Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country? [Hardcover]

Roderick T. Long (Editor), Tibor R. Machan (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 26, 2008

It is well known that the radical libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick sharply distinguished his vision of the free society from egalitarian liberals such as John Rawls. Less remarked upon is the distinction he drew between the free society governed by a strictly limited government, commonly referred to as 'minarchism', and the society without any government at all - anarchism.In this volume, the editors, Long - an anarchist, and Machan - a minarchist, have brought together a selection of specially commissioned essays from the key theorists actively involved in this debate. Each tackles the question of whether or not a government forms a legitimate part of a free society from a variety of perspectives or whether anarchy/minarchy is merely a distinction without a difference.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Roderick T. Long is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Auburn University, Alabama, USA. Tibor R. Machan is Professor of Business Ethics and Free Enterprise at Argyros School of Business and Economics, Chapman University, USA.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Ashgate; 1st edition (February 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0754660664
• ISBN-13: 978-0754660668
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #742,423 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disconnected from reality, December 9, 2008

By 

David H Miller "rothbardianphysicist" (Sacramento, California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country? (Hardcover)

A few thousand years ago, governments were instituted among men when a few guys (and they were indeed guys!) decided that there were easier ways to survive than actually working for a living. Random, uncoordinated plunder was a bit hazardous: the victims might turn out to be armed and might fight back. Better to erect a systematic regime of domination in which much of the wealth of the productive people could be transferred to the ruling elite and their friends - i.e., the government.

Government is an organization that routinely carries out, in broad daylight, actions - such as theft, murder, etc. - that ordinary criminals commonly feel constrained to carry out under cover of darkness.

Libertarians are people who think that we ordinary folks have suffered enough, and that it is time to stop the systematic plunder and murder.

There has, for several decades, been a deep fissure in the libertarian movement. On the one side have been the realists who insist on looking at government as it has actually functioned and who try to figure out how government can actually be abolished: the leading intellectual in this group is the late Murray Rothbard; a well-known political leader is Congressman Ron Paul.

The other group of libertarians, on exhibit in this book, might be called the "conceptual libertarians," people who are more interested in chewing over the "true" concept of government, or the "real" meaning of anarchism, than in addressing the horrendous crimes carried out by actually existing governments, now and throughout history, in the real world.

Several of the authors on exhibit in this book are followers of the late Ayn Rand, and, given the well-known "essentialist" views that Randians tend to take towards concepts, they fit in well here.

Tibor Machan's essay is a nice example: Machan starts off by promising to "show that both individualists anarchists - those who reject government but embrace law and order for a society - and minarchists - those who support a properly limited government as an agency for administering it - are right and their differences are mostly apparent."

I myself met Machan almost thirty years ago, and I found him to be an unintelligent and rather vacuous individual. His essay exhibits those traits clearly: by the end of his meandering and nearly incoherent essay, we find that his promised reconciliation between opponents of government and defenders of the state, such as himself, consists simply in an insistence that opponents of the state must accept that the closest they should ever demand to actual freedom from the state is the right to emigrate from one nation-state to another: "My view... is that the appropriate form of competition would involve emigration and immigration..." In short, in the words of the old rednecks, "Love it or leave it!"

Machan doesn't really mean even this, since he helpfully adds, "I will only mention that I am not in principle against world government..." Of course, world government would eliminate any possibility of emigration or immigration altogether, unless, perhaps, one intends to emigrate to Mars!

Randian Adam Reed offers us a supposed proof that a society free of government is not possible by relating the sad, centuries-long tale of the government of Poland: as he tells the story, a rather vicious, decentralized, oligarchical government was established by King Vladislav IV in 1320, and it exploited, controlled, and terrorized the Polish people for nearly five centuries.

Assuming his tale is accurate, this would seem to be a strong indictment of government. Why he views it as proof that society free of government is a bad idea, when the real problem was a viciously tyrannical government, remains a mystery to the curious reader.

Perhaps the strangest essay in the book is Charles Johnson's "Liberty, Equality, Solidarity: Towards a Dialectical Anarchism." Much of Johnson's essay is taken up with hair-splitting discussions of the exact distinction between minimal government and anarchism. But he truly goes off the deep end when he approvingly quotes the radical feminist Susan Brownmiller: "rape... is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear."

