Libertarianism vs. Aggression

I liked Michael Rozeff’s post on the libertarian solution to territorialism in Ukraine.

And that reminds me of the “anarchism vs. minarchism” debate. I’ve been wanting to elaborate on some of my thoughts regarding the voluntaryist-libertarian vs. minarchist-libertarian argument from my two articles on that subject. The minarchists or minimal-statists or “limited-government” people believe in having a “libertarian” society which they say recognizes the non-aggression principle (i.e. “don’t initiate aggression”) and private property.

And this is what I have to say to that side of the argument.

Now, if you institute your “limited government” to rule over me as well over yourself, regardless of my lack of consent, then you are saying that those people who are employed by the State are given some sort of extra authority over my life and some extra armed (presumably) power to enforce that scheme, whether I agree to their authority or not.

But this kind of scheme clearly violates the non-aggression principle. First, you are initiating aggression against me by instituting this regime with power and authority over me, without my agreement or consent, and without any valid contract binding me to such an agreement. You’re just binding me to it anyway, by force. For a contract to be valid and legitimate, in my view, it would have to be voluntary, and this scheme is not. And second, in this involuntary scheme you have imposed on me without my consent, you are employing other people to act as agents of this State with authority over my life to which I did not consent. Here is more violation of the non-aggression principle. This scheme of limited government is not “libertarian,” nor is it just, nor is it a peaceful arrangement.

Yech.

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12:46 pm on May 18, 2014