in Eller’s view, tax evasion is unchristian not because of the legitimacy of taxes, but because “withholding the coin is the ‘revolution’ that stakes everything upon the contest of human arkys.”[976] Instead, the Christian should give Caesar’s coins back when asked and get back to the truly important work of pursuing Christ’s (un)kingdom.

Thus, once again, we see Christian anarchism as a way of living differently which seeks to operate entirely outside of the political realm, characterized as it is by the endless struggle for power. Christian anarchists attempt to live according to the demands of the (un)kingdom of God.

V. Christian Market Anarchism

As we noted in the introduction, there are two kinds of Christian anarchists—those who defend anarchism primarily on biblical grounds, and those who defend it primarily by appealing to natural law and natural rights commonly associated with Christian theism (there are early figures with no clear commitments on this question, such as David Lipscomb).[977] The biblical anarchists tend to be socialists or friendly to socialism, rejecting property rights as fundamental natural or human rights insofar as they have a theory of property. (Alex Salter argues convincingly that they do not have one.[978]) The natural law anarchists tend to embrace capitalism by embracing natural property rights, arguing that states necessarily violate property rights and so should be abolished. They have rich economic theories, almost always drawn from the Austrian school of economics. They also provide detailed models of how an anarchist economic order would function, again in contrast to the socialists—even those who spoke to the issue briefly, like Tolstoy.[979]

Importantly, though, Christian market anarchists only occasionally argue that Scripture favors their position. They instead offer more modest arguments that their view is compatible with Scripture, dogmatic theology, and in some cases, Catholic social thought. One might be tempted to conclude for this reason that the market anarchists are not true Christian anarchists because, while they are Christian and anarchist, their anarchism is seldom based in a developed understanding of Christian theology, and the arguments for anarchism are rooted in natural law and natural rights can presumably be given apart from revelation.

However, some market anarchists argue that certain biblical and theological commitments tell in favor of anarchism. Since this volume already contains several discussions of market anarchism and the arguments for it, we will not review those arguments here. Instead, we will examine how Christian market anarchists rebuff certain kinds of statist and anti-market commitments and arguments from Scripture, Christian theology, and Catholic social thought. In particular, we will analyze such discussions in the work of James Redford, Stephen W. Carson, Norman Horn, Thomas E. Woods, Jim Fedako, and Alex Salter.

The market anarchists agree with many of the arguments for Christian anarchism adopted by more familiar biblical, socialist anarchists, which we do not need to review. Where they differ is in defending a basis for natural property rights and markets in Scripture and Christian theology, which when combined with anarchist arguments jointly imply anarcho-capitalism. Redford and Carson, for instance, argue that passages like the Parable of the Talents[980] and the Parable of the Tenants[981] (Redford)[982] and the Mosaic Law (Carson)[983] seem to presuppose the legitimacy of private property independently of the state or any nation-state-style government. All three sources (Talents, Tenants, Mosaic Law) treat private property holdings as legitimate and violations as unjust, and they do so independently of any state convention or definition. In this, Carson, Redford, and others follow lines of argument advanced within Christian libertarianism more generally.

Market anarchists also try to show that Jesus’s teachings on wealth are not incompatible with capitalism. Market anarchists sometimes argue that Jesus is primarily condemning riches garnered unjustly.[984] Carson advances the fascinating claim that, when God told the Israelites how to govern themselves, no mention is made of large-scale restrictions on property rights and certainly not the abolition of property.[985] Provision is made for the poor, but there is a notable absence of other powers associated with modern states. And commercial relations are treated as ordinary.

On top of this, the yearning for a state in 1 Samuel 8 is condemned as a rejection of God. Thus, if God opposed capitalism and favored the state, He would have said as much in seemingly embracing the private law anarchy found in the Book of Judges. The Israelites plainly have property rights and no state (“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”),[986] which is rather striking.

There is also something to be said for the idea that the Old Testament generally acknowledges rights to property in agrarian, nomadic societies in which there existed no state to create or define or restrict property rights. Examples include interactions between early humans, such as those between different nomadic shepherds, and such as those between Abraham and other small tribes.

Redford focuses primarily on New Testament passages, arguing that Jesus condemned taxation and that Romans 13 should be read in a subversive way as undermining current Roman authority. Carson[987] and Norman Horn[988] argue more plausibly that Romans 13 only specifies when Christians are to obey government, and not the ideal form of government. There is no incompatibility between wanting to abolish or limit the state and having a duty to God to obey the state and its laws in the meanwhile. As Jim Fedako puts it,

As Christians, we are to obey the legitimate governing authority, but it does not follow that the authority must be the state. Paul’s instructions are the same no matter who is in charge. And in a market anarchist world, we would only be forced to obey the governing authorities whose properties we chose to enter.[989]

Carson argues similarly, “Paul’s instruction to individual believers to submit to existing authorities does not preclude a people’s return to God being our only king under a just Law.”[990]

The work of Catholic market anarchists, first and foremost Thomas E. Woods, Jr., argues for the compatibility of Catholic social teaching with capitalism and the right to private property. While many Church teachings seem hostile to the market, Woods interprets those passages as a combination of an authoritative moral teaching with a non-authoritative application of the moral teaching to economic policy. So, there are authoritative moral teachings about helping the poor, but attempts by popes and other theological authorities to extend these teachings to economic policy to support, say, foreign aid, unions, and a living wage, are not authoritative because these teachings concern moral principles alone, and not their application to the economy based on economic science. The Church has no special expertise in economics, and economic science is in a certain sense value-free, whereas Church teachings are value-laden.

Thus, while Woods does not defend market anarchism in his book on Catholic social teaching, it is not hard to see how a Catholic defense of market anarchism could proceed. Woods and others can acknowledge that moral principles in Catholic social thought are authoritative, and then argue that combining the moral principles with Austrian economics and, indeed, a good deal of basic economics more generally, shows that market anarchism is the best and most just economic regime because it is the best expression of Catholic moral teaching. On this point, Woods often stresses the Catholic teaching regarding subsidiarity, where power should be decentralized to local levels when that is feasible. And since libertarian economics and political science has shown that we can radically decentralize power, the principle of subsidiarity provides a defense of radical political decentralization, which can imply anarchism.

Overall, then, we can generate a formula for justifying Christian market anarchism: (1) adopt Christian anarchist readings of the passages of Scripture that otherwise seem to favor the legitimacy and justice of the nation-state; (2) adopt interpretations of Scripture that favor pacifism and nonviolence, or something near enough; (3) argue that Scripture supports a natural right of private property and that this right is incompatible with socialism; and (4) show that other forms of Christian teaching, like Catholic social thought, the Church fathers, Jewish law, etc., are compatible with market anarchism. Christian market anarchists can then (5) draw on natural reason and natural law to ground a right to private property. Finally, they can (6) take economic insights, especially, perhaps, those embraced by the Austrian school of economics, to show that market anarchism is feasible, stable, and enormously productive in ways that make it superior to the state and anarcho-socialism, especially with regard to the poorest among us. In short, the case for market anarchism synthesizes the classical socialist anarchist critique of the state with the standard arguments offered for political libertarianism, with a dash of biblical exegesis devoted to vindicating property rights.

VI. Resolving the Capitalism–Socialism Disagreement between Christian Anarchists

Christian market anarchists and socialist anarchists seldom engage one another. The most influential Christian socialist anarchists were largely unaware of the market anarchists, in particular since most died before market anarchism was articulated in the late 1970s and the 1980s. And, while market anarchists take on some socialist anarchist arguments against the state, they assume that anarchist socialists’ failure to provide a plausible theory of property means that their views on the topic are not authoritative and do not require refutation beyond the standard, non-religious arguments against socialism and anarchist socialism.

But there are some passages in Scripture that might be used to settle the dispute. Salter has argued that the socialist anarchists like Ellul do not have a good explanation of Jesus’s use of violence in the temple cleansing.[991] Theorists like Ellul are pacifists, based on a fairly surface-level reading of Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount.[992] But this raises the question of why Jesus made a whip to force the money-changers out of the temple. As Salter notes, “Christian anarcho-[socialists] are forced to confront the apparent inconsistency between Christ’s commandments in the Sermon on the Mount and His actions during the temple cleaning.”[993]

There isn’t an inherent contradiction here, but Jesus’s actions still raise a question for socialist anarchists, since their arguments are so heavily rooted in pacifism, and pacifism seems like it would allow for the formation of property relations, exchange, and so on, leading to anarchist capitalism of some sort. Socialist anarchists also don’t seem to have a clear and compelling response. Yoder[994] and Christoyannopoulos[995] think that Christ’s actions aren’t really violent, which seems mistaken. Ellul[996] argues that the temple cleansing just shows the supremacy of Christ’s teachings for us rather than His actions, but it is not clear why Ellul thinks we should prioritize one over the other. Oddly, Ellul doesn’t address the temple cleansing in Anarchy and Christianity. This might be because he thought that Jesus’s actions aren’t inconsistent with Ellul’s pacifism. But if that is what Ellul thought, he might have explained why, given the apparent tension.

The market anarchist has an easy response: force is permitted to defend private property and avoid violations of property rights in exchange. Jesus’s violence is consistent with this. Jesus is defending His own house, the temple, against fraudulent money-changers. His use of defensive violence is thereby justified. Thus, one biblical argument for market anarchism over socialist anarchism is that market anarchism renders the Sermon on the Mount (condemning the initiation of force) consistent with the temple cleansing (permitting defensive force in a very specific case of defending private property). This is roughly the line Redford pursues.[997]

It is unclear, however, why Jesus didn’t single out defensive uses of violence as acceptable, so this argument strikes us as far from decisive. If we allow that Jesus’s actions were violent, this raises the question of the tenability of both socialist anarchism and market anarchism on the grounds that if Jesus used violence, He might assign some the authority to use violence in His name, which is essentially how Christians who favor the state have defended their position. One might go further than Jesus’s express teachings, and draw implications from other teachings. For instance, the Golden Rule[998] might license only defensive violence, since we may want to be able to defend ourselves against others, and so would not endorse the initiation of violence against others.

On the flip side, socialist anarchists can appeal to Jesus’s consistent condemnation of wealthholding and of the rich to show that their position is more consistent with Scripture than market anarchism, insofar as capitalism is associated and even based on the goodness of wealthholding. Market anarchists see the tension and, as we noted, sometimes argue that the rich of Jesus’s day got their riches in ways that violate libertarian justice. The argument, then, is that Jesus is condemning not wealth or riches but ill-gotten wealth and riches. And yet, these are not the reasons Jesus cites. It is clear from the discussion with the rich young man[999] that wealth is a grave temptation that can set one against God. One cannot serve God and Mammon,[1000] even legitimately acquired Mammon. Thus, insofar as market anarchism depends on the legitimacy of allowing large economic inequalities between rich and poor, and socialist anarchism avoids these inequalities, socialist anarchism may be more consistent with Jesus’s teachings on wealth, as well as those elsewhere in the New Testament.

A common response is that the Old Testament seems much friendlier to wealth-holding, as people are not required to give up all of their property, but rather to simply alleviate poverty, and in some cases, people seem blessed in virtue of receiving riches, as in Job’s compensation.[1001] But socialist anarchists can argue that New Testament teachings are more authoritative and direct and so should be decisive.

One way to rectify the tension between Christian market anarchism and Jesus’s teachings on wealth is to argue that, while market anarchism allows for economic inequalities, Jesus only condemns large-scale wealth-holding on ethical grounds. Natural justice may permit fairly large inequalities of wealth, but the rich are nonetheless ethically required to be generous, even if no one has the authority to force them to be generous. If this seems odd, just consider that Jesus’s teachings might in some ways go beyond natural justice, requiring Christians to do more than what is naturally required of them. This certainly seems to be the case with respect to Jesus’s teaching of unilateral forgiveness.[1002] Natural justice seems to only require forgiveness when the wrongdoer repents. Along the same lines, Jesus might require His followers to be generous, but think this goes beyond natural justice.

This argument has some force. But market anarchists must still grapple with the force Peter appears to have wielded to kill Ananias and Sapphira,[1003] who refused to share their property with the community. The market anarchists will respond that Ananias and Sapphira had voluntarily agreed to become part of the early Church and that one of the conditions of the agreement was wealth-sharing, which does not indicate a rejection of capitalism.

It is also noteworthy that Ludwig von Mises, an Austrian economist held in high esteem by Christian market anarchists (though he himself was an atheist), argued that the apparent socialism in Acts is only a socialism of local people with respect to consumption goods, not capital goods.[1004] So even if there should be more sharing among Christians, this does not mean capital should be socially owned, as socialist anarchists demand. While one can doubt Mises’s skill at biblical exegesis, the general point stands that the Scriptures seem to speak to a local socialism of consumption goods alone.

Finally, it is an interesting feature of the Epistles that Paul never insists on enforcing a communist mode of economic life and exchange even within churches. Christians are of course required to care for one another, but the idea that everyone in each church must hold so much in common does not seem to be a theme of his writing. It is of course possible that he thought Christian churches simply took this for granted, but of all the problems Paul detects in the early Christian churches, failing to share on the extreme level of the Jerusalem Church does not seem to be among them. Perhaps the communal sharing of the Jerusalem Church had not gone well, and the disciples decided not to encourage it beyond what is required to care for the poor, such as Galatians 2:10, “Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.”

We find these Scriptural arguments complex and inconclusive. But we do think there are at least Scriptural bases for Christian market anarchists and Christian socialist anarchists to settle their dispute one way or another.

Part III: Legitimacy and Order

14. Anarchism and Political Obligation; An Introduction

Magda Egoumenides

I. Introduction

Anarchists believe that relations of domination are immoral. The coercion and exploitation of one individual by another is unjustified, as is the control of the individual by a collective, such as the state. The values of freedom and equality are paramount. A strand of anarchism expresses these positions within the context of philosophical debates about political obligation, and this has a distinct impact on our approach to political institutions.

Anarchism is skepticism toward authority.[1005] Its unifying position is that not all forms of authority are justified, and we should refrain from any acceptance of them prior to their satisfactory justification. One form of authority that anarchists consider unjustified is the political authority of the state. Although “‘anti-statism’ does not define anarchism,” because anarchists challenge authoritative relations other than those constitutive of the state,[1006] the anarchist challenge involves opposition to the authority of the state, which focuses on the state’s special characteristics as “a specific form of government,” namely its being a “sovereign,” “compulsory,” “monopolistic,” and “distinct” body.[1007] But anarchism’s opposition to the state reflects its more general opposition to political authority and institutionalized coercion[1008] (see also my discussion of “the political” below), although not necessarily to a looser sense of organized society. So, at its core, anarchism objects to the authority of all political phenomena, institutions, and practices that institutionalize coercion.[1009] The features of legal and regulatory enforcement that make it an objectionable form of coercion are also features of the institutionalized coercion of the state.[1010] Opposition to the state’s right to rule, although a non-definitive anarchist concern, is common to all forms of anarchism and its proponents. Opposition to the state’s right to rule is a necessary condition of a position’s being anarchist, but various anarchist tendencies embrace additional defining characteristics as well. The rejection of the state’s right to rule relates to the stronger anarchist challenge to its right to exist. This challenge is the upshot of political anarchism, which maintains that the state must be resisted as an evil and a new social form must emerge that succeeds the state and constitutes an improvement on state-centered patterns of social organization. Thus, in order to pave the way for a complete evaluation of anarchism, including the project of political anarchism, it is helpful to examine the principled rejection of political authority that philosophical anarchism proposes and to detail the positive views, if any, that it expresses. My aim is to analyze this challenge as formulated within the context of the contemporary debate about political obligation.

In this chapter, I describe four basic forms of anarchism in order to clarify the theoretical perspective I defend—that of critical philosophical anarchism—and place it in the context of the current debate on anarchism. Then, I explain the problem of political obligation. Finally, I discuss the principal elements of my argument for critical philosophical anarchism. My aim is to prepare the ground for an assessment of the general contribution of philosophical anarchism to the problem of political authority.

II. The Varieties of Anarchism: Defining Critical Philosophical Anarchism within the Context of the Current Debate about Anarchism

I begin with the different forms of and divisions within anarchism. One division is that between gradualist and revolutionary anarchism, which refers to the path toward change that anarchists advocate. Another division is between pacifist and terrorist anarchism, drawn according to the methods that anarchists adopt (whether they use peaceful means, like social reconstruction, or violence, like some forms of propaganda by the deed, respectively). (Presumably one might admit the legitimacy of some kinds of force, and so not qualify as a pacifist, while rejecting the use of force against noncombatants, especially as a means of inducing fear, and so not qualify as a terrorist.) These divisions refer mostly to political anarchism, however, and the main logic of any such division remains the same: it primarily concerns the revolutionary methods and the form of economic organization that each school proposes.[1011] There is a huge debate around the forms of anarchism, and some favor an “anarchism without adjectives.” My focus is on the position that each form of anarchism adopts with regard to the two fundamental problems concerning the state: its right to exist and its right to rule. For the purposes of my argument, I want to distinguish between political anarchism and philosophical anarchism. While the second refers to a very specific debate in philosophy, the one I examine here, the first refers to practically everything else. The first can be further divided into individualist and communal (or social) anarchism and the second into positive (a priori) and negative (a posteriori) anarchism. As a result, we have four main forms of anarchism.

These categorizations serve mostly as clarifications of the main tendencies involved in the anarchist approach to the fundamental issue of political authority. The taxonomy is not exhaustive, and the overlaps are important. Political anarchists can be philosophical and vice versa, and, in the end, outside the specific debate over political obligation, the distinguishing characteristic of political anarchism is that it is also practical. The discussion below consists of a brief description of each form of anarchism in order to arrive at a basic account of the anarchist position that I discuss.

Political anarchism is primarily devoted to the task of demolishing the state. It sees this task as an immediate implication of the rejection of political authority. But this form of anarchism also views the state as a very bad form of social organization. The state’s badness is a reason for opposing it in addition to the reality that the state’s existence and authority remain unjustified. Correspondingly, this critique of the state is premised on a vision of social life without political institutions. Philosophical anarchism, on the other hand, concentrates on the critique of political authority and does not necessarily require the abolition of the state. This latter characteristic is reflected in the fact that philosophical anarchism is compatible with “a wide range of alternative political outlooks.”[1012] Many anarchists are both philosophical and political, but a philosophical anarchist may remain non-political.

Political individualist anarchism is marked by its emphasis on a central aspect of anarchism: the commitment to individual autonomy, or freedom, as a primary value, in the sense that each individual has a capacity and right to be “self-legislating,”[1013] to make and act on his or her own decisions—as long as these do “not violate the similar rights of others,”[1014] and “avoid causing dramatic social harm.”[1015] At the basic level, freedom can be conceived as the ability to make uncoerced choices on various issues of one’s life under circumstances of adequate knowledge and with an unimpaired capacity for rational deliberation. Anarchists understand freedom in opposition to domination and coercion. In individualist anarchism, absence of coercion is seen primarily as a lack of interference in the private sphere of individual life. The idiosyncratic classical anarchist Max Stirner puts forward a unique individual anarchist view of freedom which replaces freedom with what he calls “ownness.”[1016] And Crispin Sartwell provides a contemporary example of individualist anarchism.[1017] Generally, anarchism is committed to the ideal of self-determination understood as self-development under conditions of proper social relationships, where the subordination of some to others is replaced with mutual respect, equal active participation, and common flourishing. According to this general statement, the absence of subordination and coercion further requires rejecting domination, as well as engaging with aspects more comprehensive than the negative demands of individualist anarchism, which mostly promotes the idea that each individual has an “inviolable sphere of action” with absolute sovereignty.[1018] Individualist anarchism views social relationships as interactions among independent beings, able to lead their lives abstracted from their social environment and its impacts. This leads individualist anarchists to emphasize the importance of voluntariness in any relation to and interaction with others and to attack political obligation on the grounds that states are not based on voluntary relations. Thus, they see them as coercive, exploitative, and evil.

