Response to Robert Bidinotto

Response to Robert Bidinotto on The Contradiction In Anarchism

Below are comments that address Robert Bidinotto’s unconvincing objections to anarcho-capitalism-

On its surface, it seems seductively simple:

1. The initiation of coercion and force is immoral. (Rand)

2. Government is an institution which maintains a legal monopoly on the retaliatory use of force in a given geographical area. (Rand)

3. But to maintain a legal monopoly on the retaliatory use of force, a government must initiate coercive force to exclude competitors.

4. Hence, to exist as a legal monopoly on the retaliatory use of force, a government must employ immoral means.

5. Government is thus intrinsically immoral and self- contradictory.

6. Hence, Ayn Rand's pro-government position contradicts her basic ethics (Roy Childs' argument in his early essay, "The Contradiction in Objectivism").

This argument is a splendid instance of rationalism: it proceeds deductively from a limited set of premises which are presumed to include all the relevant considerations. But in fact, they do not. Here is just a sampler of the contextual considerations omitted:

Exactly who determines what use of force is "initiatory" or "coercive," and what is "defensive" or "retaliatory"? By what process is that determination made? Or, to put it in terms of "rights": Who determines whether, in any given use of force, "rights" have been violated -- and thus, who is the aggressor, and who the victim? By what procedure? What theory or interpretation of "rights" is to be used? Rand's? Henry George's? Lenin's? For society, how are such determinations made with finality? And how is that verdict enforced? As a corollary: who determines which agency is a "protection agency," and which is a mere gang of aggressors? By what method and standard?

Ultimately individuals will make these decisions. Courts, police, and prisons are the legal institutions that address legal procedures as they have done for thousands of years.

Rand addresses the broad question of who decides moral/legal questions in her essay, WHO IS THE FINAL AUTHORITY IN ETHICS when she says, "In a free society the pursuit of truth is protected by the free access of any individual to any field of endeavor he may choose to enter. This prevents the formation of any coercive ‘elite’ in any profession-it prevents the legalized enforcement of a ‘monopoly on truth’ by a gang of power seekers -it protects the free-market place of ideas-it keeps all doors open to man’s inquiring mind. Who ‘decides’? In politics, in ethics, in art, in science in philosophy-in the entire realm of human knowledge-it is reality that sets the terms, through the work of those men who are able to identify its terms and to translate them into objective principles."

You see, anarchists sincerely believe that they are merely advocating "competition" in the protection of rights. In fact, what their position would necessitate is "competition" in defining what "rights" are.

What anarchists omit from their basic premises is a simple fact: conflicting philosophies will lead to conflicting interpretations of the meaning of such basic terms as "aggression," "self- defense," "property," "rights," "justice," and "liberty." Deducing away, syllogism after syllogism, from these mere words does not mean that the people employing them agree on their meaning, justification or implementation.

Without a philosophical consensus, "competing agencies" (driven to maximize profits by satisfying their paying customers) will offer opposing, rival social factions any interpretations each wants. Definitions of "rights" and "liberty" and "justice" will become as much a matter of "competition" as will the methods, personnel and procedures each agency will offer to provide. And which agency will attract the most customers? Of course, the one that "gets results" by best satisfying consumer demand: i.e., the one which can impose its own definitions of "aggression" and "self-defense" on competitors.

Unless Bidinotto supports a planetary government, monopoly governments suffer from the same logic, so this criticism isn’t unique to AC institutions. After all, governments have been extremely aggressive and violent throughout history and will continue to do so as long as concentrated power is allowed to remain unchecked. Also, Bidinotto misunderstands what AC writers mean by competition. "Competition" is the result of individuals having the right to fight oppression and implement freedom when necessary. George Smith clarifies-

"If the legal system of an agency (whether governmental or private) is truly
just as evaluated by objective standards -- and if, by ‘competition,’ we
mean any attempt forcibly to overturn this legal system, replacing it with
an unjust system -- then our agency may forcibly resist and overthrow the
outlaw agency, owing to its effort to violate individual rights.

As I said, however, this right to suppress the outlaw agency has nothing to
do with the alleged necessity for a final arbiter. Rather, it is simply an
application of the right of every individual, whether by himself or in
combination with others, to resist and repel despotism, whatever the source
of that despotism may be. The pertinent issue, therefore, is not whether we
need a coercive monopoly to enforce justice; but whether we can determine
the justice of legal system by objective methods, and whether, having
objectively condemned a given system as unjust, we can then forcibly resist
any individual or agency which seeks to impose that system.

This has everything to do with the individual right of self-defense, as
manifested in the libertarian rights of resistance and revolution, and has
nothing whatever to do with the supposed need for a final arbiter."

After all, would you hire an agency that couldn't adequately protect your own interpretation of your rights?

Consider the justly-maligned profession of defense attorneys. They'll defend any client for a buck, using any argument, any tactic to boost their chances of winning, truth be damned. (When people today say, "I need a good lawyer," do they mean "I need a pillar of integrity" -- or do they mean instead: "I need a guy who can win for me"?) Would anyone argue that it is merely the fact of "government courts" that make these shysters possible? Don't you suppose that they would find similar employment in a totally privatized system, in which the "sovereign consumer" reigns?

Then why limit such amoral, anything-to-win behavior only to attorneys? Isn't it reasonable to assume the same motives would govern at least a significant portion of "protective agents"?

Irrelevant. Again, monopoly governments are just as susceptible to corruption as private legal institutions under anarcho-capitalism. It’s important to remember that government in an objectivist and AC society is privately funded, consent will exist among contributors, and all property will be private. The only significant difference between AC legal institutions (courts, police, prisons, military) and objectivist institutions is that people would have the legal right to exit from corrupt and unjust legal institutions and patronize just and efficient ones when oppression occurs. Rand says a government that violates the rights of its own citizens "can claim no rights whatsoever", and people have the right to secede from mixed economies. In my opinion, the "government" that Rand supported is exactly what anarcho-capitalists support. She did not specify a certain size in regards to her government, so Bidinotto has to explain how governments in a free society would differ from AC governing agencies. The right to overthrow governing agencies that violate rights leads to a process of competition, and the only way to prevent this sort of competition is to forbid individuals from implementing freedom forcing them to live under tyranny.

