Imagine the year is 3100, and we are living in the geographic region currently known as the United States of America. However, for over 1,000 years, this region of the world has taken the Prince-like name of “the region formally known as the US.” Not surprisingly, this is due to the US government having gone through bankruptcy and collapse in the year 2055. What emerged from the ashes of the American government was a system based entirely upon voluntary transactions, with a strong private system of property rights protection. All so called “public goods” are voluntarily funded by private individuals and the level of wealth and technological progress is, to put it lightly, astonishing. In other words, we voluntaryists have our perfect world.
Let’s also imagine that after having lived in a magnificently wealthy and peaceful voluntary society for over 1,000 years, a guy named Bruce wakes up one day and decides working is for suckers. He’s a lazy guy by nature, and the idea of working is very displeasing to him. But leading a life of crime would result in being caught and made to work off a whole string of debts. This is even more displeasing to Bruce. Thus, in order to achieve a life of wealth without actually working for it, Bruce plans on trying to sell the idea of organized legal violence (with himself at, or near the helm of said organization). This way he could collect the wealth of others, without being held liable for any restitution to the victims.
He soon realizes that trying to sell the idea of statism to a society without it is difficult. Somehow, telling truly free people that a small group of individuals should be given the special right to initiate force on the rest of society is not going over well. First, his family doesn’t buy it. They ask Bruce why some folks should be given what appears to be superpowers to confiscate the property of others. They ask him what makes the superpower group of people different than the rest of society. Bruce doesn’t have much of an answer other than, “it’s for the benefit of everyone that some people be given immoral privileges others do not have.”
Bruce’s friends are no more enthusiastic about the idea. When told that a small group of individuals would be allowed to use violence against the rest of society whenever they pleased, his friends asked, “these people could initiate violence against us AND NOT be held liable for it???” Bruce replied in the affirmative. Needless to say, this strange concept confused his friends. And they asked Bruce the same question his family asked of him — “why should a small group of people be allowed to get away with this violence? What makes them different from us?”
Bruce realized that his plan for organized legal violence was not going to work. He could not convince his family, and he could not convince his friends. Whenever he pitched the idea, he either got laughed at or made people angry. For some inconceivable reason, the idea that some people in a certain geographic reason ought to be given the power to confiscate property and initiate violence on the rest of the people — without liability or punishment — makes no sense to people who haven’t learned to accept being slaves. Thus, Bruce gave up on his predatory fantasies and instead went back to bed.
To all the minarchists out there: imagine trying to sell the idea of limited government to a populace that has not been indoctrinated in the concept of slavery. How difficult do you think your task would be? Would you, or could you, convince a single person that it would be a good idea to be expropriated of their property at the whim of a small group of individuals?
I imagine you’d have an easier time trying to sell the idea of “New Coke version 2.0″ to Coca-Cola now than selling the idea of limited government to a truly free populace.
I am a 27 year old voluntaryist living in beautiful Colorado. For fun, I snowboard and race road bikes in addition to my economics obsession. I love the Austrian school in general and Murray Rothbard in particular. 
I waver between minarchism and anarcho-capitalism. Truth be told, I am likely an anarchist, but see minarchism as a necessary pit stop on the way. I think that it is acceptable to strive for minarchism now, with an eye on the prize of a purely voluntary society as the end goal.
I agree that if we had an anarcho-capitalist system as successful as in your experiment, that not many minarchists would be advocating any form of state.
Kindest Regards,
Paul
Paul, this was the turning point for me: George Donnelly’s essay “Minarchists: You’re Really Anarchists!” http://georgedonnelly.com/opinion/minarchists-really-anarchists
Me too, Dan.
BRAVO buddie, I likes it. LOL I want to start making videos that compare statist problems and solutions with voluntary ones. I’ll get on this as soon as I have the time.
As you state it, no, but that’s not what minarchists envision. They envision a minimal government supported by Pigovian taxes, and/or possibly geolibertarian-style property taxes, and/or voluntary contributions in return for public services.
They envision needing *someone* to deal with the inevitable crime and torts, and prefer that that be an organization over which they hold at least some level (but not too much) of democratic control. They realize that relying on private industry for this task is just begging for someone like Bruce to come along, create such an organization (perhaps benevolently at first), and turn it into a feudal fiefdom over their area.
Minarchism, like democracy, is a boot smashing a human face, forever.
If a set of institutions, like courts, can be established with voluntary contributions, great. That’s not minarchism, that’s anarchism.
What minarchists want is control, as hacksoncode says. They don’t trust the free market to spontaneously generate order, they demand control. They want a system to eliminate competitors with whom they don’t agree, and “color of law” to get away with that coercion.
No matter how small an amount of the camel’s nose you allow into the tent without swatting it away, you get the rest of the camel. You can’t have just a little bit of government.
Either you believe that people are able to govern themselves, and leave them to it, or you don’t. If you don’t, and you want to set up a system that uses democracy, or authority, or some other method to force people to obey your rules, you get all the outrages of tyranny.
Why? Because if people cannot govern themselves individually, what hope do they have of governing others collectively? If Joe is incompetent to run his own affairs, he certainly cannot run (or vote for) a court to run someone else’s affairs.
All you have to work with are people. People are as they are, not as you might wish them to be. We have no “angels in the shape of kings” to govern us.
Minarchists want to insist on some coercion. They might as well by tyrants.