Political communal (or social) anarchism has roots in socialism, but it nonetheless differs from other socialist ideologies, especially in its rejection of politically centralized forms of organization and control (see, for example, the split between Marx and Bakunin).[1019] Communal anarchism stresses “the social character of human life”: the value of community, mutuality, free cooperation, and, in the general case, social arrangements of a reciprocal character.[1020] Its proponents devote themselves to developing visions of society that involve cooperative enterprises in every aspect of social life (economic, cultural, educational, etc.), as alternatives to views of society that include the state as an essential element.[1021] These visions are accompanied by the (anarchist) rejection of coercive schemes and are based on reasonably optimistic views of human nature and accounts of morality—like Peter Marshall’s approach to the notion of human nature, its use in the anarchist tradition, and its role in anarchist theory.[1022] Marshall proposes abandoning the idea of human nature as a “fixed essence,”[1023] and viewing the human species in an evolutionary way, taking into account the continual interaction of its many aspects and their capacity for “self-regulation” within open possibilities.[1024] This view of human nature is compatible with the position developed here. On similar lines, but even more compatible with our position and more radical, is the view of the self as a “kernel of nothingness” serving as a canvas for constant self-creation, developed in the theory of Stirner and adopted and expanded by poststructuralist thinkers such as Michel Foucault and the anarchist Saul Newman.[1025]

Moving to philosophical anarchism, I begin with some terminological points in order to arrive at the view I want to defend. Horton distinguishes between positive and negative philosophical anarchism.[1026] Positive anarchism is the stronger, since it provides an explanation for the moral impossibility of the state and thus of political obligation. Negative anarchism is weaker, for it relies merely on “justification by default.” That is, for negative anarchism, the failure of all attempts to provide supportive accounts of political obligation is taken to be reason enough for denying the existence of such an obligation, even though no “positive” analysis of why such attempts are bound to fail is provided.[1027] These terms correspond to a certain extent to Simmons’ notions of “a priori” and “a posteriori” anarchism. A priori anarchism states that the impossibility of legitimacy is inherent in the nature of the state, that some essential feature of the state makes it impossible for it to be legitimate. A priori philosophical anarchists are motivated by prior commitments—e.g., to voluntarism, to egalitarianism, or to communalism—that, on their view, the state fundamentally contradicts.[1028] In contrast, the claim of a posteriori anarchism that “all existing states are illegitimate” is based mainly on empirical observations of actual states, rather than on an argument that there is some inconsistency, or incoherence, in the possibility of a legitimate state, although this form of anarchism is pessimistic about such a possibility.[1029] This is a central reason why a posteriori anarchism does not necessarily lead to political anarchism, why its project is presented as mainly one of theoretical criticism and of enlightenment, and why it leaves room, in many cases, for obedience to particular laws and for the justification of particular obligations on the part of different individuals.

I focus on the negative, or a posteriori, side of philosophical anarchism and intend to evaluate its contribution to the debate on political authority. For this, I adopt an alternative terminology: I define “critical philosophical anarchism” through a combination of the features of the definitions of Horton and Simmons above, which I find the most characteristic of this anarchist position. (Gans coins “critical philosophical anarchism” for the anarchist position that he explains as “the denial of the duty to obey the law which is based on a rejection of its grounds.”[1030] But the sense in which I use it is more comprehensive, technical, and specific. I give my own definition in the next paragraph.) From negative philosophical anarchism I keep the characteristic that it is a theoretical view grounded on criticisms of accounts of political obligation. Yet I believe that these criticisms are determined by a prior analysis of what is involved in an adequate justification. From a posteriori philosophical anarchism, I take this: Simmons argues that a posteriori anarchism is not based merely on justification by default, but that it is rooted “either in an ideal of legitimacy (which existing states can be shown not to exemplify) or in some account of what an acceptably complete positive attempt [to justify political obligation] would look like.”[1031] This feature works as a normative horizon for evaluating theoretical defenses of political obligation: a prior standard in reference to which a posteriori anarchism derives its negative conclusions about political obligation and political institutions. These conclusions stem from the failures of the defenses of political obligation and from what these failures reflect about reality.

Given the above two features, I define “critical philosophical anarchism” as the view that examines the best candidates for moral theories of political obligation and derives from their failure, as a constructive conclusion of its own, the result that there is no general political obligation and that in this respect political institutions remain unjustified. Operative in this approach is a prior standard of theoretical criticism merged with some idea of what an ideal legitimate society should be like. The main input of this standard is to stress what political societies must not be like in order to be considered legitimate. Critical philosophical anarchism considers all existing states to be illegitimate insofar as they fail to meet this ideal, especially the demand for non-domination. In this, it is in line with political anarchism. Ultimately, the position of critical philosophical anarchism is a mix of philosophical and political anarchism.

My aim is to examine this anarchist position as it figures within the debate about political obligation, in order to determine its contribution regarding our approach and relation to political institutions. I stress both its critical perspective and its ideal of legitimacy as the defining features of this position, incorporating elements of essential value in the arguments against political authority.

These parameters are compatible with certain valuable features of social anarchism. In fact, this compatibility is not limited to social, or communal, anarchism. It is, to my mind, necessary in any anarchist vision that displays two features of communal anarchism, namely, on the one hand, its recognition of the social dimension of human beings and, on the other, its idea of free social relationships and decentralized, cooperative forms of social order along with an attention to matters of economic equality and distribution. Such perspectives are found in many contemporary anarchist writings. The essentially social character of human life is reflected both in anarchist proposals for free social relationships and in the claims regarding the defects of relations of domination. These claims have important implications for defenses of the state in light of its coercive character and its underlying corruption, as well as for considering the independence of “state actors.”[1032] Communal anarchism contains a positive project, namely the establishment of human cooperative relations free of both domination and exploitation. But its relation to coercion appears unclear and problematic, because it seems to re-introduce coercive structures, tactics, and attitudes in its visions of social reconstruction.[1033] The most demanding project of anarchist theory would consist of a combination of the communal anarchist ideal with the attack on coercion reflected in the exacting perspective and standard of legitimacy that critical philosophical anarchism defines. This chapter attempts to prepare the way for this combination.

Anarchism enters the debate on political obligation with a concern about freedom, which is immediately related to an attack on dominative authority. Anarchism concentrates on the importance of self-governance. But how can self-governance be compatible with external constraints? The respect for self-government and the rejection of constraints are characteristic anarchist tenets, each of which might take, and at times has taken, priority over the other within the anarchist tradition. Still, an anarchist can insist on the priority of freedom and criticize political institutions without any prior rejection of constraints in general. The anarchist is sensitive to the fact that most political constraints create problems for self-determination. It is with this realization that the critical philosophical anarchist criticizes the way traditional defenses of political institutions work. What he wants to point out is that, if these defenses start with a different perspective on political institutions, one that centrally involves a positive relation between institutions and selfdetermination, such defenses will more successfully address the difficulties they face in the effort to justify political reality. The debate, and with it our relation to the state, can then develop in a different light, which will provide more fruitful ways of assessing political authority.

At this point, I would like to refer briefly to certain categories of anarchist thought that continue to form the debate within the anarchist arena today and to which critical philosophical anarchism might be related in some significant way. This will help situate this latter form of anarchism within the current debate, preparing the way for more general current anarchist concerns.

The first category is new anarchism, which is rooted in Errico Malatesta’s thought[1034] and appears today in the work of Noam Chomsky.[1035] Based on Bakuninian ideas and Kropotkinian orthodoxy, Malatesta’s critique of mainstream anarchism marked the transition from classical to new anarchism. Although greatly influenced by those major anarchist thinkers, Malatesta moved from their preoccupation with big ideas, their intellectual reverence for Marx, and their excessive revolutionary optimism (and the dogmatism related to it) to a more practical outlook that was pragmatically engaged with the realization of a just society.[1036] Despite criticisms that this activism encouraged intellectual incoherence and simplicity, new anarchists made theoretical advances and their thought prefigured the New Left and its reorientation toward social analysis and cultural critique. Emma Goldman’s anarchic-feminism is a characteristic example.[1037] At present, Noam Chomsky is the most representative contemporary new anarchist. He has not developed a general theory of anarchism, and he sees anarchism more as a historically developed trend, sharing Malatesta’s suspicion of the creation of big theoretical systems. Yet he has contributed a sharp social and political criticism to anarchism with his analysis of the role of propaganda in determining the opinions of people regarding economic issues, international relations, and war affairs. Above all, Chomsky has developed a profound critique of the propaganda of the media as a method of social control in “open” societies.[1038]

Chomsky offers a parallel at the practical level to the thorough criticism that, as argued here, critical philosophical anarchism offers at the theoretical level. The latter can also be compatible with the concerns of individualist anarchism, such as those of Marx Stirner[1039] and of our contemporary Herbert Read,[1040] who refers to the priority of the aesthetic development of the individual, of a creative individuality free of all forms of social oppression. Furthermore, critical philosophical anarchism can be inspired by postmodern anarchism, as it appears in the work of Todd May and Saul Newman, with a focus on social critique and change rather than just political or economic change.[1041]

In my opinion, however, critical philosophical anarchism’s compatibility with social anarchism, and its concerns with the social and political implications of its criticism of obligation, can be seen better in its connection with another category of contemporary anarchist thought: the neo-classical eco-anarchism as it appears in the works of Murray Bookchin and Alan Carter. Critical philosophical anarchists can develop their own micropolitics of power. It is nevertheless important to examine the relation of critical philosophical anarchism to the most promising contemporary implementations of anarchist visions and practices rooted in the social anarchist concern with free and equal social relationships, to carry its principles even further to meet present demands and correct past prejudices. Bookchin’s theory is promising to this end. Since this theory also has its shortcomings, however, my proposal is that it should be evaluated with reference to the perspective of critical philosophical anarchism. One can apply the critical philosophical anarchist test of legitimacy to Bookchin’s account. During this project, it is also helpful to build on the ideas of Samuel Clark,[1042] Benjamin Franks,[1043] and Uri Gordon[1044] regarding existing anarchist practices that widen the contemporary anarchist utopian picture.

III. The Problem of Political Obligation

A. The Correlativity Thesis

The problem of the existence and justification of political obligation is usually taken to be identical to the problem of the justification of political authority, which involves the establishment of the state’s (claim to the) right to rule. This right is most often seen as the logical correlate of an obligation to obey: when we assert the state’s right to rule, we automatically recognize that citizens have a political obligation to the state (the “doctrine of ‘logical correlativity’”).[1045] Alternatively, this correlativity of right and obligation can be conceived as a normative doctrine: if we have one, we should have the other. On this view, political obligation is understood as either a normative condition for or a normative consequence of political authority, although not identical to it. This means that either authority or obligation is already independently justified and becomes the ground of the other. Theorists are divided concerning whether to accept correlativity in any of the above senses. Defenders of political obligation and philosophical anarchists usually adopt correlativity.[1046] This perspective might be explained to a significant extent by the fact that these theorists conceive political authority, or the right to rule, as something more than mere permission to coerce. For example:

What we really have in mind is a right to make laws and regulations, to judge and to punish for failing to conform to certain standards, or to order some redress for the victims of such violations, as well as a right to command.[1047]

Also, “Authority on the part of those who give orders and make regulations is: a right to be obeyed. We may say, more amply: authority is a regular right to be obeyed in a domain of decision.”[1048] Characteristically, defenders of non-correlativity conceive authority as mere liability or permission to coerce, which is justifiably distinct from, and does not necessarily entail, a duty to obey; that is, political obligation.[1049] Green has a useful discussion of objections to logical and to normative correlativity.[1050] To the extent that political authority is understood as a complex right to exclusively and coercively make regulations, impose duties, and demand compliance (i.e., command and be obeyed, or, more inclusively, issue directives—“directives” is a wider term, more suitable than “command,” and covers all cases of authoritative utterance[1051]—and have them followed), then it is properly taken as correlative to a complex set of obligations constituting a general obligation to comply, i.e., political obligation. I take this correlativity as one central sense of legitimacy, whether in its logical or in its normative form. Since normative correlativity already involves substantive considerations about the nature of political authority and our relation to it, however, it is sufficient to focus on this form of correlativity for us to keep in mind that it is in the nature of the state’s claim-right to rule to generate obligations to it.

B. The Two Main Aspects of the Problem of Political Obligation

Thus, the problem of political obligation is primarily the problem of finding a special justification for the various obligations imposed on citizens by their political institutions, which are correlative to a complex right of those institutions to rule those citizens. As Horton rightly points out, the question of justification is presupposed by the issues of the author and of the scope of political obligations, which are also central, and in general “has been taken to be the kernel of the philosophical problem of political obligation.”[1052] It is with regard to the question “Why should we obey political authority?” that I evaluate the anarchist position. The traditional philosophical discussion of political authority concerns attempts to account for de jure political authority, that is, authority that has the right to rule—or is exercised in accordance with a certain set of principles or rules— rather than for de facto political authority, namely one that claims to have this right and has this claim acknowledged by its subjects.[1053] Because no state has the right to rule, the anarchist demands the moral justification or, in other words, the legitimacy of de facto authority. This problem has also been identified as that of state legitimacy morally understood. I use “state legitimacy” interchangeably with “state authority” and “political obligation.”

Political obligation has traditionally been regarded as that notion through which we must understand a special relationship between individuals and the political institutions of their country of residence. There are two main features of the nature of the problem of political obligation:

(a) The state, the law, and political institutions in general have a special character and status. This is described by four theses:[1054]

• The sources thesis: political institutions take their own validity from within the political/ legal structure, from legally defined criteria and standards.

• The particularity thesis: citizens are taken to have a special relationship with their own government as it determines by itself the conditions of membership within its territory. This means that political institutions have a particular constituency to which they apply and any justification of political obligation should provide a basis for obeying one’s own particular government with its own criteria for membership: “the particularity requirement.”[1055]

• The coercion thesis: institutional requirements may be backed by coercion. The state is sovereign and monopolistic in the sense that it determines the rights and duties of its citizens in an authoritarian, permanent, and exclusionary way. With respect to this function, legal sanction, or coercion, is its primary means.

• The independence premise: an account of political obligation should include criteria that show the independent nature of the “political” (as this nature is reflected in the elements of the three previous theses), and it is by appeal to this essentially political nature of institutions that political obligation should be justified. That is, the special commitment that such an obligation is supposed to express needs to be shown to be necessarily connected to its political nature. I call these four premises “the theses on the political.”

(b) The commands of political authorities are directed at the behavior of individuals in the public domain. This means that such commands have a direct effect not only on the beliefs of individuals, but also on their actions (such directives guide their practical reasoning and behavior). In this way they are reasons for action—normative requirements with the power to direct action. More importantly, political obligations are understood to be moral in character.[1056] They are the defining terms of a special moral relationship between citizens and their polity, a concomitant of the latter’s status as a normative power; that is, of its claim to a moral right to impose directives on its citizens. Yet the most convincing reason for requiring a moral ground is that it provides the most appropriate way of filtering political requirements in order to decide which of them can properly be attributed the status of obligation. Thus, it works as a criterion for distinguishing requirements that can be accepted as valid laws from unacceptable requirements. When, for example, individuals are presented with laws against bodily harm and laws discriminating against a specific group of people (such as immigrants), they need to be able to assert the acceptability of the former and exclude the latter by reference to a stable testing ground. Since institutions have a considerable effect on our lives, such filtering is necessary and valuable, because it demands that institutions need to be sufficiently motivated in doing so; there have to be convincing reasons in favor of their interference. A moral ground provides the strongest basis for normative requirements, creating a distance from our institutions that is beneficial to a critical assessment of their function and quality. These points express the second important aspect of the issue of political obligation as traditionally understood: a justification of political obligation must involve the provision of moral grounds for supporting political institutions.

Together (a) and (b) say that an adequate justification of political obligation involves the recognition of the legitimacy of political authority qua political, on the basis of moral reasons. Following philosophical anarchists, I see the need to defend the existence of special obligations in the political domain with moral principles and arguments as inevitable. This is mainly because of the direct and dominant role that political institutions, with their requirements and present practices, play in our social lives and because they claim the right to do so. The demands of political institutions primarily affect individual self-determination and social equality, which gives rise to a constant requirement to put limits on these institutions rooted in individual life and morality. As the anarchist reminds us, domination and coercion can never be desirable in themselves. They are always a defect, needing to be counterbalanced by merits that are sufficiently strong to legitimate the agencies that incorporate them. The very fact that obligations are requirements, which involve a “pressure to perform,” makes explicit the tie between obligation, domination, and coercion, thus pressing the demand for proper justification.[1057] These points relate to the other central feature in the traditional understanding of the debate over political obligation: the attempt to ground the political qua political. To appeal occasionally (or even frequently) to moral reasons as justifications for compliance with particular laws does not constitute a moral recognition of the authority of the law.

C. Quality- and Interaction-Based Evaluations of Political Institutions

Two central elements of the evaluation of states that are found in discussions of political obligation are quality and specific interaction. The former involves general positive qualities or accomplishments of institutions (such as justice and the supply of important goods), and it is a commonplace in moral arguments for their existence. The latter refers to “morally significant features of the specific histories of interaction between individual persons and their polities” (components such as actually giving one’s consent).[1058] These elements ground Simmons’ distinction between “generic” and “transactional evaluations.”[1059] I also apply, in relation to the first kind of evaluation, the term “institutional morality,” which is drawn from an analogous distinction between “theories of institutional morality” and “theories of emergence.”[1060] Judgments about the nature of political institutions, the qualities that might make them morally acceptable, provide a basic condition that institutions must satisfy, and in this respect they affect judgments about political obligation. (The basic idea here is that we cannot morally bind ourselves to immoral institutions.) Some of the theories of political obligation employ them more centrally, as grounds of that question. But the general moral relationship based on the nature of a state overall differs from the particular moral relationship that is the focus of the problem of political obligation. It is important to see whether the one can ground the other and, in general, to assess the role of institutional qualities in justifying political obligation. I see the problem of political obligation as concerned with grounding a special bond between individual and government through understanding “the relationship or transaction which could create” such a bond.[1061] In this paper, I stress the fact that political obligation is a special bond between a particular government and each particular citizen. Having such a particularized character, political obligation seems more likely to derive from very specific relationships, characterized by the actual and particular features of direct transaction, and it is doubtful that these can be captured by more generally described connections between states and subjects.[1062] Thus, political obligation appears more relevant to the category of transactional evaluation.

Whether or not justification and legitimacy are separate dimensions of institutional evaluation and whether or not justification in terms of institutional qualities is directed primarily at the existence of the state, anarchism challenges political institutions with regard to both existence and obligation. This paper concentrates on its position with regard to the particular relationship of political obligation. Nevertheless, I believe that the critical philosophical anarchist perspective makes the problem of political obligation central for a broader evaluation of political institutions, and thus ultimately a challenge to their very existence.