Today, a "legal monopoly" exists to put shady private detectives and private extortionists behind bars. It serves as a final arbiter on the use of force in society. We all agree it does a less-than-exemplary job much of the time; but it's there. What happens when it isn't?

Bidinotto makes the mistake of implying that only monopoly governments can protect rights and enforce the law but this is empirically false. Bruce Benson (see THE ENTERPRISE OF LAW) has documented decentralized common law societies that have lacked "final arbiters", and many have been quite libertarian in nature. Also, it is unclear what Bidinotto means by "final arbiter". For example, how big or how many people must this final arbiter have to be legitimate? 2 or more people? One acre? If no particular size then does this mean it’s ok to have thousands of monopoly governments within a "specific geographical boundary"? For example, let's say Americans decide to overthrow our current government and start fresh with new consensual governing institutions limited to protecting rights. Would Bidinotto prescribe limits to "geographic areas", and if so, what? If not, then how is this not anarcho-capitalism?

Or worse: when the shady detective or extortionist has replaced it, in a marketplace where profits depend on satisfying the subjective desires of emotional clients?

Anarchists say this scenario is unrealistically pessimistic: it assumes people are going to want to do the wrong thing. In fact, people "naturally" seek their rational self-interest, they declare, once government is out of the way. They would try to cooperate, work things out.

Well, if they did, why would they need any agency -- governmental or private? Why wouldn't five billion people naturally cooperate on this planet without any legal or institutional framework to resolve disputes?

The problem, of course, is everyone disagrees about what his rational self-interest is. Ask the Palestinians and the Israelis to define "rights," "force," "property," "justice," "self-defense," and "protection." Or ask the IRA and the British. Or George III and George Washington.

Irrelevant for the same reasons given above. Monopoly governments are just as capable, if not more so, of unjust and corrupt law as an AC institution is. Smith explains-

"An activity, if moral when pursued by a government, is equally
moral when pursued by someone else. All this should be obvious to those
who agree with the principles put forth by Ayn Rand. If, therefore, the
principles of justice are objective (i.e., knowable to human reason), then
a government can no more claim a monopoly on the legitimate use of force
than it can claim a monopoly on reason.

Those minarchists who claim that justice can prevail only under government
must implicitly defend the view that justice is either subjective or
intrinsic. If justice is subjective, if it varies from one person to the
next, then government can be defended as necessary to establish objective
rules. Likewise, if justice is intrinsic to government itself, if whatever
a government decrees is necessarily just, then government is justified
automatically.

If, however, justice is neither subjective nor intrinsic, but instead is
objective -- i.e., if it can be derived by rational methods from the facts
of man's nature and the requirements of social existence -- then the
principles of justice are knowable to every rational person. This means
that no person, group of persons, association, or institution whether known
as ‘government,’ ‘State,’ or by any other name -- can rightfully claim a
legal monopoly in matters pertaining to justice."

So, how do we best limit the capricious use of force by those millions whom we call "the public"? Let's compare anarcho- capitalism with limited government.

Under anarcho-capitalism, "the public" is called "the market," and "votes with its dollars" to have its way about the use of force in society. In a political system (i.e., under a "monopolistic government"), "the public" is called a "political constituency," and votes with ballots in order to have its way about the use of force in society. But in the latter case, if the government has been constitutionally limited, the masses are typically thwarted in having their way at the expense of others. They can't use force to do anything they want.

If Bidinotto can invent a stable minarchist government that only protects rights, then AC institutions can similarly be stable limited to protecting rights, however, when we look to history, a constitutional government limited to protecting rights has never existed.

The relevant question is whether people have the right to implement legal institutions that will protect their rights when corruption occurs. A consensual constitutional system isn’t precluded from existing in an AC society as long as it is morally legitimate unlike the (non)constitutional system we have today, which systematically violates rights. Rand demanded a difficult standard for constitutional legitimacy when she wrote, "Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority." This standard is precisely what anarcho-capitalists demand. Unfortunately, Bidinotto neglects a serious discussion of secession even though it is a critical issue in the anarchist/minarchist debate making him guilty of the same "rationalism" that he accuses anarcho-capitalists of.

As private criminals, their acts are limited by the government. And government agents themselves are limited by the Constitution. Our Founders were geniuses at limiting power. It's taken lovers of coercion over 200 years to subvert our Founder's system to its current state; and still, our system is far from being totalitarian.

The issue is not what system is more economically stable, but whether individuals have the right to freely patronize just and efficient institutions to protect their rights. It’s strange that Bidinotto lapses into conservatism by ignoring fundamental political issues such as consent and rights. Many socialist countries have existed for centuries, and while they may not produced high living standards like the United States, they certainly are far from being totalitarian. Is this a reason to champion socialism?

In the market, by contrast, what's to stop thugs, and by what standard? Surely no private company would deliberately handcuff itself, with separations and divisions of powers, and checks and balances. Such silly, inefficient "gridlock" and "red tape" would only make it less competitive. No, a competitive company must be flexible to respond to shifting "market demand." That means the demand for whatever consumers may want, anything at all. It can't tie its own hands by limiting itself. After all, some other company or industry would always be willing to operate without such moral self-limitation. What firm would restrain itself, when the sleazy, unscrupulous Acme Protective Service across town is just itching for the same customer contracts, and willing to promise clients "no limits?"

The "sleazy, unscrupulous" agencies have been monopoly governments. If corruption and violence is the primary concern, then monopoly governments ought to be eliminated due to the fact that they have been the largest rights violators in history. Bidinotto can’t criticize AC institutions for potential corruption while ignoring potential and actual corruption from monopoly governments. This is clearly a double standard. What is to prevent a monopoly government from growing into an institutionalized rights violator? Nothing if history tells us anything.

Anarchists proclaim faith that in the marketplace, all the "protection" companies would rationally work everything out. All companies in the private sector, they assert, have a vested interest in peace. Their reputations and profits, you see, rest on the need for mutual cooperation, not violence.

Various writers such as Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and Hayek have defended "capitalism", but the justifications are different. Murray Rothbard and Randy Barnett defend AC in the same way that Rand defended capitalism- based on individual rights, not primarily consequences as David Friedman does.

Also, Public Choice economics tells us that politics is much like a market place in that votes are bought and sold to interest groups, so limited government suffers from similar problems.

