The Bionic Mosquito continues to find exasperating the “bleeding heart libertarians.” http://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-strategy-for-liberty-redux.html Kevin Vallier, a leading exponent of this school of thought, suggests that libertarians might be strategically unwise to seek market anarchy as their goal. The path from where we are now to market anarchy is uncertain: we do not know how to get from ‘here to there.’ In seeking the goal of anarchism, we might encounter many dangers. By contrast, there is a clear path to the minimal state. Even if you think anarchism is better than minarchism, then, might it not be the path of wisdom to be satisfied with a clearly achievable goal, rather than insist on a venture into the unknown?
The Bionic Mosquito is not buying. He incisively notes that Vallier doesn’t define “Mt. Minarchy, of course, as it cannot be defined in any meaningful way; even worse, when tried in the most ideal circumstance, it failed miserably moments before (not after) birth. But rest assured: the path from here to there is sure!” As to the claim that there is no clear path to anarcho-capitalism, Vallier has ignored a very significant writer who does offer guidance on the transition. That writer is, of course, Murray Rothbard, and the Mosquito sums up his strategy in this way: “There you have it – keep in your sights the ultimate objective, and any interim step that moves toward that objective is acceptable – even desirable. Any beginning firearms student knows that in order to hit a target, one must actually be aiming for it. Vallier, however, wants to avoid even seeking the ultimate objective – like shooting randomly and hoping for the best.”
I highly recommend this outstanding discussion and venture to add two additional points. From Vallier’s premise that the path from here to there is unknown—which, as The Mosquito has shown, we ought not to accept—it does not follow that the transition contains the danger of failing into a worse position than where we are now. That claim requires independent argument. Further, if, as Vallier claims, the path to “Mt. Minarchy” is clear, then an argument against anarcho-capitalism based on problems of transition needs to show that there is no clear path from “Mt. Minarchy” to anarcho-capitalism. To claim that there is no clear path from here to there does not suffice.
3:19 pm on March 24, 2015