D. The Conditions of Political Obligation

The four theses that define the political nature of obligation and the demand for a moral ground are accompanied by certain formal conditions that have traditionally been used to determine theories of political obligation and that are pressed by anarchists. In the next few pages I will clarify which of these conditions remain operative, and introduce their role within the debate on political obligation.

Theories of political obligation, which attempt to morally justify a political kind of requirement, are constrained by four formal conditions: particularity, generality, bindingness, and content-independence. I call them “the conditions of political obligation.” These conditions appear as merely formal requirements, which a theorist of political obligation might find reasons to dispense with, against the anarchist standpoint. But their role is indispensable in the debate about political obligation, as is the way these conditions characterize the anarchist perspective, ultimately helping decide the anarchist contribution to this debate. They are justifiably offered as determinants of the link required between the political nature of obligation and its moral justification.

The particularity thesis, which defines a central part of the nature of the political, itself provides a first condition on how to attempt to assign moral weight to the bond of political obligation, namely that we show the moral significance of citizens being bound to their own states.

Being coherently in the nature of political institutions to address their requirements to a specific constituency, particularity is a natural and inevitable condition within the debate.

Two other general assumptions of a justification of political obligation involve the demand of “universality,” namely that moral justification applies to all subjects with regard to all laws, and the demand of “singularity in ground,” namely that all obligations are based on one and the same moral reason.[1063] Both of these assumptions have been questioned and rejected.[1064] For arguments against “universality” in particular, see Green.[1065]

Nevertheless, in order to justify political obligation, a sufficient amount of generality is necessary. I insist on generality and on the other three conditions of political obligation proposed by philosophical anarchists because they provide an appropriate (and perhaps the most suitable) way of ascribing to the traditional understanding of the problem of political obligation the significance that it has. Generality corresponds to the centralized and monopolistic character of political institutions. Also, it captures a central characteristic of the anarchist approach to accounts of political obligation, namely that we should be interested “in describing all moral requirements which bind citizens to their political communities.”[1066] Klosko[1067] and other defenders of the state recognize the necessity of generality, and it is in fact this aspect that has created the most difficulties for them. All accounts of political obligation proposed so far fail to justify political obligation for most of the people. Thus, the justification of a general political obligation has not yet been given.

The other two conditions that work as proper formal constraints on accounts of political obligation become very explicit in the last facet of the problem to which I want to draw attention, namely our understanding of the character of the notion of political obligation. A good example is Raz’s proposal. Political obligation “is a general obligation applying to ... all the laws on all occasions to which they apply.”[1068] It is not an “incidental reason.”[1069] It is a reason to obey the law because it is the law; that is, “to obey the law as it requires to be obeyed.”[1070] As stressed above, political obligation is not only the obligation to obey the law but involves much more, such as the duties of citizenship, which involve supporting political institutions in other ways; for example, by participating in the defense of one’s country. Yet here I use Raz’s discussion to make a different point about the character of political obligation and I adopt his terminology only as part of that discussion. The point here is that political obligation involves the acceptance of the directives of the law not only with regard to their content, but also as far as the conditions or criteria by which they may be overridden are concerned. The law is not absolute, but the considerations under which it is defeated should be recognized by the law itself. Such considerations might be strong moral reasons that override the obligation to obey the law, but one’s acting according to them irrespectively of any recognition of their application by the law itself constitutes a violation of the law. Thus, although the application of the law does not imply that reasons other than those recognized by the law are less important, the law is “exclusionary” and “its rules and rulings are authoritative.”[1071] It is in the very nature of the law and it is its raison d’être that it functions as a conclusion of practical reason, already excluding certain considerations; this is what the law is. Given this understanding of political obligation, it is possible to recognize that what anarchists deny is a general obligation to obey political institutions as they require to be obeyed.[1072] These considerations are represented by the terms “content-independence” and “bindingness,” which designate the last two conditions of political obligation.

The upshot of the above discussion is that the four conditions of political obligation already provide defining features of the political nature of such obligations, which is a central aspect of the debate.

In sum, the problem of political obligation concerns fundamentally: (a) an ethical relationship between people and the political community of which they are members; that is, one involving moral grounds for a special relationship to our polities. These grounds are strong, but neither absolute nor exhaustive. This issue is also (b) political in the sense that membership in a polity is characterized by the special features of its political nature as defined by the theses on the political and as reflected in the conditions of political obligation. The arguments introduced in the final part of this chapter are approached on the basis of accepting the debate over political obligation in these terms.

IV. The Main Aspects of an Argument for Critical Philosophical Anarchism

In this section, I present the main parts of my argument for critical philosophical anarchism in relation to the problem of political obligation. My argument is that the main perspective and ideas of critical philosophical anarchism can be appealing to anybody, whether they are anarchists or not. I myself am not a self-proclaimed anarchist. Nevertheless, my opinion is that the critical philosophical anarchist position on political obligation is correct and that the virtues of this view make an examination and acknowledgment of its contribution worthwhile.

Critical philosophical anarchism has been criticized as a purely negative view, one that works as a denial of positive defenses of political institutions without offering an alternative positive proposition of its own.[1073] This criticism is anticipated by the usual understanding of philosophical anarchism as a view relying merely on justification by default (see the presentation of negative anarchism above). Without denying its theoretical function (which I retain and stress in my definition of it), I argue that this anarchist view involves something more positive than it first appears to do: the arguments of critical philosophical anarchism express a prior perspective. This perspective is characteristically anarchist in its motivating concerns and its proposals, one that is also indispensable for theorists of political obligation and necessary for the evaluation of institutions more generally. A closer analysis of anarchist arguments against defenses of political obligation is the first step toward this objective. The four conditions of political obligation that anarchists employ play a central role within the analysis and understanding of the anarchist perspective. These formal requirements define characteristic features of the political nature of the obligations in question: taken together “the conditions of political obligation” express this political nature itself, that is, the particularistic, coercive, centralist, permanent, and exclusive character of the institutions to which these obligations relate. They become useful vehicles for very valuable yet neglected elements of the anarchist position as their formality leads to wide-ranging moral conclusions. In part, the examination of anarchist criticisms of political obligation serves to establish (the role of) these conditions as definitive of the link between the political and the moral features of the problem of political obligation. This point can be employed to demonstrate the value of the philosophical anarchist perspective. The crux of my argument is that the anarchist perspective involves an insight that everyone needs to share. It indicates that the lack of a special relationship that characterizes political institutions (which exists when the conditions of political obligation are satisfied) raises a fundamental question as to whether they can exist and function at all.

The anarchist ideal of legitimacy, as part of the definition of critical philosophical anarchism, is another aspect of this anarchist view which plays a central role in its positive contribution. Philosophical anarchists defend voluntarist, communitarian, egalitarian, and ecological visions of the ideal society. Because they are not dominating models of society, they serve as indications of the proper relations that institutions must have in order to be legitimate and justified in the eyes of human beings. Characteristically, these ideals are also in constant interaction with the social visions of political anarchism. The fact that such ideals underlie the arguments of critical philosophical anarchism provides another factor explaining the positive character of this form of anarchism. Both the anarchist social visions and the anarchist attacks on the state aspire to a better understanding of human nature and society and to an assessment of human actions, relations, and achievements compatible with the most commonly shared moral values. I endorse the claim that anarchists are concerned with “the quality of relations between people,” namely with defending and realizing within society direct and many-sided relations, characterized by reciprocity and equal authority and participation.[1074] This is a ground that can be shared by many anti- and non-authoritarian theorists (McLaughlin is right to stress that anarchism is nonauthoritarianism rather than an anti-authoritarian view, since it does not reject every form of authority as such)[1075] with or without anarchist convictions. Furthermore, the arguments that bring the defenders of the state and anarchists into conflict refer to issues of an explicitly social character. (A good example is provided by the argument from public goods. This argument focuses on the importance of coordinating activities in order to secure the production and distribution of goods vital for a decent life, and it reveals conflicting intuitions—those of anarchists on the one hand, and those of their opponents on the other.) The positive horizon defined by political social anarchism provides a suitable background for addressing these concerns. I want to argue that this horizon is compatible with and in fact already incorporated within the challenge of critical philosophical anarchism. Political social anarchists oppose the state not only because of its illegitimacy, but also because of its essentially dominative, coercive, corruptive, and therefore evil character. But this characterization of the state as evil is not an essential element of philosophical anarchism, although it may play a part in certain philosophical anarchist views. It is necessary to combine a diagnostic of what goes wrong in domination and coercion, as expressed in philosophical anarchist views, with an explicit prescriptive horizon of harmonious social relations. The required link might be found in a theoretical account that includes a properly articulated ideal of legitimacy that will set a standard, elements of which must be met by any vision of society.

On reflection, we would all probably agree with the anarchist on the question of the values needed to defend obligation and institutions. In examining different theories of political obligation in their dialogue with the anarchist perspective, we should approach them with respect to different instances of the anarchist ideal of legitimacy. A related central aim is to carry the role of the ideal of legitimacy further: to examine how, more generally, it can make the task of the justification of political institutions harder. One can consider how the debate as defined by the anarchist and its results for political obligation might affect further defenses of constraints even within a background presupposing that we need, and remain with, political institutions. The extension of the role of the anarchist ideal of legitimacy is an analysis of the anarchist perspective’s effect on any justification of constraints. More precisely, the ideal standards, in the light of the failure to justify political obligation, help further evaluations of institutions by imposing the relevant moral criteria as principled conditions on existing and newly arising forms of domination. Thus, the anarchist contribution should be estimated both with regard to what it offers to the debate on political obligation itself and with respect to the implications of the results of this debate for more general evaluations of political institutions. In these functions, the ideal of legitimacy and the anarchist criticisms become two expressions of one comprehensive view.

This view states primarily that legitimacy is exigent because it is difficult to see how political institutions can meet the requirements of the moral forms of the standard of legitimacy. If the anarchist conclusions about political obligation are correct, both the four conditions that constrain accounts of political obligation and the ideals reflecting proper social relations that states fail to meet indicate something about the political that every theorist must attend to—and they provide the way for doing so. The defenders of political institutions assume what they should seek to prove: they focus on the merits of political institutions and attempt to derive political obligation from them. Instead, they should address the prior question about what institutions demand of us and whether these demands are justified. Political institutions cease to be viewed as lovable, and they need to be tested continually on the basis of the problems they create. This is a shift in our conception of our political relationships that will not, however, entail widespread disobedience and chaos. The reason for this is that we have to work with existing institutions and build the new in the shell of the old. Yet such a shift can radically affect our political relationships and lives. In my opinion, philosophical anarchism both requires drastic revision in our thinking about political relations and entails radical change in our political lives. I see this as a positive effect of the anarchist perspective.

This claim leads to a conclusive point. The anarchist criticisms and ideal of legitimacy explain the link between philosophical and political anarchism: they remind us that the enduring deficiency of the state is a position that is initially shared by both forms of anarchism, and the moral criteria of philosophical anarchism are intended to be inherent in the society that political anarchism seeks to create. A demonstration of the compatibility of political anarchist social visions with the perspective and ideals of legitimacy of critical philosophical anarchism establishes continuity within the anarchist ideology. Such a demonstration is necessary as a test on both sides of anarchism. It would provide the required combination of a diagnostic of what goes wrong with political coercion and an explicit positive horizon of non-dominative harmonious social relations.

15. The Positive Political Economy of Analytical Anarchism

Peter J. Boettke and Rosolino A. Candela

How can it be that institutions which serve the common welfare and are extremely significant for its development come into being without a common will directed toward establishing them?

Carl Menger[1076]

I. Introduction

Both the study of political economy and the study of anarchy are motivated by the same fundamental question: what are the institutional conditions under which it is possible to pursue the extensive gains from productive specialization and realize peaceful social cooperation without command? Understood this way, the study of anarchy is simply a subset of political economy; the two are distinct, though not mutually exclusive. Political economy as a positive and analytic study of governance employs two basic starting points as it seeks to explain why certain societies have grown rich while others have remained relatively poor. In the first, and standard, approach, a set of institutional arrangements is treated as exogenously given and a governing entity is assumed to have acquired a monopoly on legitimate force. The relevant institutional arrangements include well-defined and exchangeable private property rights and freedom of contract under the rule of law. Given such preconditions, the threat of force is utilized as a means to enforce private property rights, thereby establishing the framework that facilitates large-scale trade and capital accumulation, which are the prerequisites for economic development. If these preconditions are not in place, the presumption is that a society will be hopelessly caught in a violence trap,[1077] one in which violence remains the predominant means of accumulating wealth, either directly through private predation or indirectly through state predation. The implication of this approach is that the absence of government will generate a negative-sum societal outcome.

A second approach to political economy—and the focus of this chapter—neither takes rules as given nor assumes that monopoly enforcement of such rules occurs. We refer to this approach as analytical anarchism. This approach is concerned with a positive study of endogenous rule formation by individuals within a particular society.[1078] Such rules emerge out of the self-interest of these individuals, though not necessarily from any deliberate design. Grounded in economic reasoning, analytical anarchism requires neither an abandonment of the notion of scarcity (and hence of competition), nor does it require the benevolent transformation of human nature. Moreover, analytical anarchism is not a normative study[1079] of a world in which the threat of force is absent. Given the ubiquity of scarcity, competition will inevitably emerge as a way of resolving conflicts among ends, and, therefore, force will always remain as one among many forms of competition over resources. Analytical anarchism is thus not an assessment of whether or not coercion should or should not take place. Rather, it is an analysis of how rules emerge and under what conditions the discretionary use of force can be minimized in the enforcement of such rules.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a critical overview of the burgeoning literature concerning analytical anarchism. We begin, in Section II, by clarifying the presumption of social disorder that prevails among economists and other social scientists skeptical about the ability of anarchy to facilitate social order. In Section III, we outline some ambiguities and misconceptions in the analytical study of anarchy and discuss its importance for political economy overall. In Section IV, we outline and analyze two theoretical approaches that have been used to illustrate various historical cases of anarchism across time and place. We distinguish between an exclusionary approach to analytical anarchism and an inclusionary approach to analytical anarchism. Though these two approaches are not mutually exclusive, they are distinct from each other, in that they illustrate alternative mechanisms under which the conditions of anarchy can be relatively peaceful and productive. Section V concludes with implications for future research in political economy.

II. The Presumption of Social Disorder without the State

From a political economy perspective, it is impossible to understand the emergence of analytical anarchism in the second half of the twentieth century without first placing it in its appropriate intellectual context. By the mid-twentieth century, a presumption of market failure[1080] had come to dominate neoclassical economic theory, particularly in the field of public economics. Advocates of this presumption hold that market processes are exacerbated by inefficiencies—judged in relation to an ideal of perfection competition—associated with asymmetric information, externalities, monopoly power, public goods, and macroeconomic instability. Government intervention is treated as a necessary corrective for such market failures. Our purpose here is not to address the presumption of market failure, or the corresponding government failures associated with government intervention as a corrective to market failure, per se.[1081] Rather, we will focus on the principal critique of analytical anarchism in political economy—the presumption that a state monopoly on the use of coercion is necessary for social order to prevail. We will thus be concerned with the predominant economic justification for the role of the state, namely the provision of public goods, including the establishment of secure property rights and the enforcement of contracts. Our work reflects the recognition that challenges to public goods theory have provided the theoretical building blocks that analytical anarchists can use to illustrate anarchy across time and place.

Beginning in the latter half of the twentieth century, economists such as Armen Alchian, James Buchanan, and Ronald Coase[1082] began to critique the theory of public goods that served as the principal economic justification for belief in the state’s essential role. According to Paul Samuelson’s articulation of this theory, a public good, a good that is non-excludable and non-rivalrous, will unavoidably be suboptimally provided by the market for two reasons: (i) if private entrepreneurs are unable to exclude non-payers from the benefits of a good, large numbers of people will free-ride, declining to pay for their shares of the good, which will thus be underprovided; and (ii) the inability to establish property rights in public goods will keep entrepreneurs from using the price mechanism required to allocate these goods to their most valued uses.[1083]

If a good is non-rivalrous, as public goods are said to be, the marginal cost of providing an additional unit of the good is zero. If a good is non-rivalrous, then, even if the price mechanism could be utilized to allocate the good, it would be suboptimal to charge a positive price for the good. This is because pricing the marginal consumption of an additional unit of a non-rivalrous good will result in suboptimal consumption of the good.

Among the examples of public goods provided by Samuelson were lighthouses.[1084] Since ships passing in the night could simultaneously benefit from the light provided by a lighthouse without being stopped for payment, free-riding would result in the inefficient provision of lighthouses.

James Buchanan provided one of the earliest critiques of Samuelson by developing a theory of club goods.[1085] According to Buchanan, the fact that a good is non-rivalrous doesn’t mean that it must also be non-excludable. For example, access to a swimming pool at a private country club may readily be restricted to members of the club. If a good is excludable, consumption of the good can be restricted; free-riding can thus be ruled out, and with it a Samuelson-style case for government provision of the good.[1086] For example, Coase challenged the notion that government financing and production of lighthouses,[1087] which had been “simply plucked out of the air to serve as an illustration,”[1088] was actually necessary. An empirical analysis of the operation of lighthouses in England and Wales prior to their nationalization in 1836 made clear that lighthouses could be privately constructed and financed and that non-payers of lighthouse services could be excluded from zero-price access to these services through the collection of fees, known as “light dues,” at ports.[1089] Therefore, lighthouses could qualify as club goods.

Armen Alchian and William Allen posed one of the earliest challenges to the notion that national defense was a public good by challenging the assumption of non-rivalry. As they frame it, the standard treatment of national defense as a non-rivalrous public good assumes that this good “is shared by everyone. More of it for one person does not mean less for someone else.”[1090] As a result, on a common view, it qualifies as “a public good and should be provided via government taxes and operation.” In response, they ask the following question: “Does greater anti-missile defense for New York City mean greater defense for Houston, Texas?”[1091] Both Tyler Cowen and Chris Coyne use a similar illustration to point out that, when the marginal unit of analysis is properly defined, what might be regarded as a public good is in fact rivalrous (as when the good in question is defense and the unit of analysis is defense from individual missiles).[1092] As a result, additional resources allocated toward the defense of New York from missile attack come with rising opportunity costs of foregone defense against missiles targeted at Houston.

To be sure, Alchian, Buchanan, and Coase weren’t anarchists. None of them intended to contribute directly to the study of analytical anarchism. They simply sought to challenge the notion that certain goods were inherently non-rivalrous and non-excludable without empirical study, and thus to reject the idea that the market provision of such goods could be known a priori to be subject to market failure.[1093] However, their critique of the public goods justification for state action obviously raises questions about which goods, if any, must be provided by the government; it thus contributes important building blocks for analytical anarchism.