Oh? What about a reputation for customer satisfaction -- and the profits that go with getting results? I guess anarchists have no experience in the private sector with shyster lawyers, protection rackets, software pirates and the like. Aren't they, too, responding to market demand?

This misses the point. Corruption will occur whether it be governmental or not. The relevant issue involves the ability of individuals having the right to institute freedom when necessary, and this has always been the case since no government has ever been morally legitimate. If governments are allowed to maintain their monopoly status regardless of whether they are just or not, then you have a situation where tyranny and violence is allowed to remain, and this is a much more dangerous power than "shyster" agencies as history demonstrates.

If the "demand" for peace is paramount, please explain the bloody history of the world.

A bloody history that monopoly governments have been responsible for, and that’s why anarchists support individual sovereignty versus political sovereignty, which translates into governing institutions that are forced to protect rights or else they can be replaced.

Anarcho-capitalists forget their own Austrian economics. It was Von Mises who described the marketplace as the ultimate democracy, where "sovereign consumers voted with their dollars" to fulfill their desires. Not necessarily good desires, mind you: just "desires." Whatever they happened to be. The market was itself amoral: it simply satisfied the desires of the greatest number. (That's why Howard Stern sells better than Isaac Stern.)

Law enforcement including courts, prisons, and police involve resources that must be paid for. If in an objectivist society, all property is private and individuals voluntarily pay for these services, then you have a private system. As long as individuals aren’t forced to contribute to aggressive institutions, then you have a market situation. Smith comments on Rand’s unorthodox view of voluntary taxation-

"Virtually every defender of government -- from John Locke to Thomas
Jefferson to Ludwig von Mises -- has recognized coercive taxation to be an
essential component of sovereignty, a power without which no true
government can exist.

The principle of ‘voluntary taxation’ reduces Rand's ‘government’ to a
free-market protection agency, which, like every business, must either
satisfy its customers or close up shop. What is to prevent a dissatisfied
customer from withholding his money from a Randian ‘government,’ while
subscribing instead to the services of another agency? Why cannot a
landowner (or combination of landowners) refuse to pay for the services of
their Randian ‘government,’ which they regard as inefficient, and take
their business elsewhere?

The right to pay for services or not, according to one's own judgment, is a
characteristic of the free market; it has no relationship, either
theoretically or historically, to the institution of government. There is
no way a government can retain its sovereign power -- its monopoly on the
use of legitimate force -- if it does not possess the power of compulsory
taxation.

When the nineteenth-century minarchist Auberon Herbert advanced his theory
of ‘voluntary taxation,’ he was widely praised by anarchists, such as
Benjamin Tucker, who embraced him as one of their own. But he was assailed
by fellow minarchists, such as Herbert Spencer, who correctly pointed out
that Herbert's position was indistinguishable from anarchism. Likewise,
Rand's position on taxation places her squarely in the anarchist camp --
her idiosyncratic use of the word ‘government’ notwithstanding."

In other words, the market, like water, can't rise higher than its source. And its source is the people -- the same people who vote in a representative political system. The marketplace is no more moral than the people who are "voting with their dollars." If there's a demand, some supplier will always come along to fill it -- a demand for anything from chocolates to child prostitutes. What "market mechanism" would arise to distinguish between the two -- and by what right and standard would it enforce such distinctions?

By what right and standard does a government enforce such distinctions? By the fact that it’s a government? In either system you have imperfect individuals making imperfect decisions so corruption is a potential in both. From a practical standpoint, it's far more dangerous to allow potential corruption the ability to manifest itself unchecked in a monopoly government compared to a decentralized system where power is dispersed.

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Anarchists think the "invisible hand" of the marketplace will work in the place of government. But read what Adam Smith had to say about businessmen in that famous "invisible hand" passage. Smith knew that government was a precondition of the market, and of the working of the "invisible hand." Without government, the "invisible hand" becomes a closed fist, wielded by the most powerful gang(s) to emerge. Why? Because government prevents competing forces from defining -- and enforcing -- their own private "interests" subjectively and arbitrarily.

Back to a double standard again. Governments have been responsible for subjective and arbitrary law enforcement throughout all of history. Apparently Bidinotto can't be bothered by historical reality and the fact that every government that has ever existed has systematically agressed innocent individuals, and not one has ever been legitimate. It’s easy and convenient to invent a perfect objectivist government in your head while ignoring the bloody history of government power and abuse but reality tells another story.

Also, as many legal historians have pointed out, law and markets emerged from non-governmental societies, so the idea that a government is a precondition for this is a false assertion.

Even if 99 percent of "protection agents" behave rationally, all you'd need is one "secessionist" outlaw agency, with it's own novel interpretation of "rights" and "justice," tailored to appeal to some "customer base" of bigots, religious fanatics, disgruntled blue collar workers or amoral tycoons with money to burn. Do anarchists care to argue that outlaw agencies -- given our current intellectual and philosophical "marketplace" -- would have no such constituencies? Dream on.

One wonders what Bidinotto means by "outlaw agency". Does he mean criminal aggression? If so, then look no further than every government that has ever existed.

Oops -- did I say "outlaw?" Under anarchy, there is no final determiner of the law." There would be no final standard for settling disputes, e. g., a Constitution. That would be a "monopoly legal system," you see. That's because anarchists support the unilateral right of any individual or group to secede from a governing framework.

Bidinotto should identify what anarchists he is referring to when he says they support the "unilateral right" to secede, for this would mean that criminals would have the right not to be jailed, but no AC writer I'm aware of supports this. Force may be used against those who initiate it, which means there would be no unilateral right to secede if violence is the goal. However, there would be the right to secede and implement freedom when necessary. Rothbard believes this will leave a monopoly government in a very precarious state. He writes-

"Would a laissez-fairest recognize the right of a region of a country to secede from that
country? And if so, then how can there be a logical stopping-point to the secession? May not a small district secede, and then a city, and then a borough of that city, and then a block, and then finally a particular individual? Once admit any right of secession whatever, and there is no logical stopping-point short of the right of individual secession, which logically entails anarchism, since then individuals may secede and patronize their own defense agencies, then the State has crumbled."

Consider the logical alternatives under anarcho-capitalism. Either...