That claim is of course nothing more or less than a conscious lie by which Brownmiller viciously libeled all adult males for the criminal acts of a small number of males.

Johnson should know better. I know Johnson personally: while he can be a thoughtful and intelligent person, he also flies far too often into this sort of viciously authoritarian nonsense.

The one first-rate essay in the book is John Hasnas' "The Obviousness of Anarchy." Hasnas focuses not on conceptual hair-splitting but on real-world examples of social institutions and how humans can and have established rules, resolved disputes, etc. without government. I differ with some of Hasnas' conclusions, but his discussion is informative and thought-provoking.

Rod Long's "Market Anarchism as Constitutionalism" is also worth reading. Although Long is an academic philosopher, unlike most of his colleagues, he does try honestly to envision what abstract ideas actually boil down to, concretely, in the real world. The result is a both a substance and a writing style that is more comprehensible than, say, Tibor Machan's.

As a point-counterpoint between limited-governmentalists and anarchists, this book is simply a failure: the limited-governmentalists have nothing really worth saying.

But the essays by two of the anarchists, Long and Hasnas, are worthwhile.

This is generally true of the literature on libertarianism: the supporters of limited government are, when all is said and done, statists who simply wish a slightly more constrained state. Intellectually, their position is incoherent; in practice, they are apologists for the status quo: the limited-government Libertarian Party recently nominated the right-wing, former GOP Congressman Bob Barr as their Presidential candidate!

To delve deeper into anti-government libertarianism, see Rothbard's "The Ethics of Liberty" or his "Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays," Friedman's "The Machinery of Freedom," or Hoppe's "Democracy: the God that Failed."

7 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a great summary of the anarchist/limited government debate, March 18, 2008

By 

Philip Dinanzio (Yonkers, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country? (Hardcover)

The articles in this book give an up to date summary of the anarchist/limited government debate among libertarians that has been going on since the late 60's.
I found the objectivist oriented articles to be superb, both William R. Thomas's summary and elaboration of Objectivist responses to the anarchist critique and Adam Reed's theoretical and empirical study of market anarchism. Particularly interesting was Reed's history of the Polish/Lithuanian Commonwealth which approximated competing defense agencies, and their inability to protect their clients' rights against infringement by other agencies.

The anarchist contributions were superb also, particularly Charles Johnson's essay which showed how anarchism could promote the seemingly contradictory positions of Liberty, Equality and Solidarity (Fraternity without the sexist connotation). His section on liberty was illuminating, showing how consistency would force a minarchist to favor a smaller and smaller government until it was a "micro" mini size, then to no government ar all. However, I think he undermines his case by a concession in a footnote on page 168, that if a "dispute is not only unresolved but careening towards a violent feud - the parties to the dispute could rightfully be forced to the bargaining table by an impartial third party." He then claims that this right (to enforce arbitration) is enjoyed by everyone, and not just a prerogative of government. However, this was answered by Nozick asserting that only government would have the effective power to exercise this right as a dominant agency. This was also addressed by David Schmitdz in his "The Limits of Government". More to the point however, the enforcing of arbitration when voluntary methods fail is precisely what minarchists have been saying for years justifies government.

In another pro-anarchy article which is insightful, John Hasnas asks "Can national defense be adequately supplied without government?" He then answers "no" if military expenditures are the type associated with contemporary governments. But what if large amounts are needed? what would a libertarian Norway have needed to defend against invading Germans?

Because of these concessions, I would give an edge to the minarchists in the debate. But read the book - it is the best of its type.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rothbardian Physicist fizzled, August 9, 2011

By 

Paul E. Morphus "Books will never die." (Portland OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country? (Hardcover)

I myself met Tibor Machan several years ago and found him to be just what one would expect if they had actually bothered to read his books - intelligent, thoughtful and highly ethical in all regards. This book is another fine contribution to the literature and it comes highly recommended from this particular physicist and economist. I would also recommend any other Tibor Machan books, especially his writings on animal rights.