To supplement my previous posts (1 and 2) on the subject of anarchy, it occurred to me that Constitutional Anarchy is probably a better term for what I have thus far called Republican Anarchy. It is not classical republicanism but constitutionalism under which the principle of the separation of powers properly falls. The term Constitutional Anarchy also ties in better with Long’s arguments (cited in my first post) that libertarian anarchy is a constitutional order in which the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances have been radically decentralized and carried to their logical and most efficacious conclusion. In this light, one can see Constitutional Anarchy as being possible within the three other categories of anarchy I have termed Natural Anarchy, Hobbesian State Anarchy, and World-State (or Universal-State) Anarchy. In the first, it could manifest as stateless (but not necessarily governmentless) libertarian anarchy. But in the latter two, in which the State achieves an increasing degree of monopolization, constitutional anarchy can manifest within certain states founded upon constitutionalism and the separation of powers and checks and balances become increasingly inefficacious due to the necessarily doomed attempt at artificially creating a merely superficial imitation of market competition and social power (as opposed to State power).
Geoffrey is an Aristotelian-Liberal political philosopher and an adjunct instructor for Buena Vista University. His work has appeared in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, the Journal of Value Inquiry, and Transformers and Philosophy. He lives in Edgewood, KY with his wife and two children.
Related posts:
- Anarchism, Statism, and Dualism (Cont.)
- Is anarchism inherently dualistic?
- Rothbard, Anarchy, and Utopianism
Political Science PhD
Comments on this entry are closed.