1. No "protection agency" imposes or enforces any of its interpretations, standards, definitions, decisions or verdicts on any other competing agency, or on any individual acting as his own agent. In which case, there is no "final arbiter" of disputes, no court of final appeal, no enforceability. Everyone some agency deemed "guilty" of an improper initiation of force would retain a unilateral right to ignore the verdict of that agency, or to "secede" from any rule-making framework designed by that agency or any group of agencies. From a practical standpoint, a "protection agency" which could not enforce retribution or restitution against a wrong-doer would be a paper tiger. Who would pay for such toothless "protection"? Who would stand to lose? But who would stand to gain under this option? Only the thugs, who would unilaterally declare themselves immune from anyone's arrest, prosecution or punishment. Either as individuals or in gangs, they would use force, unconstrained by the self- limitations adopted by the "good" agencies.

In short, under this option, the good would unilaterally restrain themselves, while the bad would assume the right to use force without self-limitation, and with no fear of retaliation. This option would mean de facto pacifism by the moral, in the face of the immoral.

Now consider the only other option available under anarcho- capitalism:

2. Some enforcement framework must eventually arise and impose final verdicts on everyone. In practice, this would mean either (a) a dominant agency arises in the market, and enforces its interpretations and verdicts on everyone else, by brute force and coercion if necessary; or (b) a group of agencies decides to impose a mutually-agreed-upon framework on everyone. In short, a single legal system and final arbiter mechanism would arise by "market forces." (This utopian notion is endorsed by many anarchists, who concede that in the market there would likely arise a single legal framework.)

Alas, this does not resolve the anarchist's dilemma. In either 2(a) or (b), you have a de facto "legal monopoly" on the use of force -- the same "immoral" coercive situation for which anarchists denounce governments.

Multiple jurisdictions can and have existed without the need for a "final arbiter". It’s important to note that jurisdictions aren’t always geographical in nature. Randy Barnett addresses Bidinotto’s confusion-

"Courts and judges have traditionally found peaceful ways to resolve the two questions most likely to lead to conflict when multiple legal jurisdictions exist: Which court system is to hear the case when more than one might do so? And which law is to be applied when more than one law might be applied? Much of the court-made law of ‘civil procedure’ addresses the first question, and an entire body of law called the 'conflict of laws' has arisen spontaneously (that is, it was not imposed by highest authority) to provide a means of resolving the second of these two questions."

He goes on to say-

"The argument that we need court systems with geography-based jurisdictional monopolies does not stop at the border of a nation-state. Any such argument suggests the need for a single world court system with one Super-Supreme Court to decide international disputes and its own army to enforce its decisions. After all, the logic of the argument against a competitive legal order applies with equal force to autonomous nations."

Wouldn't 2(a) or (b) amount to "unlimited majority rule," or "might makes right"? In the final analysis, no one would be allowed to ignore or secede from the verdict imposed by the majority of agencies. If so, then what becomes of the alleged "right to ignore the state," the "right to secede," or the "right not to delegate away one's personal "right of retaliation"? Also, what becomes of the minority agencies which disagree with the majority -- or to any lone individual who is not represented by any agency? Where is "consumer sovereignty"?

In sum: Either you have no final arbiter to enforce verdicts, or you do.

In an AC society, jurisdictions would overlap and laws would conflict as they do today between counties, states, and countries. Assuming Bidinotto doesn’t support a planetary government, the necessity for a "final arbiter" is irrelevant because overlapping peaceful jurisdictions and conflicting laws have always existed without the necessity for war. (which governments are predominately responsible for).

If you have no final arbiter, your de facto pacifism gives society's thugs a carte blanche -- which means society will be run by brute force and thugs -- which is immoral.

AC institutions will have the power and right to use force against criminals. AC institutions will not have the right to aggress peaceful individuals just as Bidinotto's monopoly government won't have the right to aggress peaceful individuals. Under AC, individuals will have the right to overthrow corrupt legal institutions. It's unclear, besides ineffectual voting (which historically ensures statism), what mechanism people will have to overthrow oppression under the governments Bidinotto supports.

If you do establish some final arbiter, with the power to enforce its verdicts against all "competitors," then you have -- voila! -- a final "legal monopoly" on the proper use of force... which anarchists declare to be immoral.

If Bidinotto means criminal "competitors", then it is not immoral to crush the competition. However, it is immoral to aggress just legal institutions in separate jurisdictions (whether geographical or not). Smith makes an important distinction-

"A system of objective justice enables us to
discriminate between the initiation of force and the retaliatory use of
force, thereby providing a rational method of assessing any person, agency
or government which claims to use legitimate violence. Furthermore, a
system of objective justice defines and sanctions the use of defensive
violence, which has traditionally been expressed in libertarian theory as
the rights of resistance and revolution.

These rights, which stem from the individual right of self-defense, can
justify the suppression of any agency or government that seeks to impose an
unjust legal system. And though this suppression of ‘competition’ may
sometimes bear a superficial resemblance to the sovereign suppression of
all competition (whether just or unjust), this should not mislead
Objectivists and libertarians into supposing that these two actions - one
by a sovereign government, the other by a private justice agency - are
based on the same mode of justification.

One (suppression by a sovereign government) is rooted in political
subjectivism (or relativism), and has no relationship to the justice or
injustice of the victimized agency. The other (suppression by a justice
agency) is rooted in political objectivism, and is confined solely the
suppression of unjust agencies and governments. The former power is
justified by political sovereignty, a right that cannot be reduced to the
rights of individuals. The latter power is justified by the right of
self-defense, a right that is possessed equally by every individual and can
be delegated (or not) to a specialized agency. The former theory leads
necessarily to absolutism and cannot be reconciled with consent. The latter
theory generates agencies whose power is specifically limited by the
consensual delegation of rights by individuals."

This is critical because Bidinotto doesn’t seem to be aware of what constitutes a traditional monopoly government, which is a government that is allowed to exist irrespective of whether it is just or not.

Smith continues-

"The important point here is the reasoning behind this ‘logic of sovereignty
argument,’ as it is sometimes called. This argument exerted considerable
influence after 1576, when Jean Bodin used it to defend absolute monarchy.
It was also used for the same purpose in the seventeenth century by Sir
Robert Filmer (Locke's dead adversary) and Thomas Hobbes.