The most direct origins of the explicit study of analytical anarchism can be traced back to the Center for Study of Public Choice at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.[1094] Beginning in the 1970s, public-choice economists began to analyze the capabilities of individuals to engage in peaceful social cooperation without government. Although the idea that this might be possible no doubt seemed new and radical, rigorous economic inquiry into the potential dynamics of social order without the state dated back to at least the work of economist Carl Menger. Due to the civil unrest that emerged during the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement, James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and Winston Bush undertook a radical re-examination of alternative institutional arrangements for governing society. This analytical inquiry into the prospects for anarchism resulted in publications such as Explorations in the Theory of Anarchy and Further Explorations in the Theory of Anarchy.[1095] As Bush observed,

It is not surprising that ‘anarchy’ and ‘anarchism’ have reemerged as topics for discussion in the 1960s and the 1970s, as tentacles of government progressively invade private lives and as the alleged objectives of such invasions receded yet further from attainment.[1096]

Given the historical context in which they were writing, Buchanan, Bush, and most of the other contributors regarded anarchism with skepticism.[1097] They understood anarchy as a social condition characterized by the absence of law, involving banditry, violence, and general social disorder. These scholars uncritically identified government with governance. “The anarchists of the 1960s,” Buchanan supposed, “were enemies of order, rather than proponents of any alternative organizational structure.”[1098]

Scholars studying the possibility of social cooperation without the state have continued to raise questions about the prospects for anarchy. For example, using economic analysis to understand the Sicilian Mafia, Diego Gambetta has argued that organized crime can facilitate trust and third-party contract enforcement where other means of enforcing property rights and contracts are deficient or absent.[1099] However, on the basis of his empirical analysis, he concludes that the case of Sicily suggests that third-party enforcement of property rights and contracts under anarchy will ultimately be extortionary:

Anarchists have argued that the state ought to disappear altogether for there is no need for its services. But this view is entirely different from advocating the privatization of justice and protection services. Among the few authors who argue in favor of the latter is Murray Rothbard .... He seems oblivious to the fact that the society he is proposing exists already in Sicily and can hardly be described as a success.[1100]

However misplaced Gambetta’s reference to Sicily as an example of anarchy may be, since it didn’t meet the conditions of anarchy in the first place,[1101] his criticism prompts two important observations not only about the positive and empirical study of anarchy but also about political economy in general. First, the historical observation of cases of anarchy is not synonymous with the analysis of anarchy itself. As Avinash Dixit notes, “case study [analysis] or empirical research should not treat each case as a mere narrative or description of an isolated situation; it should attempt to place it in an overall framework of other cases and theories.”[1102] The historical success or failure of anarchy, as compared with government, in facilitating social cooperation under the division of labor requires an explanation of facts, not merely a description. And an explanation requires the use of theory, the purpose of which is to understand why particular historical case studies illustrate the viability of social order without the state.

Whether or not anarchy features peaceful social cooperation and exchange or whether it will degenerate into social disorder and violence is dependent upon to the viability and likelihood of voluntary institutional mechanisms that filter out individuals who promote social disorder and filter in individuals who are expected to contribute to social order. We will discuss these sorts of exclusionary and inclusionary mechanisms in Section IV. For now, we simply want to emphasize that analytical anarchism is fundamentally an empirical study of the endogenous formation of rules that facilitate cooperation without command. It is therefore a radical inquiry into the sources of the formation of such rules. As we argue in the next section, any inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth and poverty of nations requires, as an analytical starting point, the assumption of anarchy. Anarchy-focused inquiry is especially relevant if the social scientist is addressing the causes of relative success or failure of governments to secure property rights and facilitate contractual exchange as compared with anarchy.

III. Why Assume Anarchy in Political Economy?

The political economy of governance proceeds on two levels of analysis. A “higher” level of analysis focuses on the rules of the game and is concerned with both formal and informal institutions, as well as their enforcement. A “lower level” focuses on individuals’ interactions in pursuit of their goals. Understanding this dual level of analysis provides a useful framework for unpacking and clarifying particular misperceptions with regard to the study of anarchy.

The very mention of the word “anarchy” provokes an image of a world that is, at best, disorderly and chaotic, or, even worse, a Hobbesian jungle in which people are solitary and poor and life is nasty, brutish, and short. From this perspective, an anarchic society is one that is deeply deficient because, lacking government, it also lacks governance. But the absence of rulers need not mean the absence of rules. Anarchy can be understood as simply the absence of government— of the state, of a territorial monopoly on putatively legitimized force—rather than of governance. Misperceptions of or ambiguities inherent in anarchism as an analytical or normative project rest on the unwarranted conflation of anarchy understood as a particular set of outcomes and anarchy understood as an institutional form of governance. These two senses of anarchy are related but are nonetheless distinct from each other. The popular association of anarchy with chaos and disorder rests on the assumption that these are necessary features of social interaction in the absence of government, without which no rules for governance could exist. There are at least three reasons to doubt this assumption, implying that anarchy can be more peaceful and prosperous than the conventional wisdom suggests.

First, international commerce operates in a condition of anarchy. According to the World Trade Organization, the ratio of international trade in goods and commercial services to world gross domestic product (GDP) increased from just over 20 percent in 1995 to roughly 30 percent in 2014.[1103] This figure represents a tremendous amount of wealth that is generated outside the shadow of the state, roughly equivalent to the GDP of the United States. The institutional basis for international commerce can be traced back to the emergence of what is known as the Law Merchant, or the lex mercatoria. The Law Merchant was a set of customary laws that began to emerge during the eleventh century, at a time when international trade was beginning to increase in Europe.[1104] It emerged from independent sets of localized customs within particular jurisdictions that proved to be common across jurisdictions. Not only did the norms constituting the Law Merchant emerge voluntarily, though unintendedly, from the commercial interactions of merchants, but disputes regarding the application of these norms were adjudicated by private merchant courts to which the parties had voluntary recourse and non-violently enforced by threat of ostracism. The discipline of repeated dealing and the fear of the potential loss of future income because of boycotts by other merchants incentivized merchants to comply with merchant court rulings. Given that the politically fragmented nature of medieval Europe raised the transaction costs of enforcing property rights and adjudicating contractual disputes across jurisdictions, a commonly accepted set of legal institutions emerged to reduce transaction costs, at least where state enforcement of international commerce was lacking.[1105] By the fourteenth century, many European governments had codified or begun to codify and enforce commercial laws that had initially formed elements of the Law Merchant. International commerce operates within an institutional framework that resembles the one that obtained in medieval Europe. Today, crossborder disputes among merchants are resolved under the umbrellas of arbitration associations similar to medieval merchant courts. According to the International Chamber of Commerce, among the largest of these associations, merchants voluntarily comply with its private arbitral decisions 90 percent of the time under threat of reputational pressures.[1106]

Second, the evident deficiencies of and the clear limits facing actually existing governments highlight the importance of treating anarchy as a baseline point of comparison, as argued by economist Raghuram Rajan. Without “assuming anarchy” as an analytic starting point, as well as building positive transaction costs into our analysis, “economic theory offers us little guidance on how strong institutions are created and nurtured.”[1107] The “blame for this neglect should be attached to the canonical model in economics: the complete markets model.”[1108] Though Rajan admits that “some abstraction is important, gross abstraction can make a model irrelevant. And for many situations, at least in the developing world, the complete markets model is too far distanced from reality to be useful.”[1109] The evidence provided by the Fragile States Index (FSI), an annual report compiled by the Fund for Peace, best illustrates Rajan’s point. Of the 178 countries measured in the FSI, roughly 31 countries are indicated under “alert,” implying that such countries have governments that are dysfunctional, predatory, and on the verge of collapse.[1110]

Though a theoretical case can be made that a territorial monopoly on coercion can facilitate economic development, empirically it does not necessarily imply that (a) governments are able to effectively to monopolize coercion and/or that (b) such preconditions are necessary for relatively greater prosperity.[1111] Whether such claims hold will depend on empirical comparative institutional studies of a comparative institutional nature. Analytical anarchism, like political economy itself, is a study of comparative institutional arrangements, not a comparison between ideal statelessness and imperfect actually existing, imperfect states, and/or vice versa. Recent experience in Somalia nicely illustrates this point. Since the collapse of the predatory regime of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia has effectively been in a condition of anarchy. Perhaps unexpectedly, key elements of human welfare and economic development have improved during Somalia’s period of statelessness.[1112] To be sure, Somalia is still desperately poor. Thus, a critic might say, statelessness in Somalia does not illustrate the superiority of anarchy over the operation of a territorial monopoly on coercion. The critic’s claim implies that, if a monopoly government in Somalia were to credibly establish political constraints on predation, economic and social outcomes would prove superior to those that obtain under anarchy. This might indeed be the case if such a government were a live option in contemporary Somalia. “If ‘good government’ is not one of the options in Somalia’s institutional opportunity set, anarchy may be a constrained optimum. Among the options that are available, ultra-predatory government and statelessness, statelessness may be preferable.”[1113] The problems with the exogenous imposition of formal, Western liberal democratic institutions—without the rule of law—is particularly noted by Dutch legal scholar Michael van Notten, who married into and lived within the ambit of the Samaron Clan in Somalia. As he observes:

A complicating factor in understanding Somali society is that, in the past 30 years, a million or more Somalis have emigrated to Europe and North America. From there, they have become a highly vocal political lobby in their country of origin. These Somalis are enjoying every advantage of the clan system while being spared most of its disadvantages. The advantages they enjoy are mutual support and comradeship. The main disadvantage they are spared is the clans’ destructive involvement in politics. While these Somalis of the diaspora see that the clan structure has become a system pitting all clans and even sub-clans against one another, they generally fail to detect the cause. They don’t see that the clan system only became such a monster with the introduction of democracy. They also overlook the fact that the essence of Somali society consists not in the clans, but in the customary law. Finally, they don’t understand that the ‘West’ owes its wealth not to democracy, but rather to the protection of property rights, and that democracy [without the rule of law] is undermining and destroying those rights.[1114]

This raises what we regard as the more relevant question of analytical anarchism, and for a political economy in general: what is the endogenous process by which a society expands its institutional opportunity set to include governance that places credible constraints on coercion? The long process of economic development turns on the institutional transition “from subsistence to exchange,”[1115] a movement from small-scale trading and small-scale capital accumulation to medium-scale trading and medium-scale capital accumulation and, finally, to large-scale trading and large-scale capital accumulation. The trigger for the transition at each stage is the development of institutions that increasingly secure protection for people and their property from predation. Exogenous changes can undermine this endogenous, cumulative process of rule formation. In Somalia, this “transition is not easy and is far from complete.”[1116] This is because

the expectation, actively promoted by the United Nations, that a central government would be reestablished in the near future led clan militias and remnants of the former government into armed conflict, often in disregard of customary law and their elders. Each group manoeuvered to be in the most favorable position to capture the formidable array of powers of the future government.[1117]

Third, perhaps the most important reason to assume anarchy as an analytical starting point in political economy is that collective action problems likely evident in a dysfunctionally anarchic society might prove worse in a society under the rule of a dysfunctional state. Since the 1990s, multiple events—including the collapse of communism in Eastern and Central Europe, ethnic and religious fractionalization in the Balkans and the Middle East, and the exportation of liberal democracy to failed and weak states in the developing world—have demonstrated that effective governance depends on the endogenous formation of rules rather than their exogenous imposition. “Any proposal for change,” as Buchanan argued, “involves the status quo as the necessary starting point. ‘We start from here,’ and not from someplace else.”[1118] Buchanan’s point is not only more pressing with regard to failed and weak states today; it is also reinforced by Raghuram Rajan’s rationale for assuming anarchy:

a better starting point for analysis than a world with only minor blemishes may be a world where nothing is enforceable, property and individual rights are totally insecure, and the enforcement apparatus for every contract must be derived from first principle[1119]

so that, from this analytic starting point, we can then understand how enforcement mechanisms emerge even in the most unlikely of cases.

IV. Theoretical Approaches to Analytical Anarchism

From the perspective of analytical anarchism, problems of collective action affect not only anarchy, but also government. The market and the state are alternative institutional embodiments of governance. The market and the state in a given society emerge from the social interactions of the individuals constituting the society.[1120] When markets or states function well, they can harness the productive and creative abilities of heterogeneous individuals across time, place, race, creed, and gender.

Social cooperation without the state is clearly possible among small numbers of homogeneous agents with low discount rates.[1121] But analysts skeptical about the viability of anarchy maintain that social disorder will emerge under anarchy whenever groups are large, agents are heterogeneous, and agents’ discount rates are high. On the skeptics’ view, in the latter situation, the provision of public goods will be undermined by non-cooperation in the form of free-riding or predation. Simply put, there are high costs to “filtering in” or including “patient” and cooperative individuals and “filtering out” or excluding “impatient” and non-cooperative individuals. And both kinds of filtering are necessary if property rights are to be protected, contracts enforced, and public goods provided.

The problem of heterogeneity, not just in ethnicity, religion, sex, or wealth but also in the capacity and willingness to use force, poses a serious problem not only for anarchic governance but, indeed, for any sort of governance. Buchanan and Tullock acknowledge that their

analysis of the constitution-making process has little relevance for a society that is distinguished by a sharp cleavage of the population into distinguishable social classes or separate racial, religious, or ethnic groups sufficient to encourage the formation of predictable political coalitions and in which one of these coalitions has a clearly advantageous position at the constitutional stage.[1122]

Focusing specifically on anarchy, Daniel Sutter emphasizes that there is a distinction between securing initial possession of goods and services and providing enforceable agreements, and that the former must proceed the latter. The emergence of secure property rights, however, will depend on the distribution of force in society.[1123] Because of the asymmetric distribution of force relationship between the protection agencies and individuals under a condition of anarchocapitalism “the resulting distribution of rights may be highly skewed, with no effective freedom of choice between agenc[ies].”[1124] Even scholars who have otherwise demonstrated the possibility of social cooperation without the state do not necessarily reject the necessity of government. While Robert Ellickson acknowledged that residents of Shasta County, California, were able to develop informal norms that served as preferable alternatives to legal rules and enforcement mechanisms,[1125] he maintains that individuals needed government to provide them with “the Brooklyn Bridge, lighthouses, relatively clean air, and welfare programs suited to a geographically mobile society.”[1126] Ellickson’s examples are typical of those commonly advanced in the course of economic arguments for monopoly governments.

In reality, however, the provision of public goods is a challenge not only for non-monopolistic social institutions but also for the state. To argue that the marginal cost of securing property rights by the state to an additional individual is zero, and therefore non-rivalrous, implicitly assumes homogeneity among individuals, and therefore assumes away the very problem of governance upon which the economic argument for the necessity of the state is characteristically premised. Recall that the state is supposed to be necessary, and anarchy to be non-viable, when, among other things, individuals are heterogeneous. But, when they are, scarce resources will be required to identify if in fact a given individual is “homogenous” with respect to her or his ability to cooperate with other individuals. The opportunity cost of each heterogeneous individual’s membership in a given society is the cost of the foregone resources needed (a) to secure the property rights of others in the society if that individual turns out to threaten them and (b) to secure that individual’s own property rights against others. Because of this foregone cost, the protection of such rights isn’t a public good: it’s rivalrous. Thus, institutional mechanisms for excluding non-cooperative individuals are endogenous and arise to reduce the transaction cost of acquiring information required to sort cooperative individuals from non-cooperative individuals.

To rule out the possibility of anarchy on the basis of the existence of large groups of heterogeneous and uncooperative (i.e. high-discount-rate) individuals puts the cart before the horse. Analytical anarchism approaches the issue of whether or not social cooperation in anonymity is possible, absent the state, by (a) beginning, from an analytic starting point, with the challenges posed by the need for social order in a society that is already large, heterogeneous, and inhabited by potentially uncooperative people; and (b) focusing on mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion available to such people.[1127] On the margin, the size and degree of homogeneity and the level of cooperation are not preconditions of peaceful and productive social interaction under anarchy, but by-products of institutional mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. “[I]t is far more likely that feelings of friendship and communion are the effects of a regime of (contractual) social co-operation rather than the cause.”[1128] Such institutional mechanisms emerge precisely because of their effectiveness in reducing the costs of identifying potential gains from trade, specifically by incentivizing the discovery of margins on which individuals are able to communicate about their willingness to engage in cooperative behavior.[1129]

Among political economists working in the intellectual tradition of analytical anarchism, there are two distinct, though not mutually exclusive, approaches to illustrating how social cooperation can be facilitated without the state.

The first is the exclusionary approach, which stresses the role of ex ante mechanisms useful for “filtering out” untrustworthy and non-cooperative individuals from those who are trustworthy and cooperative. This approach emphasizes private provision of public goods, particularly the security of property rights, through mechanisms that make the exclusion of non-cooperators possible, in effect turning what is otherwise a public good into a club good.

The work of Edward Stringham exemplifies this approach. Stringham has illustrated the emergence and enforcement of rules governing stock exchanges in Holland and England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, respectively, in the absence of state enforcement of contractual obligations.[1130] Stockbrokers benefited from devising clear and predictable rules governing stock trading, but enforcing such rules posed a collective action problem for them. The potential loss of income suffered from fraudulent stockbrokers’ free-riding on the reputations of other stockbrokers incentivized the joint provision of governance as a club good, one that utilized ostracism as a key enforcement tool. For example, in the coffeehouses of London, where English stock exchanges had had originally emerged, acts of deliberate fraud, or even unintentional default, by particular brokers resulted in their names being written on a blackboard. This form of boycott encouragement helped to protect other brokers from the risks of dealing with untrustworthy peers. At the same time, it incentivized other brokers to behave honestly and reliably in order to safeguard their access to potential future income.[1131] The self-policing club arrangements Stringham has studied reveal the amazing creativity used by brokers, among others, to reduce the cost of excluding uncooperative individuals through ex ante sorting. The strategies Stringham describes exemplify the capacity of exclusionary mechanisms to transform large-group settings into more manageable small group settings, with the result that, even when a population pool is initially heterogeneous, those who are accepted into membership are more or less homogeneous on the margin that matters for the group—in this case, as in many others, with respect to honesty and trustworthiness.

The second, inclusionary, approach focuses on ex post mechanisms of “filtering in” potentially cooperative individuals. In effect, the non-rivalrous feature of public goods, according to this approach, is a by-product of inclusionary mechanisms that create margins of homogeneity among otherwise heterogeneous individuals. The result of the use of such inclusionary mechanisms is the evolution of generally applicable norms and rules from which all individuals can simultaneously benefit.

The work of Peter Leeson illustrates the exploration of this approach in various historical and cultural settings. For example, the extension of credit by producers of goods increased the costs of theft and the benefits of trade among middlemen in late precolonial Africa.[1132] Given that middlemen during this period were the sole suppliers of firearms to interior communities, the distribution of force favored their ability to plunder, rather than trade.[1133] However, credit served as a pre-contractual mechanism of inclusion that reduced the likelihood of predation. Credit allowed producers to trade with goods that did not yet exist, thus increasing the cost of theft for middlemen. In addition, by increasing the cost of theft for middlemen, who could not steal what had not yet been produced, this mechanism “filtered in” those individuals with lower discount rates, therefore incentivizing future repeated dealings, and “filtering out” those middlemen inclined to engage in violent theft. Thus, the extension of credit was a pre-contractual inclusionary mechanism capable of producing a public good—in this case self-governance—privately by eliciting a demand for trade among those middlemen patient enough to value the prospect of a future stream of income derived from trade rather than theft.

Leeson’s work on pirate communities also defies the conventional wisdom with respect to the viability of anarchy.[1134] On pirate ships, large groups of heterogeneous agents,[1135] presumably with high discount rates, organized themselves under democratically elected captains and quartermasters constrained by constitutional rules (including ones, predating the formulation of the US Constitution, that mandated the separation of powers) and provided economic safety nets for the disabled.

Other inclusionary mechanisms facilitating peaceful social interaction between heterogeneous groups under anarchy include intermarriage between warring clans on the border between England and Scotland prior to their union[1136] and the adoption of customs, practices, and languages to signal credibility and trustworthiness among strangers attempting to trade.[1137] Such inclusionary mechanisms can enable people to overcome geographic and social distance in order to realize the gains from social cooperation under the division of labor.

