My original post was brief and hasty (a bad habit of mine I’m trying to break, and it obviously failed to convince the sympathetic but skeptical Chris. Although I cannot, at this point in time, write a full length article or book on the subject, I think it would be worthwhile to elaborate on my argument.
The key to elaborating a nondualist view of libertarian anarchy is not, I think, the melding of key Hayekian and Nockian insights regarding society, government, and the State. Although this point is important, the key lies in the recognition that there are different kinds of anarchy and that we can never really get out of anarchy.
The formation of an international system of states quite obviously does not get us out of anarchy. This point is widely accepted even by the positivist-empiricist community of international relations scholars. The international system of states is characterized as anarchic, because there is no overarching monopolistic authority to promulgate law, provide security, or resolve disputes. I have termed this category of anarchy Hobbesian State Anarchy. It’s most obvious anarchic relationship is that between states, but there are other anarchic relationships included in this category as well. The State and its citizens are in an anarchic relationship, for there is no overarching authority governing this relationship. In any dispute between citizen and State, the citizen must turn to the State (or some branch thereof) for the ultimate decision. Ironically, although one of the defects that Locke saw in his fictitious state of nature was that there would be no third party to resolve disputes (a defect because of the widely held belief that men should not judge their own case due to an unavoidable bias in their own favor), the monopolistic State always ends up judging its own cases! Moreover, the relationship between citizens of different states and between states and the citizens of other states is also anarchic for, I think, obvious reasons. Only if one accepts some sort of strained social contract theory a la Hobbes or Locke would have reason to deny these additional anarchic relationships. Hobbes and Locke see the State or Commonwealth as being one corporate body, thus eliminating the possibility of anarchic relationships within that body (even when foreigners are involved). Locke, however, did argue that if the sovereign violated the rights of citizens the Commonwealth is essentially sundered and plunged into a state of war. I do not think that the mystical union of the corporate body that is the Hobbesian or Lockean Commonwealth is true to the facts of reality, however.
The formation of a World-State, or a Solar System State, or a Galactic State, or even a Universal State (in the physical sense of the world) cannot get us out of anarchy. International anarchy (that between states) is eliminated, as are the anarchic relationships between citizens of different states and between states and citizens of other states. However, if it is a unitary government (only one level of goverment) then the citizens are still in an anarchic relationship with the State. If it is a federal system, the states and their citizens are still in an anarchic relationship with the Super State. The attempt to find an overarching authority for all socio-political relationships is impossible, for even the most universal State imaginable would lack an overarching authority for its relationship with its citizens. In my previous post I mentioned Republican Anarchy as well, but I need not elaborate on it here.
Thus, we can never really get out of anarchy. The formation of different kinds of states merely alters the kind of anarchy within which we live. The question then is not Statism or Anarchism, state or anarchy. It is actually Statism and the State that introduce the dualistic false dichotomoy between living under law and order with the State or in chaos and disorder with anarchy. Statism introduces and/or perpetuates such dualisms as producers and pseudo-producers, wealth-makers and wealth-appropriators, masters and slaves, self-sacrifice vs. other-sacrifice, and many more. Insofar as anarchists have made their arguments along similar lines, using this false dichotomy (albeit while reversing the concommitants of law/order/prosperity and chaos/disorder/misery), they are mistakenly adopting the very dualistic premise of Statism.
We are always in some sort of anarchy. If there is a dualism inherent in libertarian anarchism, it is between society and the State or a free society and the State, and not between Market and State or Anarchy and State. But there are three major reasons why I do not believe there is a dualism here.
1) The primary political choice in this context is between which kind of anarchy is preferrable – Natural Anarchy, Hobbesian State Anarchy, or World-State Anarchy – not which kind of State is preferrable, or whether State or Anarchy is preferrable. The category of Natural Anarchy is not necessarily a libertarian anarchy; that would depend upon the kinds of institutions prevailent in a naturally anarchic society. There could be liberty, law, order, and flourishing, or there could be chaos, disorder, frequent initiation of force, and before long the rise of states and the shift to a different kind of anarchy.
2) Yes, there is a necessary mutual opposition between State and society, but the State is merely one organization/institution within society. It is not the only group of individuals/organizations/institutions (or even single individuals) that operates by the initiation of force and, thus, the violation of rights. And there are different kinds of states. There are also countless organizations and institutions within society that do not operate by the initiation for force. Ultimately, however, society is just a large number of individuals existing within certain social and structural relationships. The apparent opposition between State and society, and between other coercive organizations and society, boils down to an opposition between individuals who choose to live by the initiation of force and individuals who choose to live by voluntary exchange (even here we must recognize that many individuals operate by both methods). A free society along the lines of libertarian anarchism is one that exists in Natural Anarchy and in which a majority of the people relate with each other through voluntary means most of the time. What form government might take in such a society I will not speculate on here, except to say that law, security, and justice need not be provided only by market institutions but market institutions may make up a large part of such voluntary government.
3) The initiation of force is primarily a political (or structural level) concern. A fully nondualistic view of libertarian anarchy must take into account the socio-cultural and personal levels of analysis as well. Here we can recognize subtler forms of coercion, such as what might be called soft authoritarian institutions (paternalism, parentalism, tribalism, racism, nationalism, altruism, etc.), as well as psycho-epistemological, epistemological, ethical, aesthetic errors (and the socio-cultural institutions that encourage them) that hinder liberty and flourishing and promote statism. A truly ideal, free society will be one in which the majority of citizens possess and/or are encouraged by their social and structural institutions to be autonomous in the political and personal and social dimensions of their lives. I believe that an ideal libertarian-anarchic society will not be achieved, much less maintained, if we only attend to political and economic institutions. All three levels – the personal, t
he socio-cultural, and the structural (political and economic) will have to converge in order to bring about and maintain a free society. We will not get free political and economic institutions until we get liberty-promoting socio-cultural institutions and autonomous persons, and vice versa. Snapping a finger and eliminating the State overnight will not a free society make. A revolution on multiple levels will be required and it will take time. Is this utopian? Not in the sense of being impossible (as prosperous socialism is impossible). But it is idealistic (and I don’t mean this in a pejorative sense).
Ultimately, I think that political theories that assume straight out that we need some sort of State, including that of Rasmussen and Den Uyl, move too fast. Politics is not primarily about the State, but about (and here I show my Aristotelian colors) human flourishing and, consequently, about justice and rights. Whether and what kind of government is justified or needed are secondary questions. I do not believe the State is compatible with justice, rights, and human flourishing.
Geoffrey is an Aristotelian-Libertarian political philosopher, writer, editor, and web designer. He is the founder of the