It is scarcely accidental that the logic of sovereignty argument was a
favorite among the defenders of absolutism, and was vigorously opposed by
John Locke and other champions of limited government. For consider: If the
sovereign (whether one man or group of men) is the final arbiter in all
matters pertaining to justice, then how can the sovereign himself be held
accountable for committing acts of injustice? The absolutists insisted that
he cannot be so judged by any human authority; the sovereign was
accountable to ‘none but God.’

Sovereign power, in this view, must be absolute (i.e., unconditional),
because by definition there is no higher authority than the sovereign
himself. The sovereign is therefore above the law, not under it, which
means that there can exist no rights of resistance and revolution by the
people. To advocate a ‘divided sovereignty,’ according to Filmer, Hobbes
and other absolutists, is to advocate anarchy.

I cannot go into the various ways that Locke and other minarchists tried to
get around this logic of sovereignty argument, but I think the absolutists
had the stronger philosophical case. Either a government has sovereign
power, or it doesn't. Either a government has the final authority to render
and execute legal decisions, or it doesn't. Sovereignty is an
all-or-nothing affair. And if this is true, then no person has a right to
resist the sovereign, however unjust his actions may appear. For who is to
decide whether a law is unjust, if not the sovereign himself? Who is to
decide whether a right has been violated, if not a sovereign government in
its role as final arbiter?

In any dispute between a sovereign government and its subjects, the
government itself must decide who is right; and, as Locke suggested, the
sovereign, like everyone else, is likely to be biased in his own favor. I
would therefore like to know how those Objectivists who use the logic of
sovereignty argument as a weapon against anarchism can avoid sliding down
the slippery slope into absolutism.

If I am arrested for smoking pot or for reading a prohibited book (say,
ATLAS SHRUGGED) do I have a right forcibly to resist my incarceration?

If you say ‘no,’ then you are defending absolutism. If you say ‘yes,’ then
what happened to the sovereign power of government to render final
decisions in matters of law? -- for in resisting the government I am
clearly acting as judge in my own case.

Ayn Rand somewhere says that a government becomes tyrannical when it
attempts to suppress freedom of speech and press, but who is to decide when
this line has been crossed, if not the sovereign government? Surely we
can't have crazy people like Ayn Rand running around condemning some laws
as unjust and calling for disobedience, because this will lead to anarchy.
We cannot preach sovereignty when it suits our purpose, and then oppose it
when we don't like particular laws, for this undermines the rationale of
sovereignty itself -- i.e., that legal matters cannot be left to the
discretion of individuals. The doctrine of natural rights, as foes of
consent theory repeatedly pointed out, is inherently anarchistic. Burke
called natural rights ‘a digest of anarchy,’ while Bentham castigated them
as ‘anarchical fallacies.’

If at any point Objectivists are willing to admit that individuals have the
right to resist an unjust law or overthrow a despotic government, then they
are conceding the basic premise of anarchism: namely, that true sovereignty
resides in each individual, who has the right to assess the justice of a
particular law, procedure or government."

Anarchists can't evade this dilemma by making excursions to ancient Iceland or to science-fiction Utopias of the future. The fact that the Icelandic model didn't last, ought to tell us something about the viability of any science-fiction model of the future.

The anarcho-capitalist can say in a similar confident fashion, "the fact that limited government didn’t last, ought to tell us something about the viability of government staying limited."

So, who would really rule the anarcho-capitalist utopia? The same guys who rule it now. They would be elevated by the same popular constituency that now elects them. The only difference would be is that under anarcho-capitalism, there'd be no institutional limits on their behavior.

The anarchist can reply that there is no institutional mechanism to keep concentrated power limited despite the good intentions of a piece of paper.

In fact, every accusation anarchists raise against government would apply in spades against private "protection agencies."

Every fearful accusation against anarchism applies to monopoly governments as well especially from a historical point of view.

The answer to unlimited government is not the "unlimited democracy" of the Misesian marketplace. Mises knew better (read his Bureaucracy). But anarchist rationalists, like Rothbard, haven't yet figured out that "force" is not just like any other good or service on the marketplace.

* * *

The anarcho-capitalist position against a "monopoly government" is, at root, a rejection of the idea of any final arbiter on the use of force in society. He calls that arbiter "coercive," because it does not allow one who disagrees with its final verdict, or its procedures, or its personnel, to exercise an unrestricted, unilateral "right" to secede from the process, or to impose his own subjective will.

False. Anarchists support the right to use force against those who are criminals.

Put another way: the anarcho-capitalist position amounts to the demand that one's own use of force be immune from the moral evaluation and response of others. It is a demand for the right to secede from the judgments of other people concerning the validity of one's own use of force. It is a denial that there is a basic need to subject any use of force to objective -- that is, socially demonstrable -- standards.

How Bidinotto comes to this conclusion is unclear because AC writers such as Rothbard and Barnett certainly support the use of force against criminals.

No, force isn't like any other "good": by its nature, it poses unique hazards to the lives, rights and well-being of the innocent. When someone uses force against another, it's rarely self-evident who is the victim, and who the victimizer -- who is attacking, and who is defending. Yet maintaining a functioning society requires that the rest of us determine who is at fault, so that our rights will be protected and justice maintained. Thus, force always must be subject to outside constraint -- and its use must be subjected to an impartial, objective, ex post facto process of social judgment. That's the purpose of laws, courts and public trials, i.e., of government.

Bidinotto is once again making the mistake that government creates law, but this is false. Many libertarian writers such as Benson, Hayek, and Friedman have discussed law that emerged from and flourished in stateless societies. Moreover, an anarcho-capitalist society would include courts, police and prisons, which were historically private. Bruce Benson writes-

"If we look to history, we find that rather than the emphasis on government inputs to and dominance over crime control that we see today, the norm is completely or nearly completely private production of policing, prosecution, and punishment. Public police forces did not develop until the middle of the nineteenth century in the US and Great Britain, and crime victims served as prosecutors in England until almost the turn of the century. Publicly financed and operate prisons are also a relatively recent development, arising in England near the end of the eighteenth century and in the US even later."

The basic premise of anarcho-capitalism is false. There is no such thing as the "right" to employ force unilaterally -- then to remain immune from the requirement to publicly, objectively justify that use of force. No such right exists. So it is no "violation of rights" to require individuals to submit to an objective process to justify, publicly, their uses of force -- i.e., to submit to governmental authority.

False. Anarcho-capitalists don’t support the right to use force "unilaterally" while remaining immune from justifiable force.