V. Conclusion

Analytical anarchism is a research program exploring the possibility of endogenous rule formation, governance in accordance with emergent rules, and thus of collective action emerging from the bottom up rather than dependent on top-down management. There are goods that are to one degree or another non-excludable or non-rivalrous or both, and that may thus not be produced, or not be produced at appealing levels, absent some sort of collective action. However, rules making possible the needed kinds of collective action can be created and sustained endogenously. Social-evolutionary processes must be cultivated in order to ensure that people can realize the benefits of social cooperation without command.

This outcome can be achieved in the course of peaceful social cooperation featuring exclusionary and inclusionary mechanisms. Though the inclusionary and exclusionary approaches are analytically distinct, they are intertwined empirically in multiple settings. The availability of each helps to enable social cooperation among heterogeneous individuals by, among other things, reducing the payoffs to violent and uncooperative behavior.[1138] Thus, they provide convergent support for the occurrence of catallaxy.[1139] By calling attention to social mechanisms that create and sustain bottom-up social order, analytical anarchism helps in perhaps unexpected ways to teach the fundamental lesson of political economy. Political economy in general, and analytical anarchism in particular, help to show us how it is possible to convert potentially violent situations into ones in which people can and do engage in mutually beneficial exchanges. They also show how people can set in motion, as an unintended by-product, the evolution of rules facilitating the occurrence of such exchanges among anonymous traders without the use of force.

16. Moral Parity Between State and Non-State Actors

Jason Brennan

I. Introduction

Suppose I believe that people are too fat, so I storm 7-Eleven with a gun and declare, “From now one, no one may purchase Big Gulps!” Suppose I believe Americans should not live high while people die, so I hack into upper-middle-class and rich people’s bank accounts and redistribute their wealth to poor people. Suppose I believe Americans should support one another and prioritize each other’s welfare over the welfare of foreigners. So, I arrive at a BMW dealership while brandishing a gun and tell customers, “You may buy German, but only if you give $1,500 to Detroit autoworkers.” Suppose I believe space exploration is a vital project. So, I build elaborate and expensive spaceresearch equipment, which I pay for by hacking into Americans’ bank accounts.

If I did any of these things, you would probably call the police and demand I be arrested. The police would indeed show up and arrest me, or perhaps even kill me.

Yet, while you would think my actions are criminal, our own governments do these same things. Governments regularly issue commands, backed with threats of violence, about what we may and may not eat, what we may buy, and how much of our income we must redistribute to others or spend on supposed public goods. Many people think there is no problem with that— they believe that governments are permitted to do things ordinary people are forbidden from doing. This leads to a philosophical puzzle: What, if anything, explains why governments and the agents of government have a special moral status in which they are exempt from ordinary moral rules and prohibitions? What, if anything, can explain why government agents may do what I or others may not?

For the purposes of this chapter, let’s define a statist as a person who advocates installing and maintaining a government. (I’m not using the word “statist” as a pejorative here.) Following the philosopher Gregory Kavka, I understand a government to be the subset of a society which claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of coercion, and which has coercive power (more or less) sufficient to maintain that monopoly.[1140] An anarchist is a person who rejects government so defined; i.e., a person who believes that social order and peace can be properly maintained without relying on a monopoly of coercive violence. Anarchists often believe that governments are unjust. Or, more weakly, many anarchists simply believe non-governmental mechanisms for protecting rights and property, or for maintaining public goods, are all things considered superior to governmental mechanisms.

One way to illustrate the difference between statists and anarchists concerns their view of government and non-governmental actors. Statists generally believe that government actors have at least four special moral powers and privileges:

1. Legitimacy/Special Enforcement Powers: The special moral permission to create and enforce rules over certain people within a geographic area. For example, a government may forbid adults from smoking marijuana and may send police to violently apprehend marijuana users.

2. Authority: A special moral power to create, in others, a moral obligation to obey the rules and commands certain government agents issue. For example, when a government issues a law forbidding you from using marijuana, you thereby acquire a moral obligation to refrain from smoking pot because the government said so.

3. Special Immunity: When government agents act unjustly, we are not permitted to defend ourselves or others from their unjust actions. For example, even if marijuana criminalization is unjust, you may not fight back against a police officer who arrests you for pot possession. You must instead submit to arrest and accept punishment.

4. Punishment: The government has the legitimacy and authority to punish people who ignore its commands or violate its rules. For example, if the cops catch you smoking pot, the government can throw you in jail, take some of your money, and issue a public proclamation that you are a criminal.

To be more precise, statists believe that government agents, in virtue of being government agents, possess these moral powers and privileges more extensively than ordinary civilians do. For instance, if I order you to stop smoking pot, the statist would say my “order” confers upon you no duty to stop. But if the Drug Enforcement Agency issues that exact same order, the statist holds that you thereby acquire a duty to comply.

Now, most statists, except for totalitarians, believe there are limits on what the state may do and on how expansive these four moral powers and privileges are. Most people believe that the state has limits on what rules it may issue and how it may enforce those rules, that you might not have a duty to obey certain highly unjust commands or laws, and that you might have some right to resist government injustices. Nevertheless, statists generally hold that you owe greater respect, deference, and subservience to government agents than you do to private actors.

In contrast, anarchists generally hold that government agents and private civilians are on par morally speaking. Call this the Moral Parity Thesis: government agents and private civilians are fundamentally morally equal; government bodies and civilians are fundamentally morally equal. Anarchists tend to hold that government agents, despite their legal offices, do not have any special right to create and enforce rules, do not have any special right to punish, do not have any special right to be obeyed, and do not have any special immunity against being resisted when they act unjustly.

The anarchist issues the statist a challenge: identify some property or set of properties which (some) governments (tend to) possess and which civilians lack, which plausibly explain why governments would have some extra degree of legitimacy, authority, special immunity, or right to punish. First, I discuss anarchist responses to various arguments which purport to show states have legitimacy and authority. Second, I discuss general responses to the issue of whether state agents enjoy special immunity. Third, I cover the question of whether the state, and only the state, can punish. My goal here is not to settle these issues—indeed, each topic is itself a subject of hundreds of books—but rather to illustrate precisely what it means for anarchists to hold that governmental and non-governmental agents are morally on par.

II. The Huemer Test

In The Problem of Political Authority, anarchist philosopher Michael Huemer examines a wide range of arguments which purport to establish that some governments have legitimacy and authority.[1141] The statist has to identify some special feature or set of features F that at least some governments tend to have and which civilians tend to lack, which explains why governments and their agents acting ex officio would possess these two special moral powers and privileges.

When the statist offers a candidate for F, Huemer then asks two questions:

1. Is F plausible in its own right?

2. Is it possible for a civilian or private agent also to possess F? If a civilian, private agent, or group of private agents possessed F, would we also conclude that the civilian/private agent had legitimacy, authority, or whatever other special status the statist attributes to government?

We might call questions 1 and 2, taken together, the Huemer Test. When the statist offers an account of why the government or its agents possess some privileged moral status, we should accept that account only if it passes the Huemer Test; that is, only if the statist has satisfactory answers to both of these questions.

In a sense, part 2 of the Huemer Test is a test of moral parity. It is meant to examine whether the statist believes that government and civilians are in principle on par, or whether the statist instead believes that government is somehow special. Many times, after the statist has offered some account of F, Huemer constructs a parallel case in which civilians also possess F. Yet in almost all of these cases, we would conclude the civilians do not have legitimacy and authority, despite possessing the special features that supposedly explain why governments have legitimacy and authority. This shows that the statist’s purported theory of legitimacy and authority is mistaken, or perhaps that the statist inadvertently believes (for unknown reasons) that government and civilian agents are not morally on par.

Let’s illustrate this with a cartoon case. Suppose someone said that the reason US government agents have legitimacy and authority is because they work in or near Washington, DC. First, we would ask, is that even a plausible explanation for why the US federal government would have authority? Obviously not—that’s why I’m using it as a cartoon illustration here. (I’ll examine a more plausible case below.) Second, we can then ask whether it’s possible for non-governmental agents (such as I, Jason Brennan) to possess or instantiate the feature of “working in or near DC.” Of course, they can. So we might draw a parallel: Jason Brennan and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) bureaucrats both work in DC; thus, they both can and do possess the special feature meant to explain why government agents have legitimacy and authority. However, if Jason Brennan ordered you not to smoke pot and threatened to throw you in jail for doing so, you would conclude both (a) that you had no duty to obey his commands and (b) that he had no permission to enforce his command.[1142] Accordingly, “working in or near DC” cannot be the special property or feature that explains why the DEA is authoritative and legitimate. Both I, Jason Brennan, and the DEA instantiate that property, but no one would think that makes the DEA authoritative.

Again, that is a silly example meant to illustrate the general principle. Let’s now examine how a popular and far more plausible theory fails the Huemer Test.

III. Fair Play and the Huemer Test

To review, governments generally claim to possess two special moral powers:

1. Legitimacy: The permission to create and enforce rules over certain people within a geographic area.

2. Authority: The ability to create in others a moral obligation to obey those rules.

Legitimacy is the power that could make it permissible for the government to tax you. Authority is the power that could make it impermissible for you to refuse to pay your taxes. Legitimacy makes it okay for the police to arrest you.

Let’s briefly examine how one prominent theory of legitimacy and authority fails the Huemer Test. I do not have space to cover all such theories here (and other chapters in this volume may provide more depth). My goal in doing so is to illustrate how morality parity appears to exist between state and non-state actors.

One major theory of legitimacy and authority, devised by H. L. A. Hart, holds that legitimacy and authority arises out of a duty of fair play:

The Fair Play Theory

When a number of persons conduct any joint enterprise according to rules and thus restrict their liberty, those who have submitted to those restrictions when required have a right to a similar submission from those who have benefited by their submission.[1143] Further, in such cases, it is permissible to coerce others to comply with this duty.

The idea here is that when some people incur a sacrifice in order to produce public goods that benefit all, the other people who benefit have a duty to contribute to the production of those goods as well. It would be unfair of them to free-ride on the provision of these goods when others are sacrificing to provide them.

The philosopher Robert Nozick notes that at least in some cases, this line of argument seems implausible. He illustrates at least one case with his “public address system” thought experiment. He asks you to imagine that your neighbors create a public entertainment system, with loudspeakers throughout your neighborhood. Each neighbor takes turns playing songs, reciting poetry, conducting interviews, or whatnot. You enjoy the system. One day, let’s say Day 138, they come to you and say that it’s your turn to spend the day entertaining people. Must you do so? Most people conclude no—even though you benefited from the system, you aren’t dutybound to participate in it and it would be wrong to force you do to so. Part of the reason for this judgment seems to be that you had no good way of avoiding receiving the benefits—you couldn’t opt out without great expense to yourself. But this seems to hold for most of the benefits the state provides as well.

However, perhaps there are other fair play cases where it’s plausible there is a duty to contribute to some common good. Here is one such case from Huemer:

You are in a lifeboat with several other people. You are caught in a storm, and the boat is taking on water, which needs to be bailed out. Other passengers take up containers and start bailing. The other passengers’ efforts are clearly sufficient to keep the boat afloat; thus, no large negative consequences will result if you refuse to bail. Nevertheless, it seems obvious that you should help bail water. Intuitively, it would be unfair to let the others do all the work.[1144]

The public-address-system and lifeboat cases are both instances where the fair play principle applies, but it only the latter seems obligatory. This shows at the very least that Hart’s Fair Play Theory is incomplete, since it does not distinguish between the two cases. The difference, Huemer says, is that in the lifeboat case the others are genuinely doing something useful, the costs they assume are necessary to produce the common good, you do indeed receive a fair share of the benefit being produced, your participation would indeed help produce the good, the costs to you of participating are reasonable and fair, and, finally, your participation does not stop you from doing something more important.[1145] In the public-address-system case, your participation comes at the expense of other important things you could do with your life.

Now, Hart intends the Fair Play Theory to explain both why government may coerce us into “doing our fair share” and why we would have a duty to obey the government’s commands, edicts, and laws. Hart and others who endorse the Fair Play Theory claim that obedience to the law is morally analogous to helping to bail water out of the lifeboat.

Huemer subjects the theory to part 2 of the Huemer Test. He notes that governments do not simply demand that we, say, pay a small amount of taxes to maintain peace and public order. They instead impose and enforce a wide range of other rules, such as laws requiring you to go through thousands of hours of training before you can braid others’ hair for money, laws forbidding you from smoking pot, or laws requiring you to turn in escaped slaves. Huemer then asks us to imagine that a private person did something similar in the lifeboat case:

Obedience to the law, according to advocates of the Fair Play [Theory], is analogous to helping bail water out of a lifeboat. But in view of the aforementioned laws, a closer analogy would be as follows. The lifeboat is taking on water. The passengers gather and discuss what to do about the problem. A majority (not including you) want [fellow passenger] Bob to devise a solution. Bob thinks for a minute, then announces the following plan:

i) All passengers shall start bailing water out of the boat;

ii) They shall pray to Poseidon to ask for his mercy;

iii) They shall flagellate themselves with belts to prove their seriousness; and

iv) They shall each pay $50 to Sally, who helped Bob get elected.

You know that item (i) is useful, item (ii) useless, and items (iii) and (iv) harmful to most passengers. Nonetheless, most other passengers participate in all four parts of Bob’s plan. If you refuse to pray, self-flagellate, or pay Sally, do you thereby act wrongly? Do you treat the other passengers unfairly?[1146]

Here, Huemer asks us to imagine that Bob is playing the role the state does. Bob, like actually existing states, is in a position to coordinate other people’s behavior. He has some enforcement power. Like real states, he does not merely prescribe that we abide by rules necessary to protect our lives and welfare, but also issues a number of other seemingly irrelevant, useless, harmful, counterproductive, or unjust rules. Huemer then notes that it seems implausible that Bob has the legitimacy to enforce rules (ii)—(iv) and it is further implausible that the passengers would have any duty to abide by (ii)—(iv). If so, the Fair Play Theory does not explain why a state would have the legitimacy or authority to create and enforce rules such as prohibitions on prostitution, marijuana use, and so on.

Now, Huemer might well concede that if a state were necessary to ensure peace and sufficient level of rights protection, then we should instantiate a state. But, again, he argues this is compatible with moral parity between state and non-state actors. Consider: in the lifeboat case above, Huemer would agree that Bob may coerce others to bail out the water. Similarly, if the state may coerce us to pay taxes to fund the police (assuming, generously, that this is the only and best way to maintain the peace), it is not because the state has some special property individual agents necessarily lack.

IV. Self-Defense and Defense of Others against Government Injustice

Consider the following sets of cases:

A. A masked man starts firing at people in the park.

B. John sincerely believes marijuana is bad for us. He captures anyone he sees who possesses marijuana and, after holding a public trial for them in his living room, locks them in his basement for thirty days.

C. A hacker takes control of American drone bombers and uses one to kill a known terrorist, in the process knowingly killing hundreds of innocent civilians nearby.

Most people would judge that in cases like A—C, you would be permitted to use violence, even deadly violence, to stop the perpetrators of these acts. You have a right of self-defense and a right to defend others from injustice. English common law holds that people have a right to protect themselves and others against threats such as assault, battery, rape, and murder.[1147] According to the common law doctrine of self-defense, one person (the “killer”) may justifiably kill another (the “adversary”) when:

1. The killer is not the aggressor, and

2. ereasonably believes he (or someone else) is in imminent danger of severe bodily harm from his adversary, and

3. He reasonably believes that killing is necessary to avoid this danger.[1148]

Note that the common law regards meeting these conditions as justifications, not merely excuses, for homicide. The distinction is that, when one has an excuse, the law considers the homicide wrongful, but one’s liability may be reduced. When one is justified in killing another, the act of killing is not wrong at all.

Now consider a different set of cases:

D. A police officer pulls over a minivan full of kids. Inexplicably, even though there is no sign the mother driving the van is armed, he immediately begins shooting at the van’s windows as soon as he emerges from his car.[1149]

E. State leaders decide to criminalize marijuana, despite the overwhelming evidence it is far less dangerous than alcohol.[1150] They order cops to capture anyone who possesses marijuana, and, after holding a trial for them in a fancy courthouse, lock those people in the courthouse’s basement for thirty days.

F. The US President orders American drone bombers to kill a terrorist, in the process knowingly killing hundreds of innocent civilians nearby.

On their face, cases D—F seem roughly analogous to cases A—C, except that in D—F the wrongdoers are government officials acting ex officio rather than private civilians. (If you wish, to make the cases more analogous, imagine the actors in both sets of cases have the same motives and information.) Yet most people, especially the most strongly statist, would judge it impermissible to use violence in self-defense or defense of others in cases D—F, even though they would judge it permissible in the analogous cases A-C.

The standard or prevailing statist view is that government agents enjoy a special or privileged status when they commit unjust actions. The standard view holds both that government agents have a special permission to perform unjust actions—actions that we would judge evil and impermissible were a non-government agent to perform them—and also that these agents enjoy a special right against being stopped when they commit injustice. Government agents somehow may perform unjust acts, and we’re supposed to stand by and let them. We may later complain when government agents act badly. We may demand that other government agents punish their colleagues for their colleagues’ bad behavior. We might protest, write letters to newspaper editors and senators, and vote for better candidates.[1151] But, statists generally think, we’re not supposed to stop injustice ourselves.

Thus, many people subscribe to what I call the Special Immunity Thesis.[1152] The Special Immunity Thesis holds that there is a special burden to justify interfering with, trying to stop, or fighting back against government agents who, acting ex officio, commit injustice:

The Special Immunity Thesis

Government agents—or at least the agents of democratic governments—enjoy a special immunity against being deceived, lied to, sabotaged, attacked, or killed in self-defense or defense of others. Government property enjoys a special immunity against being damaged, sabotaged, or destroyed. The set of conditions under which it is permissible, in selfdefense or defense of others, to deceive, lie to, sabotage, attack or kill a government agent (acting ex officio), or to destroy government property, is much more stringent and tightly constrained than the set of conditions under which it is permissible to deceive, lie to, sabotage, attack or kill a private civilian, or destroy private property.

In contrast, one might reject the Special Immunity Thesis in favor of the Moral Parity Thesis:

The Moral Parity Thesis

The conditions under which a person may, in self-defense or defense of others, deceive, lie to, sabotage, attack, or kill a fellow civilian, or destroy private property, are also conditions under which a civilian may do the same to a government agent (acting ex officio) or government property.

The Moral Parity Thesis holds that justifying self-defense or the defense of others against government agents is on par with justifying self-defense or the defense of others against civilians. Or, strictly speaking, the Moral Parity Thesis, as stated, allows that it could be easier to justify selfdefense against government agents than against private civilians.

If the Moral Parity Thesis is true, this would have radical implications. It would allow that you could use violence to resist arrest for a wrongful or mistaken law, or to break out of jail after a mistaken or wrongful conviction. You could kill a cop who uses excessive violence. You could assassinate a president or general who starts or leads an unjust war. You could destroy government property being used to violate civil or economic rights. You could lie to wrong-doing government agents.

Defenders of the Special Immunity Thesis thus need to identify some morally significant feature that governments possess, which civilians lack, which might explain why we would lack a right of self-defense against government wrongdoing though we would have a right to defend against civilians acting the same way.

One might think there is an easy argument here. Governments, the statist might claim, have legitimacy and authority, while civilians do not. Governments have permission to create and enforce rules and have a right to be obeyed when they do so. Civilians lack such moral powers.

But there are two major problems with this kind of reasoning. First, as the discussion above illustrated, there are serious flaws with all the theories of government authority and legitimacy; we seem to have excellent grounds for being skeptical that governments have authority at all. But even if one thinks that governments have some authority—e.g., that you have a duty to pay your fair share of taxes and obey the speed limit—that will not be enough to justify the Special Immunity Thesis. Defenders of this thesis must argue that governments specifically have the authority to commit severe injustices and evils, the very injustices and evils we would be permitted to resist (using deception, sabotage, or violence) if private civilians perpetrated them. It’s one thing to argue that the government has a right to be obeyed when it creates and tries to enforce a socially beneficial rule that promotes justice. It’s far from clear anyone has shown that. But it takes even more work to show that a government has a right to be obeyed when it creates and enforces bad rules that promote injustice, or when its agents act in horrible ways.

One might instead argue that government agents enjoy special immunity for these other reasons:

1. The anti-vigilante principle: We are not supposed to take justice into our own hands when a fair and reliable public system of justice is in place.

2. The good-faith objection: Government agents often act in good faith and are following orders, doing what they believe to be right.

3. The fall-out objection: If citizens resist government officials, other government officials might respond by ramping up their degree of injustice. For instance, if you were to shoot police officers who are in the process of killing a subdued, unarmed, prostrate man, a SWAT team would come and start shooting people.

But these other purported reasons to believe government officials enjoy special immunity are also problematic for two major sets of reasons.

First, these reasons do not really distinguish between government and civilian cases. We can illustrate that by employing the Huemer Test: imagine an analogous case involving civilians, and then see whether the case seems plausible or different there. For instance, if the anti-vigilante principle supposedly forbids us from acting in self-defense against government wrongdoing, why would it not also forbid us from acting in self-defense against civilian wrongdoing? The objection offers no principled difference. Similarly, suppose a civilian, through a bizarre set of circumstances, comes to rationally but mistakenly believe that I am a terrorist en route to destroy the new World Trade Center. He tries to apprehend me with deadly violence. Though he acts in good faith, I am still allowed to defend myself against him. So, we can ask the person who offers the good-faith objection, what makes government agents who act wrongly but in good faith any different? Finally, if I resist the Mafia or a local criminal gang’s injustice, they might also retaliate. The fall-out objection, if successful, implies not only that government agents have special immunity, but also that criminals with the power to retaliate also enjoy special immunity. It offers us no principled account of why governments are different.

Of course, the believer in special immunity could bite the bullet and say that governments are not in principle different. He could say that, yes, in some cases, civilian wrongdoers also enjoy special immunity; the difference is that government agents are statistically more likely to enjoy special immunity than, say, Mafia hitmen or muggers. But this brings us to the second problem: none of these objections seems particularly plausible as a reason to refrain from self-defense or defense of others.

For instance, the anti-vigilante principle is usually invoked to argue that you should not unilaterally punish wrongdoers or police crime yourself, but instead allow impartial courts and professional police or well-trained private security forces to do so. It does not mean that, if a would-be rapist tries to assault you, you are not allowed to resist or defend yourself. Accordingly, since the plausible version of the principle allows self-defense against civilian wrongdoers, it is unclear why it would not also allow self-defense against governmental wrongdoers.

Similarly, the fall-out objection seems to hold that you lose your right to defend yourself or others provided the wrongdoer credibly threatens (implicitly or explicitly) to commit further wrongs in response to your otherwise justifiable self-defense. Suppose a would-be rapist tries to assault you, and you start to defend yourself. Suppose he responds, credibly threatening, “If you don’t allow me to rape you, I hereby promise I will retreat and then rape four other women instead.” It seems implausible, or at least very controversial, to hold that this would remove your right of self-defense. Why, then, would it be any different if the government issued a similar threat?

There are of course other arguments for special immunity, and I cannot review them all here. However, this section has illustrated the problem with the Special Immunity Thesis and summarized some of the major issues anarchists and others of a broadly liberal mindset might have with it. Many of the major arguments for the Special Immunity Thesis seem, on further consideration, implausible in their own right, and they further fail to give us a principled distinction between government and civilian actors.

V. The Question of Punishment

In day-to-day parlance, we say that private agents might “punish” one another for their transgressions. For example, perhaps your angry spouse “punishes” you for forgetting your anniversary by demanding you sleep on the couch. But states claim for themselves the right to inflict far more than social sanctions. The law forbids your spouse from punishing you by imprisoning you, forcibly taking away your money or property, inflicting physical pain upon you, or depriving you of life and liberty. In contrast, most states claim the legal power to punish you in these ways. What, if anything, explains the difference?

Contractarian philosopher John Locke famously argued that the state’s right to punish ultimately is an extension of a private right to punish held by all civilians. He argues that, in the state of nature (i.e., anarchy), people are still bound by various moral laws and extra-legal conventions. Every individual has the right to punish any other person who violates others’ rights or breaks certain moral rules. However, Locke claims, the problem with private punishment is that we individuals tend to be biased judges, too lenient on ourselves and too harsh on those who harm us. Private punishment thus creates various “inconveniences,” and our disagreements over private punishment could lead to violent conflict. Locke argues we should resolve this problem by instituting (as best we can) an impartial, public system of justice, which will correct those inconveniences and overcome our biases. Once that system is established, we should defer to it. We alienate our private right to punish.[1153]

On Locke’s theory, the government possesses no special power or status which individual civilians necessarily lack; rather, it receives its power and status through (what Locke believes is) a voluntary transfer. On Locke’s view, at least, government agents and civilians are on morally on par.

In contrast, statist philosopher Alon Harel claims that punishment is a kind of symbolic expression that, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, can only be performed by governmental agents.[1154] He does not mean that it should only be done by the appropriate agent. Rather, he argues that it is literally impossible, as a metaphysical matter, for private prison wardens and guards to punish prisoners.

Harel rejects private prisons not because they are corrupt or overly violent or because they mistreat prisoners. Rather, he claims they are unjust because such prisons fail to punish prisoners.

While private prisons can lock up prisoners, beat them, execute them, feed them, make them perform manual labor, provide them with vocational training, give them moral and religious instruction, and do all of the various daily activities of public prisons, none of this counts as punishment, according to Harel. Only when state employees perform these activities do they qualify as aspects of punishment. Harel argues that imprisonment counts as punishment only when the prison guards and wardens are direct employees of a state. Since justly convicted criminals ought to be punished, he claims, then such criminals ought to be sent to public rather than private prisons.

Harel thus needs to identify some special feature (or set of special features) F that public prisons can have that private prisons necessarily lack, where F is some property one might plausibly believe is a necessary condition for being able to administer punishment. He needs to explain why getting a paycheck directly from the government is so crucial in determining whether a prison guard is really punishing a prisoner or just engaging in a sham imitation of punishment.

Harel says he needs to show that the only agent capable of realizing the important value of punishment is the state.[1155] Through his book Why Law Matters, Harel offers a number of hypotheses about just what F could be, including:

1. To engage in punishment, the agents of punishment must defer to the sovereign and act in accordance with its will independently of what they happen to judge to be in the public interest.[1156] They must execute the sovereign’s official decisions; they “suppress” their own judgments and pursue the sovereign’s judgment instead.

2. The punishing agents must be not inadvertently substitute their own judgment for that of the sovereign; they must engage in a deliberative practice by which they coordinate their understanding of the rules and laws, as well as how to punish others, with other agents engaging in the same practices.[1157]

3. The punishing agents must engage in an “integrative practice.”[1158] That is, for agents to act in the name of the public (or of the state or the sovereign), rather than in their own name, the official activities of law-making politicians need to be integrated into the agents’ processes of decision-making. There needs to be a special connection between the general interest as seen by politicians and the individual agents who execute the judgments.

4. Public prisons, but not private prisons, have a “Hohfeldian liability to the power of public officials to place them under a duty to act in certain ways.”[1159] The idea here is that public prison workers are duty-bound to accept the sovereign’s orders, while private prison workers are not.

But Harel faces two sets of problems with each of these purported differences. First, it seems plausible both that (a) public prisons can and do fail to realize 1—4, while more importantly (b) private prisons can and do sometimes realize 1—4. For instance, a private warden and private prison guards can suppress their own judgments in favor of the sovereign’s. They can and often do engage in deliberative practices by which they coordinate their understanding of the rules and laws, as well as how to punish others, with other agents engaging in the same practices. They can and do integrate their decision-making with that of the lawmakers. Further, if you believe that governments have authority, as Harel does, then you must hold by extension that private prison workers have a moral duty to obey the government’s orders. Keep in mind Harel is not trying to make the empirical claim that public prisons are more likely to obey the sovereign than private prisons; he’s claiming that private prisons as a matter of metaphysical necessity lack some essential property needed to perform genuine punishment. Yet he does not offer a plausible candidate for what that property could be, since every candidate property he identifies can and is sometimes realized by private prisons.

More fundamentally, though, from the anarchist’s perspective, Harel’s theory seems to beg the fundamental question. Harel presumes (without much argument) that, in order for imprisonment, deprivation of liberty, monetary fines, or the infliction of pain to count as punishment, such punishment must be ordered by a sovereign law-making and law-enforcing agency, which he presumes must be a state or government in the Kavkaian sense. For Harel, punishment is “an expressive or communicative act of condemnation” that must come from a public agent.[1160] In his view, in the Lockean state of nature, it is simply impossible for anyone to punish anyone else, because there is no sovereign. But, an anarchist might wonder, why is it important that there be a sovereign so defined? Why not instead hold that the rules of social life can be suitably public provided that they (a) are widespread and widely recognized social conventions or (b) are widespread and widely recognized moral rules, rather than (c) laws in the strictly governmental sense?

In short, Harel presumes anarchism is false from the get-go and then tries to argue that we can’t have private prisons. But he does not seem to have a neutral ground for this position that would actually mediate the dispute between statists and anarchists.

VI. Conclusion

Anarchists tend to presume that civilian and governmental actors are morally on par. Government agents do not, in virtue of being government agents, magically acquire special moral privileges, exemptions, or status. If governments tend to have various rights and powers that civilians normally lack, this must in some way be derived from rights and powers that civilians could in principle possess.

The idea of moral parity can be used as a kind of test of various theories of state legitimacy, authority, immunity, or power. The anarchist asks the statist to identify some special feature or set of features F which the state’s agents purportedly possess and which explain why state agents enjoy a special moral status. The anarchist then constructs a parallel case in which the civilians also possess F, and then asks the statist if in that parallel case the civilians would possess the special powers the statist attributes to the state. If the statist answers no, this shows the statist’s explanation fails—F is not why the state has whatever special status it has. If the statist answers yes, this shows that fundamentally civilians and the state are on par. At most, state actors are statistically more likely to possess F than civilians are.

17. Economic Pathologies of the State

Christopher Coyne and Nathan P. Goodman

I. Introduction

What is the appropriate role of the state? The list of desired activities that many people want the state to perform is potentially endless and includes national defense, policing, dispute resolution, healthcare, humanitarian aid, welfare, environmental regulation, the funding of scientific research, immigration control, financial regulation, monetary policy, park maintenance, health and safety regulation, and drug prohibition, among many others. Proponents of these and other roles for the state tend to assume that the state’s taking on a task guarantees that it will achieve the desired end. From this perspective, if the right people are in charge and they have the appropriate resources and “political will” to accomplish a task, they can succeed. Where markets and voluntary association may fail, the state can fill the gap, provided its leaders are good, resolute people with the right ideas and resources to implement their plans.

This deus ex machina view of the state, however, ignores crucial insights from economics. It is our contention that, before deciding what the state should do, it is imperative to consider what the state can do. Determining the limits of what state machinery can and cannot accomplish is crucial if we want to avoid encouraging the wasting of scarce resources and the imposition of harm on the very people the state purports to assist. To understand what tasks states can and cannot accomplish, we seek to answer two general and interrelated questions. First, do political leaders have the relevant knowledge to accomplish the desired task? Second, do they have the right incentives to do so? It is our contention that economics is central to answering these questions and thus to understanding the limits on what state action can achieve.

Economics is the science of human action. Economists study how individuals make decisions about alternative uses of scarce resources. These decisions are shaped by the knowledge individuals can access regarding the alternative uses of resources and by relevant incentives and constraints. Knowledge and incentives, in turn, are shaped by the institutions—the formal and informal rules governing human life—within which individuals operate. Individuals face different institutional constraints when they are competing in the market than when they are competing in the political arena. Different institutional arrangements lead to variations in the knowledge individuals can access and the incentives they face as they act on that knowledge.

Within markets shaped by the institutions of property, contract, and consent, individuals receive feedback in the form of prices, profits, and losses that tells them whether the goods and services they produce are valued more than the inputs they use. This prompts a tendency to use scarce resources in a manner that improves the welfare of other members of society and offers people incentives to produce goods and services that others desire. In the political arena, feedback and incentives capable of playing similar roles are either weak, distorted, or altogether absent. The state is therefore plagued with two persistent and systemic pathologies: (1) political actors often lack the relevant knowledge to accomplish desired goals, and (2) public policy goals are often not compatible with the incentives of those in political power. These problems are systemic features of state institutions and are not dependent on the characteristics of the people wielding power.

In subsequent sections we will discuss these two economic pathologies of the state.[1161] The first, the knowledge problem, discussed in the next section, arises from the fact that non-market actors cannot access the economic knowledge that arises from the market process. Attempts by state actors to engage in planning will, therefore, tend to waste resources because planners lack the knowledge and feedback necessary to ensure that scarce resources are used in a manner that maximizes their value. Moreover, economies, and the societies within which they are embedded, are complex systems that political actors lack the knowledge to control. Therefore, state interventions are likely to produce an array of unintended consequences that may harm both the intended beneficiaries of policies and those that fall outside of this target group.

After exploring the knowledge problem, we will discuss the power problem. This problem arises because those with political power often have incentives to act against goals deemed socially desirable. Rather than improving outcomes, the state can instead give powerful people incentives to act in predatory and exploitative ways. Finally, after discussing the power problem and the knowledge problem, we conclude, in Section IV, with a discussion of the significance of these two pathologies of the state for political theory and policy analysis.

II. The Knowledge Problem

Resources are scarce. While humans have potentially unlimited desires, we have only limited resources with which to pursue them. This means that people need to make choices, and that these choices will involve trade-offs, because one use of scarce resources precludes another. Economic actors must decide: should a good or service be produced at all? If the answer is yes, how much of the good or service should be produced? And what is the least costly means of producing that good or service? The answers to these questions are not given. Instead, they must be discovered.

Market prices provide guides that help individuals navigate the dizzying array of choices available. Should you build train tracks with steel or platinum? The use of either material may be technically feasible, but in a society with market prices you know not to use platinum because doing so will be prohibitively expensive. Consider another example: what would happen if a tin mine collapsed?[1162] The supply of tin would fall, and the price of tin would therefore rise. In turn, this would raise the price of goods that involve tin, encouraging consumers to use less of it. Meanwhile, the high price would encourage new producers of tin, and substitutes for tin, to enter the market. The consumers who buy less tin and the producers who enter to provide substitutes might know nothing about the mine collapse. The price change would nonetheless provide them with the economic knowledge needed for them to make decisions about how to allocate scarce resources. The knowledge needed to solve economic problems is context-specific and dispersed across many minds. Prices allow for the communication of this knowledge even though it is not accessible to any single mind.[1163]

An entrepreneur purchases, at market prices, the inputs needed to make a given product on the view that the final product will sell for a profit. This is a forecast, however, and not a given. The entrepreneur’s conjecture must be subjected to the market test of profit and loss. If the goods a firm produces are valued more highly than the inputs that went into producing them, the revenue generated by the sale of the outputs will exceed the price of the inputs. In other words, a firm that creates value will make a profit. This profit signals to entrepreneurs that consumers value what they are producing relative to alternative uses of the scarce resources used to produce the relevant goods. On the other hand, if consumers value a final good less than the inputs that went into producing the good are valued, the revenue from the outputs will be lower than the price of the inputs. In other words, a firm that destroys value by turning valuable inputs into a less valued output will experience losses. Entrepreneurs will reduce, or altogether cease, the production of the good based on the loss signals they receive. Firms that ignore these signals will ultimately fail. Profit and loss therefore not only provide incentives to produce goods and services that people value, they also provide feedback that indicates whether a business is creating or destroying value.

This communicative role of prices and profit and loss makes them essential for economic calculation—“the decision-making ability to allocate scarce capital resources among competing uses.”[1164] Many of these insights about the vital role of prices in economic calculation were developed by Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek,[1165] who argued that economic calculation was impossible under a system of central planning. Socialists advocated abolishing private property in the means of production in order to rationalize economic activity to overcome the ills of capitalism. Mises and Hayek pointed out that, without private property rights in the means of production, there would be no market in the means of production. Without market exchange, no prices for the means of production would emerge. Without prices as guides, planners would lack the knowledge needed to compare alternative uses of the means of production. In other words, they would be unable to engage in economic calculation and determine the best use of scarce resources. This is the essence of the knowledge problem.

Why does the knowledge problem matter? The main reason is that state planners cannot allocate scarce resources in a manner that maximizes their value from the standpoint of members of society. This raises two key issues associated with the opportunity cost of scarce resources.

The first issue arises in relation to particular goods and services delivered or funded by the government. If the political process determines that a trillion dollars are to be spent on medical care, decisions still need to be made about how the money should be allocated among an array of possible medical care alternatives. Decisions need to be made about who should be eligible for care and for what procedures and other activities payment should be available. Further, in determining for what procedures and other activities payment should be available, planners must determine appropriate quantities and qualities. The goods and services delivered or funded by the government are not homogeneous, and marginal decisions need to be made about the quantities and qualities of these goods and services.

The second issue arises in connection with choices among different categories of goods and services. How do state planners know that a trillion dollars spent on medical care is better, from the perspective of the welfare of private actors, than splitting that money across some mix of medical care, education, roads, environmental protection, or other services? The knowledge problem is multifaceted when it comes to government activities. Absent economic calculation, there is no way for state planners to make such decisions in a manner that takes into account the values of scarce resources to putative beneficiaries.

In the absence of rational economic calculation, planners often rely on output measures to gauge success. For many years, economists widely believed that the economy of the Soviet Union had surpassed the economies of Western capitalist countries in significant ways.[1166] But this view was wrong because output statistics can be misleading. There had indeed been increases in output, but these mostly reflected spending on large-scale government projects such as hydroelectric dams, the space program, and military buildups. These large projects exerted impressive impacts on statistics measuring total output in terms of gross domestic product (GDP). But they concealed the reality that people’s standards of living were languishing.[1167] Aggregate measures, such as GDP, do not differentiate between increased output that is wasteful and increased output that is value-added from consumers’ perspectives.

Economists and historians made similar errors in evaluating the effect of World War II on the American economy, widely believing that World War II ended the Great Depression.[1168] While unemployment fell substantially, this was mostly a result of military conscription, which forced young men to take on “substantial risks of death, dismemberment, and other physical and psychological injuries.”[1169] Similarly, GDP rose, but this was a result of producing weapons, not goods or services that consumers valued. In stark contrast, people’s consumption of most goods was regulated through state control and rationing. While large-scale government projects increase output, they do not necessarily increase the output of goods and services that people value. Relying on output data alone can tell one what products are being produced. But determining whether increased output creates goods and services consumers value requires rational economic calculation.