That, incidentally, is why these corollaries also apply:

1. There is no such thing as a subjective "right of retaliation" -- i.e., an arbitrary, after-the-fact right to use force against a victimizer. (At least, not so long as there is an organized governmental alternative.) A key function of government is to subject the retaliatory use of force to the moral constraints of proportionality -- something no victim, in the heat of passion, can be relied upon to do. So while one retains a right of personal self-defense (meaning: the right to respond forcefully in immediate defense of one's life and values against aggression), after-the-fact forceful responses are illegitimate, and must be left to an objective, impartial agency. Why? Because society has no way of knowing if an individual's "retaliation" may actually be nothing more than rationalized or disguised aggression.

Again, anarcho-capitalists support courts to resolve conflicts among individuals, and private dispute resolution was once the norm until government stepped resulting in poor efficiency.

2. There is no such thing as the "right" to remain immune from court subpoena, pretrial arrest and/or detention, either.

Anarcho-capitalists have said that court subpoenas are an initiation of force against someone who is "presumed innocent," forcing him to attend a trial before he has been found guilty of anything. Some have argued, on the same grounds, that it is a violation of rights to arrest or detain a criminal suspect before his trial.

Let's leave aside the absurdity of trials without witnesses and defendants, or of accused murderers who, before trial, wave bye- bye to helpless anarcho-capitalist judges and book flights to Rio. Consider the conceptual issues.

The "legal presumption of innocence" is a formal aspect of a trial -- a legal status accorded anyone charged with an offense under the law. It is not the same as an assumption about the defendant's metaphysical status. It is only an epistemological presumption -- that is, a formal prerequisite to an objective, fact-finding procedure. It applies even to confessed criminals, or to those who commit crimes on national television (like President Reagan's would-be assassin). As a legal formality, it thus presupposes the validity of the legal system and the trial process itself. Hence, it is logically inconsistent to claim its protection as a formal legal status, while denying the validity of the very legal system from which that status arises.

The issue of subpoena power does not undermine anarcho-capitalism in favor of monopoly government. Both systems suffer from imperfect information and no one can be absolutely sure in regards to guilt or innocence. The fundamental question still remains what political system is morally justified- anarcho-capitalism where governing agencies have no special rights and privileges, or a traditional monopoly government that is allowed to flourish regardless of whether it is just or not?

Rand says, "the government, as such, has no rights except the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific purpose."

The claimed "rights" of retaliation, and immunity from subpoena (or arrest), are simply declarations of immunity from any requirement to justify one's use of force to others. But there is NO "right" to immunity from evaluation -- not when the very issue being judged at trial is whether or not rights have been violated.

Obviously anarcho-capitalists aren’t in favor of being immune from evaluation or else they wouldn’t spend so much time discussing police, prisons and courts.

This point goes back to Smith’s example about being arrested for smoking pot and reading an illegal book. Let’s say Bidinotto is arrested for reading a book that has been forbidden by a government. Would Bidinotto willingly allow himself to be subpoenaed if he knew it was certain that he would be imprisoned for 20 years based on others that were arrested for the same "crime"? If he resists, is he claiming the right to be immune from evaluation?

Rothbard prudently writes, "In fact, except in those cases where the criminal has been caught red-handed and where a certain presumption of guilt therefore exists, it is impossible to justify any imprisonment before conviction, let alone before trial. And even when someone is caught red-handed, there is an important reform that needs to be instituted to keep the system honest: subjecting the police and the other authorities to the same law as anyone else…exempting the authorities from that law gives them the license to commit continual aggression."

Also, Bruce Benson finds that in many non-governmental societies there are "strong incentives to yield to prescribed punishment when guilty of an offence due to the reciprocally established threat of social ostracism", so there's evidence that a lack of unlimited subpoena power won't cause a political catastrophe.

Society cannot remain agnostic about such events; it must decide them. No one can claim any right to ignore the demands of others that he submit to a process of objective, public evaluation. That is what government is all about. That's why it must serve as a final arbiter. And because we're not ghosts, but occupy space, that's also why it must impose those final verdicts over a defined geographical area.

It is unclear what Bidinotto means by defined by geographic area. Is the government he supports financed voluntarily? Do individuals have the right to opt out and implement an alternative just legal institution to protect rights when the institutionalized aggression occurs? If so, then Bidinotto’s "government" is nothing more than an anarchist institution. If not, then he needs to be more precise in defining specific geographic boundaries and powers that his government is limited to.

2. Finally, the Constitution is not any sort of "contract" requiring anyone's signature -- because it's binding, not on the people, but on the government itself. It wasn't established to limit the people; it was established to limit government. It is a document setting up a system by which individual rights will be protected, even from government itself.

If I sign a piece of paper claiming legal jurisdiction over Bidinotto regardless of his consent, is this valid because of my good intentions?

Lysander Spooner's critique of the Constitution thus attacks a straw man. With remarkably few inconsistencies, the Constitution didn't impose coercive demands on the citizens, or authorize the government to violate their rights. Rather, it ordered its own agents to protect the peoples' rights, while generally letting them free to go about their business. What's so intrinsically immoral and coercive about this? What requires personal signatures? (I credit this argument to my late friend, Sheldon Wasserman.)

Bidinotto’s attack on Lysander Spooner is the straw man. Spooner responds to the phrase in the constitution-

We, the people of the United States (that is, the people then existing in the United States), in order to form a more perfect union, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Spooner-

"Suppose an agreement were entered into, in this form: We, the people of Boston, agree to maintain a fort on Governor's Island, to protect ourselves and our posterity against invasion. This agreement, as an agreement, would clearly bind nobody but the people then existing. Secondly, it would assert no right, power, or disposition, on their part, to compel their ‘posterity’ to maintain such a fort. It would only indicate that the supposed welfare of their posterity was one of the motives that induced the original parties to enter into the agreement.

When a man says he is building a house for himself and his posterity, he does not mean to be understood as saying that he has any thought of binding them, nor is it to be inferred that he is so foolish as to imagine that he has any right or power to bind them, to live in it. So far as they are concerned, he only means to be understood as saying that his hopes and motives, in building it, are that they, or at least some of them, may find it for their happiness to live in it.