The knowledge problem is starkest in socialist economies that attempt to comprehensively, centrally plan their entire economies. However, it is present in all endeavors administered by the state rather than the market. The difference between the comprehensive planning advocated by state socialists and the non-comprehensive planning associated with other state activities is one of degree, not of kind. Genuine socialist states attempt comprehensive central planning, trying to plan almost all economic activity. Most states, on the other hand, attempt to plan particular projects while leaving markets at least relatively free to plan others. This non-comprehensive planning still faces the knowledge problem, because political actors are operating in a non-market context and therefore cannot rely on property, prices, and profits and losses to render their plans rational. “[E]ven the more modest and popular attempts to steer the Market toward particular outcomes are really blind and dangerous obstructions of the very source of that knowledge which is essential to rational economic decision-making.”[1170]

This applies even to government programs supported by some avowed anti-socialists. State-provided military goods and services, for example, suffer from the knowledge problem because the government selects and delivers goods and services outside of the market context.[1171] Absent the ability to rely on economic calculation, there is no rational way for state planners to determine the highest-valued use of scarce resources allocated toward the provision of security, or what resources should be allocated toward the provision of security in the first place.

Even relatively market-oriented economists, who are extremely critical of state planning in other areas of life, typically favor the state provision of military goods and services. This is partially because they see the provision of these goods and services as a public good.[1172] A putative good qualifies as a public good when (1) it is hard to exclude people from using the good, and (2) one person’s consumption of the good does not reduce the ability of others to consume the good. Because of these characteristics, economists predict that, because of free-riding, public goods will be severely underprovided on the private market relative to the optimal amount that would maximize social welfare. The solution proposed by most economists is for the state to either subsidize the production of public goods or to provide public goods through coercive taxation in order to make up for the underprovision that would otherwise occur.

At first blush, the provision of military goods and services appears to fit the requirements of a traditional public good quite nicely. It is hard to protect my neighbor from a foreign military invasion or a missile strike without also protecting me. Meanwhile, protecting me from foreign aggressors does not make my neighbor any less secure. Because the good has these properties, there is an incentive to free-ride off defensive services paid for by others. Therefore, most economists argue for state coercion to make people pay for military goods and services.[1173] It is true that this method can provide more military goods and services than would be provided without the state. However, the free-rider argument for the state provision of these goods and services is that less-than-socially-optimal quantities of these goods and services would be produced if their production were left to the market. The central question is: how can state planners know the optimal quantities of military goods and services to produce outside of the market? The answer is that they cannot, for the reasons discussed above.

Planners need to decide both whether to spend money on military goods and services and whether to provide additional units of military-related production. They also need to make choices between different types of military goods and services. For each dollar of military spending, someone must choose whether it should be used to fund a missile defense system, a drone, a tank, body armor, the employment of an additional soldier, or something else entirely. Without market prices as guides, state planners are groping in the dark. They do not know what type of military spending will best use scarce resources to maximize the welfare of private people. For some people, such as pacifists, certain types of military spending may entirely lack value. Yet they too are forced to pay for spending on wars and weapons that they don’t value at all and which they would, in fact, strongly prefer were entirely absent.

The economy is a complex system that incorporates dispersed knowledge inaccessible to any single planner or political body. This not only precludes the formulation of rational plans to maximize social welfare; it also means that coercive interventions to achieve the goals of planners are likely to generate an array of undesirable and unforeseen consequences. To understand these “dynamics of intervention,” consider the example of state-imposed price controls.[1174]

Suppose planners place a price ceiling on milk to make it more affordable for poor consumers.[1175] At the artificially lower price, more consumers will want to purchase milk, but fewer producers will want to bring milk to market. This will create a milk shortage, the opposite of what the state planners intended. Not realizing the cause of the shortage, political leaders may respond by subsidizing milk production. Yet these subsidies will divert resources from elsewhere in the economy, creating new unintended hardships. Additional interventions may be introduced to address these hardships. If policies that distort prices are to remain in place, they require ever more regulations and policies to achieve desired outcomes. Each of these subsequent interventions distorts the ability of people to engage in rational economic calculation.

Beyond price distortions, government interventions can also destroy local norms, customs, and patterns of trust that are central to facilitating social harmony.[1176] For example, if government welfare programs crowd out mutual aid or alter social norms in poor communities, they may exacerbate poverty rather than alleviating it.[1177] The unintended consequences that result as social norms change in communities may then be used as justifications for additional government programs. Further, by changing, and potentially destroying, local norms and customs, government intervention may undermine the ability of private, local actors to engage in self-governance, including experimentation with local solutions to social problems.[1178]

In general, state interference in a complex system, whether in the price system or in a broader social system, will yield unintended and unforeseen consequences.[1179] These unintended consequences will create rationales for additional interventions, and each intervention will increase the scope of decisions made by political actors who are unable to engage in rational economic calculation or to fully understand the nuances of complex orders in which they intervene.

The nuances of the knowledge problem exist even when well-intentioned, other-regarding state actors are in power. But what happens when we weaken the assumption of benevolence and consider the incentives that political actors face? The next section explores the answer to this question.

III. The Power Problem

Even if we assume that political actors have the knowledge they need to improve the welfare of private persons, there is another important question to ask: are the incentives of state actors aligned with those of the people they purportedly intend to benefit? The stated goals of public policies, goals almost always framed in terms of improving the welfare of private people, are often incompatible with the incentives of the politically powerful. If politicians are not benevolent despots, but rather human beings who pursue their own interests, then incentives matter in politics. This basic insight regarding the “symmetry of assumptions” is the core of public choice theory, a subfield of economics that analyzes how incentives operate in non-market settings.[1180]

Politicians, like all people, seek to pursue their own goals and interests. Of course people’s interests, both in the private and public sectors, are diverse and can be narrowly inward focused, outwardly focused on assisting others, or some mix of both. But the same people inhabit both private spheres of action and public spheres of action. While the people are the same, the institutional environments, and the incentives created by those institutions, vary and therefore produce different outcomes.[1181]

One particularly important incentive in democratic politics that shapes political behavior is the desire to be reelected. In order to be reelected, politicians must appeal to voters. Unfortunately, voters have very weak incentives to learn about the details and nuances of political activities. To understand this dynamic, consider the contrast between decision making in democratic politics with decision making in private markets.[1182]

In a market, there is a tight link between a consumer’s decision about which car to purchase and the outcome. Consumers can customize the cars they choose and internalize the benefits and costs of their choices. Because benefits and costs are internalized, consumers face strong incentives to research and compare cars prior to purchasing them. Incentives in democratic politics are very different. It is very rare that an election is decided by a single vote.[1183] Therefore in most elections the outcome will be the same regardless of how an individual votes. So, while it is beneficial to research cars before purchasing, there is practically no benefit to researching politicians before voting.

The problem of political ignorance is made even worse by the fact that voters can never directly compare politicians. It is fairly straightforward to compare cars under similar circumstances, through direct pre-purchase testing or relying on the experiences and evaluations of other experts or consumers who have purchased the vehicle. No such option exists in politics. We will never know what would have happened had a given election turned out differently. Different instances of ignorance might cancel each other out if voters chose their beliefs randomly. But they don’t: they are biased, and they are biased toward mistaken beliefs about economics. Voters tend to overstate the harm and understate the benefits of trade, immigration, labor-saving innovations, and markets.[1184] Politicians therefore have incentives to pander to rationally ignorant voters with strong prejudices against activities and institutions that drive economic progress. Their willingness to do so sows the seeds of wealth-destroying policies. The ignorance of voters also makes it all too easy for politicians to act opportunistically, using their power to benefit themselves and their friends. After all, what incentives do voters have to carefully research and resist such opportunism?

There are two other issues that weaken the effectiveness of democratic elections as a check on political opportunism. One is the time between elections. The fact that elections are periodic means that voter influence is limited. Consider that each US voter, over each six-year period, casts a maximum of nine votes over four national-level general elections.[1185] The minimal feedback provided by each voter leaves significant space for factors unrelated to voters’ expressed preferences to influence politics and for political participants to engage in opportunism. This poses a problem because, by the time regularly-timed elections do occur, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to undo the undesirable outcomes brought about by opportunists in the interim.[1186]

A second factor which reduces the effectiveness of voting is bundling: each voter casts a single vote for an official who will represent the voter across numerous, complex issues. For example, if a voter agrees with a candidate’s position on abortion, but strongly disagrees with the candidate about foreign policy, the voter cannot make choices to separate these two policies from the overall bundle of policies that the candidate represents. These factors further incentivize rational ignorance and limit the ability of voters to provide feedback to political actors regarding specific policies.

The prospects for beneficial state intervention become even more dismal when we look at the incentives faced by bureaucrats. In the private sector, competition selects for firms that maximize profits.[1187] Profits, as discussed earlier, reflect whether the goods and services produced are valued more than the resources employed. However, in a state bureaucracy there is no analogous process. So what do bureaucrats maximize?

Public choice economist William Niskanen argued that bureaucrats seek to maximize their discretionary budgets.[1188] If an agency’s budget is cut, that means fewer resources are available for the bureaucrats and their colleagues to use to accomplish their goals. It also means that the employees are more likely to be fired. This all creates incentives for bureaucrats to spend more. In a private firm, saving money and resources means that profits increase. In a government bureaucracy, a residual budget at the end of a fiscal year sends a signal that the budget is too large and can be cut. Bureaucrats want to be able to credibly tell legislators that they need larger budgets to accomplish policy goals. Budget-maximizing bureaucrats therefore, have an incentive to spend resources even if their spending is wasteful. Even if some amount of government spending is known to optimize social welfare, political incentives will tend to result in spending that exceeds that amount.

In addition, there are significant problems with information transmission in any government bureaucracy. Gordon Tullock illustrates this problem using the “whispering down the lane” game.[1189] In this game, information is passed between individuals within a bureaucratic hierarchy, with the message becoming more distorted at every step along the way. The longer the transmission chain becomes, the more noise and errors are introduced. This differs from the knowledge problem, because whispering down the lane involves transmitting known information, while the knowledge problem is about discovering as-yet-unknown knowledge.[1190] As bureaucracies become larger—e.g., national rather than local—we should expect issues of communication within bureaus to become increasingly plagued by noise. This noise creates problems for producing goods and services which comport with the desires of the people whose interests bureaucrats are supposed to serve.[1191]

State power also generates perverse incentives for private businesses, not just for state actors. Sociologist Franz Oppenheimer identified two means of acquiring wealth: the political means and the economic means.[1192] Someone gains wealth using the economic means when she acquires resources through voluntary exchange. Someone gains wealth using the political means, in contrast, when she acquires resources by coercing others. While the economic means are productive or positive-sum, the political means are zero- or negative-sum.

When state power is present, there are incentives for business interests to seek to use it for their own narrow gain. This can take the form of seeking transfers such as subsidies and bailouts, or of lobbying for regulations that suppress competition. Attempting to gain these types of state privileges means expending resources on seeking political favors rather than on developing better products for consumers. Economists refer to this striving for privileges as “rent seeking.”[1193]

Rent seeking, in turn, breeds cronyism, which involves institutionalized relationships between favored business interests and political elites.[1194] This undermines the dynamism of markets by enabling entrenched interests to preserve their established positions and keep out new innovators.[1195] It also shifts resources to those with political power at the expense of ordinary people. In a free-market system, positions of economic power are contestable. The dominant firm of one year can find itself displaced by a new competitor the next. Historically, innovations may displace entire industries through “creative destruction.”[1196] Entrenched firms, when allied with the political elite, can suppress this process by preventing entrepreneurs from entering the market and eroding their market shares. The resulting political capitalism is the product of a proactive, interventionist state which allows businesses to manipulate and distort the unhampered market process.[1197]

Can democracy solve the problem of special interests’ engagement in rent seeking? At best, the democratic process provides only very weak protection from exploitation by special interests. Rational ignorance is especially relevant here. The harm caused by a regulation or subsidy is typically dispersed across a large population, with the result that each person incurs only a small cost. For example, sugar tariffs increase food prices for American consumers, but only by a few cents per purchase. The time it would take a voter to study sugar tariffs, much less speak with a politician about them, is more valuable to the voter than the cost imposed on the voter by the tariff. Meanwhile, the benefits conferred by the tariff on a domestic sugar farmer are big, which means that the farmer has a strong incentive to pay attention to sugar tariffs, organize an interest group with other farmers, and lobby politicians. Because benefits are concentrated and costs dispersed, organized interest groups use government force at the expense of the public.

Yet another issue is that elections are focused on choosing legislatures while many regulations are designed and implemented by bureaucrats who are not subject to direct elections. In the ideal model of democracy, legislators, who represent voter interests, would select and monitor bureaucrats to ensure that they produced goods and services that improved social welfare. This ideal model does not hold in practice, however, and democratic politics is plagued by principal-agent problems in virtue of which the putative principals (private actors) are unable to effectively monitor and punish their agents (legislators and bureaucrats), who are thus free to engage in relatively unchecked opportunism.[1198]

Even if public-spirited voters are paying attention to an issue, they may actively support an intervention that enhances the privileges of private interest groups. To understand this dynamic consider the “Bootleggers and Baptists” model of state regulation.[1199] State laws that banned alcohol sales on Sundays were supported by Baptists for moralistic reasons. But bootleggers supported these laws as well, because the laws suppressed their competitors one day each week. Similar coalitions between public-spirited reformers and private interests seeking to profit from state intervention are pervasive.

For example, many people support medical licensing laws to protect patient safety by barring incompetent doctors from the market. But, by restricting the supply of medical providers, licensing laws raise prices. The fact that they do so provides a strong incentive for doctors to support tighter restrictions. Doctors organize through groups like the American Medical Association to secure strict licensing requirements. This raises their wages and increases healthcare costs for everyone else. Similarly, to practice medicine in America, doctors are legally required to complete residencies within the United States. The number of residencies is set by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, which is largely run by doctors, who can thus reduce competition by controlling the number of available residency slots.[1200]

To economists, an arrangement for producers to control supply is a textbook case of a cartel. Similar licensing cartels are operated by professionals who have even weaker consumer safety rationales for licensing restrictions, including florists and interior designers.[1201] As Adam Smith noted long ago, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”[1202] However, without an enforcement mechanism, a contrivance to raise prices will be unstable because cartel members will have incentives to lower their prices and thereby attract customers away from their higher-priced competitors. Moreover, the high prices the enforcement-free cartel seeks to maintain will provide an incentive for new competitors to enter the market.

The state provides a convenient mechanism for the enforcement of cartel agreements because it can use its coercive powers to exclude competitors and punish existing businesses that deviate from the dictates of the agreements. Business cartels thus support state intervention for selfinterested reasons, just like the bootleggers supported Sunday closing laws. They are often joined by public-spirited voters and reformers, akin to the Baptists, who think that regulations that suppress competition will also protect the public interest. The result is often the adoption of regulations that reduce the welfare of private persons.

At the core of public choice theory is the assumption of behavioral symmetry—the same types of actors but operating in different institutions. The problems discussed so far do not depend on agent type and do not assume that politicians, bureaucrats, or politically connected business owners are necessarily any worse than other people in society. Instead, public choice assumes that people have the same motivations in politics as they have in private settings. From this starting point, the focus is on the incentives facing actors in the political arena with an appreciation for how these incentives differ from those within the marketplace. However, it is important to note that political institutions also include selection mechanisms that impact who tends to secure positions wielding political power. The assumption of behavioral symmetry, while a useful analytical tool, may therefore understate the likelihood of bad outcomes in “real world” politics. In practice, who will tend to rise to positions of political power? Economists Frank Knight and F.A. Hayek offered some insight into the answer to this question.

Knight noted that, to centrally plan an economy, authorities would have to “exercise their power ruthlessly to keep the machinery of organized production and distribution running” and that “[t]hey would have to enforce orders ruthlessly and suppress all disputation and argument against policies.”[1203] He further argued that “the probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probability that an extremely tender-hearted person would get the job of whipping-master on a slave plantation.”[1204] In The Road to Serfdom, Hayek made a similar argument, contending that within a regime of central planning the worst people will tend to rise to the top.[1205] The reason why is that central planners must be given significant discretionary power to implement plans and deal with unforeseen circumstances. Who will tend to be most attracted to such power and discretion over other human beings? Hayek argued that “the unscrupulous and uninhibited are likely to be more successful” in this system.[1206] A system that gives leaders unconstrained discretionary power is likely to attract people who feel comfortable exercising power over others.

While Knight and Hayek were discussing attempts to implement comprehensive planning, their insights are applicable to politics in general.[1207] As Robert Higgs notes, “the observation applies to the functionaries of less egregious governments,” because “nearly all governments, even those of countries such as the United States, France, or Germany, jokingly described as ‘free,’ provide numerous opportunities for ruthless and unscrupulous people.”[1208] As F.G. Bailey argues, political

[l]eaders are not the virtuous people they claim to be; they put politics before statesmanship; they distort facts and oversimplify issues; they promise what no one could deliver; and they are liars.... [L]eaders, if they are to be effective, have no choice in the matter. They could not be virtuous (in the sense of morally excellent) and be leaders at the same time.[1209]

These arguments are grounded in an appreciation of the incentives and selection mechanisms inherent in political institutions. Given the immense power concentrated in such institutions, who is likely to rise to the top? Those who feel comfortable wielding power over others and those with the skill to capture and maintain such power are unlikely to be the most noble and other-regarding people in a society. If virtuous people enter positions of power, they will face numerous perverse pressures.

First, they will face the incentive to bend their principles to maintain their positions of power. If they are unwilling to bend their principles, this will likely lead less squeamish leaders to rise through the ranks and replace them. In a democratic society, for instance, liars and demagogues outperform their principled opponents in elections.[1210] Second, once someone is in office, those who desire special privileges will actively seek to suborn her. She will be subject to multiple blandishments; and even if she’s relatively principled this may prompt her to favor special interests. Finally, very virtuous, principled office-holders may be tempted, not so much to hand out favors to special interests, but simply to use power in authoritarian fashion to do what they take to be good.

The combination of selection mechanisms and incentives makes centralized political power very dangerous indeed. The relevant dangers reflect not only the potential for waste and dysfunction in politics, but also the risks that follow when a significant amount of power, backed by coercion, is concentrated in the hands of a small number of people. This kind of power can be used to impose significant harm on the very people the state purports to serve. The costs of centralized power are likely to fall on the most marginalized members of society precisely because they lack the voice and ability to avoid abuses of state power.[1211]

IV. Conclusion

The state is plagued by two pathologies: the knowledge problem and the power problem. Political leaders persistently and clumsily intervene in the complex system that is the economy. Because they cannot access the knowledge provided by prices, they are blind to the opportunity costs of their actions. Their blindness limits their ability to allocate, and reallocate, resources to their highest-valued uses to ensure that people’s preferences are optimally satisfied. Political power also comes with perverse incentives, encouraging a variety of wasteful, destructive, and exploitative behavior. In virtue of these pathologies, states will tend to act in ways that are costly and counterproductive.

If centralized state power is so dangerous, what is the alternative? How can people provide rules, public goods, and other things that people generally want the state to provide? Nobel Laureate economist James Buchanan proposed constraining states using constitutions. By establishing rules that bind political leaders and limit their power, Buchanan hoped to empower the “protective state” and “productive state” while limiting the “predatory state.”[1212] Yet Buchanan’s proposal suffers from an obvious difficulty: it’s unclear how to enforce the constitution.[1213] If political leaders can benefit by violating the constitution, it seems likely that they will do so.[1214] How can we deter this type of exploitation?

One solution is polycentricism.[1215] According to Vincent Ostrom, Charles Tiebout, and Robert Warren, a system is polycentric if it features “many centers of decision-making that are formally independent of each other.”[1216] When a system is polycentric, this enables some amount of competition that can check political power.

One key advantage of polycentricity is that it enables exit, which is crucial to a competitive market. A restaurant has an incentive to serve a satisfying meal, because an unsatisfied customer is likely to take her business elsewhere.

Some political scientists suggest that some of the benefits of polycentricity become available when jurisdictions are smaller, even if they continue to control particular geographic territories.

After all, smaller jurisdictions make exit easier. It might be difficult for someone to move away from the United States, but comparatively easy for them to move from one town in Northern Virginia to another. In principle, this means smaller jurisdictions should have stronger incentives to satisfy their customers than larger jurisdictions. Competition among jurisdictions is a mechanism that economists often support as a means of constraining government. James Buchanan favorably terms this “competitive federalism,”[1217] while Barry Weingast similarly praises what he calls “market preserving federalism.”[1218]

The benefits of federalism arise in large part from the ways choices among jurisdictions in a federal state resemble choices in markets, but it is important to remember that federal states are not markets. They are merely quasimarkets. Political quasimarkets are highly imperfect, and they are often significantly less competitive than public choice models of federal and similar structures often assume. Quasimarkets suffer from three types of failure which weaken, if not altogether undermine, their theoretically desirable properties: (1) government monopoly failure, (2) political information failure, and (3) unintended consequence failure.[1219]

Government monopoly failure occurs when there are barriers to competition among jurisdictions. For example, land-use regulations increase housing prices in some jurisdictions, which increases the cost of moving between jurisdictions. Another example is the fact that quasimarkets for governance are not contestable. It is unlawful for regions to secede, and there is often no easy path for people to establish a startup jurisdiction. The number of firms in a market does not determine whether the market is competitive; contestability does. The fact that political quasimarkets are not contestable implies that they are not competitive.

One alleged benefit of jurisdictional competition, even when jurisdictions are territorial, is that people can compare the service packages offered by different jurisdictions and engage in “yardstick competition.”[1220] Yet this assumes people know what packages are offered. In practice, they often do not, which creates political information failure. This ignorance should not be surprising to public choice theorists, who emphasize the rational ignorance of voters. This rational ignorance exists at all levels of state operation.

Unintended consequence failures occur when the sorting allowed by polycentricity enables results that policymakers or analysts find undesirable. For example, people who value racial segregation may take advantage of the choice polycentric systems offer in order to sort into racially segregated services. This criticism is often used as an objection to school choice, for example, because one concern is that it will result in racial segregation. “[W]hen the dimensions citizens value most clash with the ones that quasimarket creators—public policy creators—intend citizens to sort along, an important problem from a public policy perspective results.”[1221]

While many who note these failures encourage state consolidation as a solution, there is another solution: take the “quasi” out of quasimarkets by opting for genuine, nonterritorial polycentricity. In other words, move from a system in which the state provides such services as law and policing to a situation in which these services are provided by private individuals and voluntary associations. This reduces the perverse political incentives that cause quasimarket failures.

Removing governance from state control means that people bear the market costs of their decisions, and therefore have incentives to learn. Rational ignorance, which drives political information failure, is driven by political incentives. Moving toward private governance also makes exit and competition with respect to law and related services genuinely possible. It would therefore eliminate government monopoly failure by ending government monopoly. Governance would become contestable. People could form new voluntary associations to provide governance. They would have the right to secede, all the way down to the individual level. There would also be no state to, for instance, implement zoning laws that raise the cost of moving.

Governance without the state could be provided through a system of clubs, voluntary associations that privately produce goods that have significant public good characteristics.[1222] Clubs have stronger incentives to effectively enforce their constitutions than governments do.[1223] Clubs are privately owned, and if patrons choose to exit a club, then the club’s owners lose revenue. Moreover, the market for clubs is contestable. Because individuals can start new clubs if they wish to do so, “[t]here are [roughly] as many governance organs as individuals demand.”[1224] Moreover, in a system of clubs, people will tend to join clubs that suit their preferences. This leads to clubs that consist of many like-minded members. Enforcing the constitutions of such clubs is much easier than enforcing the constitutions of monopolistic states, because like-minded members can more easily coordinate threats to leave if constitutions are violated.

Edward Stringham has documented many instances of private governance provided by clubs.[1225] Many of these examples relate to contract enforcement and fraud prevention, such as the private governance arrangements used in early stock exchanges and in online payment systems like PayPal. However, he also explains how private police departments operated in San Francisco. Such departments flourished before a governmental police department was established, and even afterward because of the persistent corruption of the governmental police force.[1226]

If it is hard to exclude non-payers from receiving a particular good, this creates a free-rider problem. But this problem can be mitigated by tying the good with another good that it is easier to exclude non-payers from.[1227] Many people think of policing as necessarily delivered in a way that would ensure that a private police force would be impossible to maintain, because many people would free-ride on police services paid for by others. However, Stringham shows how San Francisco’s private police force was able to avoid this problem through bundling.[1228] By bundling police services with other products such as real estate, they were able to overcome free-riding.[1229] Similar tying and bundling arrangements enable the private production of public goods in a variety of cases.[1230]

A system of private governance provides a viable solution to both the knowledge problem and the power problem. When governance is provided by voluntary associations grounded in private property rights, it is embedded within a market. In a market, decision makers can access the knowledge provided by prices. Like other private firms, private providers of governance receive the feedback and discipline associated with profit and loss. Unlike political leaders, they can engage in economic calculation.

Similarly, private governance tames the power problem. It provides private persons with effective exit options to respond to abuse and exploitation by their rulers. By allowing individuals to choose which specific governance arrangement they prefer to live under, it weakens their incentives to be ignorant and biased. And by limiting the discretion of rulers, private governance mitigates the tendency for the worst to get on top.

Understanding the economic pathologies of the state may at first seem like a depressing exercise. However, it is crucial for placing constraints on our utopias by delineating what can and cannot be accomplished in the realm of politics. State actors cannot access the knowledge required to maximize social welfare. They also often face perverse incentives, which drive a wedge between their interests and those of private persons. Perhaps most importantly, the awesome powers centralized in the hands of state actors have historically been used to impose significant costs and damage on innocent people.[1231]

However, studying these pathologies also helps us understand the possibilities of governance and institutions that do not face such problems. In order to avoid these problems, we should consider governance provided by voluntary associations. That is, we should consider anarchy.

18. Hunting for Unicorns

Peter T. Leeson

An Unusual Safari

In ancient legend a unicorn is a horse-like creature with a single, spiraled horn sprouting from its forehead. Today this creature is universally regarded as a fantasy, and the term “unicorn” is used to derisively describe phenomena thought equally impossible.

In political economy such phenomena are often anarchic. Conventional wisdom acknowledges the prospect of cooperation without government under ideal social conditions—anarchic cooperation that is fragile. But everyone knows that cooperation without government under worst-case social conditions—robust anarchic cooperation—doesn’t exist.

Except, everyone is wrong. This chapter hunts for anarchic unicorns and finds them.[1232] There is robust cooperation in anarchic reality.

Conventional wisdom eschews investigating anarchic reality because an important theory, the “logic of continuous dealings”—or rather the stringent assumptions on which that theory is based—seemingly preordains what one will see: the solitary and poor, the nasty and brutish, and the short. In its most effective incarnation the logic of continuous dealings amounts to a society-wide boycott of people who misbehave: cheat someone today and no one will deal with you tomorrow, or indeed ever again. In principle this is a powerful punishment whose threat can induce you to behave without any government at all. But for that threat to be powerful in practice, society must exhibit numerous uncommon features.[1233] Here are a few:

• Society must consist of people who are culturally similar. To see why, suppose people speak different languages. In that case, communicating a cheater’s identity to others is difficult, so learning about who should be boycotted is too. Cheating is shunned by only a few, so many find it worthwhile to cheat.

• Society must consist of people of similar strengths. If people have different violent capacities, the threat of boycott is meaningless. Weak people can announce their intentions never to deal again with cheaters, but strong people can simply take what they want from the weak and so cheat nonetheless.

• Society must consist of “good apples,” people who care enough about the distant future for the distant future to weigh significantly on their current decisions. Consider “bad apples,” people who care little about the distant future. If they care little enough, what they gain by cheating, which is enjoyed now, exceeds what they lose by being boycotted, most of which is sacrificed only down the road. So in a society full of rotten apples, people cheat.

Conventional wisdom is therefore correct that anarchic cooperation reliant only on the logic of continuous dealings is fragile. But this does not imply the impossibility of robust anarchic cooperation for a simple reason: the logic of continuous dealings isn’t the only mechanism of cooperation without government on which people may rely. Other mechanisms are available that augment or substitute for the logic of continuous dealings, mechanisms that aren’t sensitive to the social conditions that pose a problem for that logic.[1234]

I present to you three anarchic unicorns observed in the wild:

• Unicornis diversus: cooperation without government when society is culturally diverse.

• Unicornis violentus: cooperation without government when some people are strong and others are weak.

• Unicornis criminalis: cooperation without government when society is populated exclusively by bad apples. In each case the logic of continuous dealings is present but takes a back seat to alternative mechanisms of social order that permit self-governance to flourish where it “should not.”

Come, let’s go a-hunting.

Unicornis Diversus

Our first anarchic unicorn inhabits precolonial Africa, where a large number of culturally diverse people existed and where government that could oversee their relations often did not.[1235] The basic problem these people faced was straightforward. To realize gains from widespread cooperation, they needed to venture outside their own communities. But interacting with people outside their own communities was risky: outsiders were unknown and thus so was how outsiders might behave.

Within communities, where people were culturally similar, information about how individuals behaved flowed freely. But between communities, where people were culturally different, it did not. Thus, while a cheater might be boycotted by the community to which his victim belonged, he probably wouldn’t be boycotted by others. The boycott would be limited rather than society-wide.

Limited boycotts limit the punishment with which the logic of continuous dealings threatens cheating. And that limits outsiders’ incentive to cooperate. Since the risk of being cheated by outsiders remains high, people don’t venture outside their own communities. Gains from widespread cooperation go unrealized.

It’s a good thing no one told precolonial Africans that this was their fate. Otherwise, they might not have proved that it wasn’t. “[I]ntensive social interaction between various ethnic groupings” and “extensive credit arrangements often between total strangers from different tribes” flourished in precolonial Africa. In other words, there was widespread cooperation without government.[1236]

Precolonial Africans achieved this by supplementing the logic of continuous dealings, which is based on punishing cheaters ex post, with the logic of signaling, which is based on sorting outsiders ex ante according to the likelihood that they’ll cheat.[1237] The basic strategy followed by the members of a community was simple. Require an outsider who wants to trade with someone in the community to make a costly, specific, upfront investment, the value of which he can recoup only if he behaves. If he misbehaves, boycott him, driving the value of his investment to zero.

The investment needed to be costly—to matter to the outsider—so that its loss would be punishing to him. The investment needed to be specific—have value to the outsider only in facilitating cooperation with the community requiring the investment—so that if that community boycotted him, he would lose his investment. And the investment needed to be upfront—made by the outsider before anyone in the community would trade with him—so that he had an investment he could lose once trade commenced.

For outsiders who intended to behave, making such investments was worthwhile. Since continued cooperation meant continued opportunity to interact with the community, they expected to recover the cost of their investments over time. For outsiders who intended to misbehave, the opposite was true. Since an act of cheating resulted in boycott, they expected to be banned from interacting with the community before they could recover the cost of their investments.

Members of the community requiring the investment could therefore use the fact that an outsider had made the investment, or had not, to discern what kind of trading partner he would make. If the outsider was willing to make the investment, he would make a safe partner, so the community would trade with him. If the outsider was unwilling, partnering with him was risky, so the community stayed away. In other words, costly, specific, upfront investments functioned as signals.

What kinds of investments did precolonial Africans use for this purpose? The kind that reduced cultural diversity—social distance—between them. Outsiders adopted the costly social customs and practices of the communities with whose members they desired to trade.[1238]

Some converted to the “religions” of outsiders with whom they wanted to trade, joining their cults and fraternal societies, such as the Ekpe, Okonko, and Ogboni, which performed quasireligious (and judiciary) functions in precolonial African communities. Sometimes joining a fraternal society required paying an actual “membership fee,” imposing a financial cost on newcomers. In other cases “cult membership was open to any who wished to join”—as long as newcomers adopted the society’s customs and practices. For example, joining the society might require surrendering one’s goods to spirits, behavioral and dietary restrictions, and recurrent participation in society-related activities.[1239]

In addition to being costly, these investments were specific, granting a newcomer “membership” in only the religious society he paid to enter or whose customs and practices he followed. They were also upfront. Access to the society first required payment or demonstrated commitment to onerous religious rules and rituals. As a result, religious adoption was an effective signal of an outsider’s intention to cooperate.

Other precolonial Africans adopted the property practices of outsiders with whom they wanted to trade. Precolonial communities didn’t own the land they used in the sense that they could sell it to others. But they did exercise some control over who could use the land they currently occupied and how it could be used. Often this function fell to “Earth Priests,” community leaders representing links to the historical first user of the land.

Earth Priests established ritual customs and taboos relating to this property, which was believed to have mystical properties. To gain access to the community, outsiders had to respect those customs and taboos—to invest significantly in reducing the social distance between themselves and the community’s members.

Such investments were costly. For example, an Earth Priest’s taboos might prohibit cultivating more fertile land in the area because of its sacred status, requiring newcomers to work less productive soil. An Earth Priest might also require newcomers to make a customary gift to him or to the community “as an expression of goodwill.”[1240]

These investments were specific to the Earth Priest and hence to the land-using community in question. Because they were required before an outsider was permitted to join that community, they were also upfront. Only by remaining in good standing in the community could an outsider recoup his gift’s cost or the cost of cultivating less fertile ground. Thus, only outsiders who intended to behave cooperatively would adopt community members’ ritual land customs and taboos, making such adoption an effective signal of credibility.

Precolonial Africans took a feature of their broader society that threatened to prevent anarchic cooperation—cultural diversity—and turned it to their advantage. They leveraged their social differences to supplement the logic of continuous dealings with signaling, facilitating widespread cooperation without government.

Unicornis Violentus

Our second anarchic unicorn also inhabits precolonial Africa. But to find it we need to narrow our sights on the west-central part of the continent where in the nineteenth century a trade flourished in beeswax, ivory, and wild rubber destined for export to Europe.[1241] On one side of this trade were African middlemen and the Europeans who hired them to procure goods for export. On the other side were the goods’ indigenous producers from whom the middlemen procured wax, ivory, and rubber.

Middlemen operated from European (typically Portuguese) outposts overseen by crown-appointed governors stationed near the coast. Middlemen were highly mobile, usually armed, and traveled in large caravans. Producers inhabited the remote interior of west-central Africa. In contrast to middlemen they were highly immobile, usually unarmed, and lived in small villages. Some villages were parts of African “kingdoms.” But from a contemporary perspective at least, these kingdoms were hardly governments. Most important, no government at all—African, European, or otherwise—wielded authority over both sides of the export trade. Thus producermiddleman interactions were anarchic.

For producers in particular, this situation posed a serious problem. They had the goods that middlemen were looking for. And middlemen were strong enough, and producers weak enough, for the middlemen to simply seize what they wanted. Why, then, should middlemen pay for it? Force dominated trade as middlemen’s means of procurement.

If communities of producers could refuse to interact with middlemen, they could avoid being plundered. But since most communities were stationary and unarmed, refusal wasn’t an option. Who, then, could protect producers from middlemen’s plunder?

Not “who,” it turns out, but “what”—and a what of the most unexpected kind. To incentivize middlemen to prefer peaceful exchange to violent plunder, producers offered to trade with them on credit.[1242] Ordinarily credit is a source of opportunism, not its solution. Separation of payment and provision makes creditors vulnerable to their debtors. In the context of producermiddleman relations, however, this separation supported anarchic cooperation between the strong and the weak. Here’s how:

At time t, a community of producers wouldn’t produce anything that middlemen sought; the community left wax, ivory, and rubber unharvested. Thus, when a caravan of middlemen came along, there wasn’t anything the caravan wanted to take. This was an unhappy situation for middlemen, since traveling from the coast to the interior was arduous and expensive; it took time, and money, and men. Going home empty-handed meant taking a large loss.

Middlemen could avoid that loss, however—indeed, they could profit—if they accepted this proposition from producers: they should pay the producers now—usually offering “immediate consumables,” such alcohol, tobacco, and cloth, which were the goods that producers wanted— and the producers would harvest the goods the middlemen sought after the caravan departed. At a specified future date, time t+1, the promised goods would be ready for pick-up; the middlemen could come back and collect what they were owed. This was an ingenious way for the weak to facilitate cooperation with the strong: it’s impossible to plunder goods that haven’t yet been produced, but credit makes it possible to trade them.

As one nineteenth-century observer described it, “the trader sees himself forced to give credits, and this is indispensable for anyone who takes the risk of trading in such a region, if he wants to do it with any success.”[1243] In the words of another, “The native would be little inclined to gather the products of his country, were he not given the payment in advance.” Middlemen “can buy some products in the interior, these being brought to them by the natives and paid” on the spot.

In general, however, they cannot purchase very many commodities in this way but instead give the native credit. Where rubber occurs in the forest, and where the elephant occurs, the [middleman] gives payment in advance to the elephant hunter for so and so many tusks, and to the one who wants to bring rubber or beeswax payment for so and so many pounds of rubber or wax. These people then have to wait for months and years until their debtors satisfy them.[1244]

Still, debtor-producers had to satisfy them eventually, since their creditor-middlemen were stronger and could punish them violently if they did not—the reason credit in this context didn’t pose the problem of debtor opportunism.

That’s not all. By indebting themselves to their creditor-middlemen, producers created an incentive for those middlemen to abstain from abusing them—and to ensure that other middlemen didn’t use violence against them either. To repay what they owed, producers needed to be alive and capable of work. Credit thus linked the financial health of creditor-middlemen to the physical health of their debtor-producers. It transformed the latter from targets of the former’s violence into valuable assets the former wanted to protect.

When middlemen returned to a community of producers to collect what they were owed, the only goods available for plunder were their own—the goods owed them. If the middlemen wanted more, they could renew their credit contract. If not, they could go home with their goods for export. What they couldn’t do was return in the future and plunder the producers, since if they returned without having renewed their credit agreement they would again find no wax, ivory, or rubber to take. Given the cost of traveling to the interior, middlemen frequently went with the first option, perpetuating a cycle of credit-supported cooperation without government between the strong and the weak.

Unicornis Criminalis

To find our final anarchic unicorn we depart from Africa—in fact, from land entirely. We turn to the eighteenth-century Caribbean pirates. These notorious rogues included men like Blackbeard, whose real name was Edward Teach; “Calico” Jack Rackam, the likely inspiration for Johnny Depp’s character in Walt Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise; and the “pirate philosopher” Sam Bellamy.

Popular pirate fiction makes it easy to forget, but Caribbean pirates were criminals. Thus, they couldn’t rely on government to facilitate cooperation between them. This presented a significant problem for pirates because successful piracy required significant cooperation. There was no such thing as a one-man pirate crew; a single person couldn’t pirate at all. Maritime maraudi