So when a man says he is planting a tree for himself and his posterity, he does not mean to be understood as saying that he has any thought of compelling them, nor is it to be inferred that he is such a simpleton as to imagine that he has any right or power to compel them, to eat the fruit. So far as they are concerned, he only means to say that his hopes and motives, in planting the tree, are that its fruit may be agreeable to them.

So it was with those who originally adopted the Constitution. Whatever may have been their personal intentions, the legal meaning of their language, so far as their ‘posterity’ was concerned, simply was, that their hopes and motives, in entering into the agreement, were that it might prove useful and acceptable to their posterity; that it might promote their union, safety, tranquility, and welfare; and that it might tend ‘to secure to them the blessings of liberty.’ The language does not assert nor at all imply, any right, power, or disposition, on the part of the original parties to the agreement, to compel their ‘posterity’ to live under it. If they had intended to bind their posterity to live under it, they should have said that their object was, not ‘to secure to them the blessings of liberty,’ but to make slaves of them; for if their ‘posterity’ are bound to live under it, they are nothing less than the slaves of their foolish, tyrannical, and dead grandfathers."

Government does not inherently contradict actual individual rights.

It does if it coercively suppresses alternative just legal institutions, and is allowed to remain despite whether it protects or not.

The only "contradictions" rest in the minds of those who want recognition of their personal liberty, while demolishing the only means of rationally determining when individual rights have been violated. Or for doing anything about it.

If the government is funded consensually and has no special right to exist when it becomes corrupt, there will be no contradictions.

* * *

The whole point of a single, constitutionally limited government is to limit force and coercion -- by private parties, and by the government itself.

It should be clear by now that a governmental institution whose powers are derived from the consent of the governed must have certain characteristics for it to be legitimate. Bidinottos' good intentions won't suffice.

Rand says, "the moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve 'the common good'...The moral justification of capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man's rational nature, that it protects man's survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is justice."

"The precondition of a civilized society is the barring of physical force from social relationships. ... In a civilized society force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use."

"The basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may initiate the use of physical force against others...the government is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of the citizens; it means that the government as such has no rights except the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific purpose."

"In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary...they can deal with one another in terms of and by means of reason, I.e., by means of discussion, persuasion, and contractual agreement, by voluntary choice to mutual benefit."

"Without property rights, there is no way to solve or to avoid a hopeless chaos of clashing views, interests, demands, desires, and whims." (VOS)

From these passages emerges a set of criteria that may be used to judge whether a "government" is legitimate or not. Notice she didn't focus on secondary economic details concerning her political ideal. Objectivist critics of anarchism who claim it's unstable are ignoring the essential point and avoiding Rand's criteria of a legitimate government.

Private property, non-aggression, and voluntary consent are the three essential concepts that must be included for the government to be morally justified. If not, then Rand says, "if a province wants to secede from a dictatorship, or even from a mixed economy, in order to establish a free country-it has the right to do so."

Rand's ideal government requires a difficult standard for it to be morally legitimate, but she does argue for this standard nonetheless, and the government she argues for meets the requirements of legitimate anarcho-capitalist governing institutions. Either they are consensual and protect rights, or they are illegitimate entities that can be overthrown at anytime.

Ayn Rand argued that government was a means of subjecting might to morality. That's not a mere social luxury; it's a basic requirement of human survival. In any society, human life and well-being mandates that there be a set of objective procedures to distinguish aggression from self-defense, and some way of imposing the final verdicts upon both victimizers and victims. It would be impossible for individuals to pursue self- interest within a social context if such determinations were never made -- or made arbitrarily -- or never enforced.

Irrelevant since Bidinotto seems to be implying that an AC society will lack coercive legal mechanisms.

Yet that's what anarcho-capitalism would give us. It posits "competition" in the use of force, but more: "competition" in defining the rightful uses of force. To whom must these competing "protection agencies" ultimately answer? To what standard are their own actions and verdicts to be held? How can there be any, if a final arbiter (by definition, holding a legal monopoly on retaliatory force) is "inherently immoral," as Harris, Starr et al. argue?

As long as this "legal monopoly on force" is morally legitimate, then the right to suppress aggression and punish criminals will exist. The standard AC governing agencies will be accountable to is the same standard the Bidinotto's monopoly governments are to- presumably objective morality.

Mr. Harris says that "Outlawing alternative protection services if such services respect individual rights must be itself an act of coercion and thus immoral." But whose definition of rights? Whose definition of coercion? Whose morality? It is not "protection," but precisely these definitions that anarcho- capitalists would leave to the Forces of Supply and Demand.

Private protection agencies aren’t magically legitimate in the same obvious way that governments aren’t magically legitimate. When Bidinotto asks these questions, is he implying the answer is government? Any novice reader of history learns that monopoly government has been disastrous in the area of non-aggression, and certainly has a poor track record defending and defining what rights are. Bidinotto conveniently ignores the violence governments have committed throughout history when it suits his purpose and then assumes government is ideal for rights protection when it suits another purpose. Back to a double standard. If Bidinotto can assume that his government will be limited to and vigilant in protecting rights, then anarchists can assume the same thing. If Bidinotto claims that AC agencies will do a poor job at protecting rights based on economic reasoning, then anarcho-capitalists say with strong confidence that governments will similarly do a poor job at rights protection.

Hence the problem with the rationalistic argument for anarcho- capitalism begins with its opening premises: with the definitions of terms such as "force," "coercion," "rights," "liberty," "aggressor," "protection," "retaliation," "defense," etc. Anarchists simply deduce away from these concepts, which remain as floating abstractions in everyone's minds. We all think we mean the same things by them. But the contextual consideration omitted by the anarchists is that each of these terms acquires different meanings depending on the philosophy of the interpreter.

Bidinotto can deny AC writers discuss clear definitions of these words but the evidence is there for anyone concerned.

And at last count, there are about 5.5 billion interpreters on our planet.

Irrelevant. A monopoly government is just as capable, if not more so, of screwing up a proper interpretation as a private agency is.

There's another problem with his statement. A limited government does not outlaw "protective services": witness private bodyguards, security firms, etc. To be more precise, government (1) regulates the use of force by others, including "protective agencies," and (2) serves as the final arbiter in disputes over the use of force. It is over these functions alone that truly limited government declares a monopoly, and does not allow "competition."

Irrelevant. The essential question is the moral legitimacy of the agency that has jurisdiction, and a government that coerces others from exercising the same activities as itself, is guilty of criminal aggression.

Anarcho-capitalists declare this coercive ban on "competition" is immoral. In truth, what the anarcho-capitalist objects to is not government, but the fact that gives rise to the need for one: the need for outside, impartial observers to objectively evaluate and control the uses of force in society.

To re-iterate, "competition" is the result of individuals having the right to voluntarily consent to just legal institutions that will protect their rights efficiently. If Bidinotto objects to this, then he supports unlimited government power that must exist despite whether it is just or not.

In sum, what the anarcho-capitalist argument omits are the following vital contextual considerations that attend any use of force in society:

that -- as a matter of individual survival in society -- one's use of force must be judged and evaluated by everyone else in society, by an objective procedure, in order to distinguish the aggressor from the victim (which is rarely self-evident);

That’s what courts are for.

that, at some point, a final verdict by society on the use of force must be objectively rendered through that process, and

That’s what courts are for.

that this final verdict must, at last, be imposed and enforced.

That’s what courts, police and prisons are for, so Bidinotto is attacking a strawman if he thinks this is an argument against AC. AC writers strongly support these institutions and note government involvement in these areas is not the historical norm.

To let "the market" pick a final arbiter on the proper uses of force is to leave it to the majority of consumers, whose "sovereignty" regarding the employment of force is to be unlimited.

Assuming Bidinotto agrees with Rand’s unorthodox idea of a government funded voluntarily by property owners, it’s strange to think this isn’t a "market" situation. How is it not a market situation if not for the fact that willing participants pay for it voluntarily and have the right to replace unjust agencies?

Leaving it all to "the market" means: "to the whims of whichever individual or group has enough money to dominate those who don't." (Remember: this is competition over the meaning and use of force that we're talking about, not competition in the provision of widgets.)

Back to a double standard again. The same criticism applies to monopoly governments. "Leaving all to the ‘government’ means: ‘to the whims of whichever group has enough power to dominate those who don’t."

It means, in practice, guns -- or enough cash to buy the gunmen. Can one imagine what "competing protection agencies" would do to non-conforming individuals in any geographic area dominated by, say, racist skinheads? by Marxists? by rabid fundamentalists?

Can you imagine what "monopoly governments" would do to individuals in a geographic area? There’s no need to imagine because approximately 270 million people this century (excluding war) have been murdered by concentrated monopoly governmental power. Bidinotto might object by saying he is referring to "his" proper government that wouldn't kill, but the anarchist can say the same thing about thier governing institutions.

You don't have to: watch the TV news. As some astute commentators have already suggested, we already have "anarcho-capitalism," replete with thriving "competing protection agencies" -- in Bosnia, Somalia, Beirut, Northern Ireland, South Africa and scores of other other anarcho-capitalist paradises -- including American inner cities.

If anarchism is defined as, "a political theory holding all forms of government authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups"(Websters), then these countries are examples clearly contrary to anarchism.

Take the single issue of abortion. Each side is adamantly convinced that it is defending innocent life and inalienable rights against aggression and coercion. So, my anarchist friends, have your wish: let's remove our "monopoly government" from the picture. Let these factions "compete" in the "marketplace" for "protection." Let each proceed with its own definition and interpretation of "rights" and "force" and "aggression" and "coercion" and "murder." And let each, with moral intransigence, proceed to enforce its own verdicts, answerable to no higher authority. Bring on the market competition!

Issues such as abortion, capital punishment, speed limits, rights of children, etc. are issues that are open to interpretation (objectivists can’t even come to a consensus), and peaceful compromise can be achieved as long as a monopoly government isn’t there to coerce individuals who might disagree on issues that don’t have clear answers.

To reply, "Oh no, that's not what we mean," is simply to duck the issue: even anarchists, libertarians and free marketers can't define or agree upon what "we" mean.

In an essay, "What Is Freedom For?", published in A Man of Principle: Essays in Honor of Hans F. Sennholz (Grove City College, 1992), I detailed how even self-styled libertarians were in hopeless disagreement over these basic, defining issues. E. g., "libertarians" cannot even agree on what the term "libertarian" means.

Then how is a government supposed to come to a consensus? Is Bidinotto implying that only group of objectivist philosopher kings run the government and decide all moral issues? Is it less dangerous to give individuals who disagree unlimited monopoly power in the form of a centralized government? The answer should be obvious.

Within the "libertarian" universe we have Ron Paul (a strong anti-abortionist) vs. Wendy McElroy (a pro-choice feminist) vs. Russell Means (a Indian activist and former L. P. promenenti, with a penchant for shooting at the police) vs. the late libertarian Robert LeFevre (a pacifist who believed that theft transferred property rights to the thief, and that any retaliation or forcible self-defense violated the thief's "rights!"). We have had Ludwig von Mises, a utilitarian who endorsed both taxation and conscription, and Murray Rothbard, who denounces both. I have free-market friends who champion "animal rights," and others who champion environmentalism, while I've taken the opposite side in both cases.

Tell me, please: how do we get all these folks together when, under anarcho-capitalism, each would be writing checks to a different agency to enforce his own "sovereign" notions of "rights," "justice" and "liberty?"

Add to the list all the communists and socialists that exist on this planet and it becomes even clearer that a government staying limited is a utopian fantasy as Rothbard once pointed out. From a pragmatic standpoint, the best thing to do is to decentralize power as much as possible. Randy Barnett says-

"To better understand the case for a non-monopolistic legal order and the deficiencies of a monopolistic system, posit what most people fear would happen if a unitary international ‘one-world’ court system and police force were adopted. The same fears should apply with equal force to a national monopoly court system, except for the fact that some people have the ability to flee if a single country becomes too tyrannical. The abolition of geography-based jurisdictional monopolies would simply strengthen the constraints on tyranny by making alternative legal systems available without leaving home.

In sum, conflicts between court systems whose jurisdictions geographically overlap present no huge practical problem. It is more reasonable to expect a never-ending series of ‘little’ problems around the edges. Information must be shared; duplicated efforts avoided; minor conflicts settled amicably; and profit margins preserved. As with any other organization, the normal problems confronting business and political rivals who must constantly strike a balance between competition and cooperation would have to be managed."

And what would a "free" society look like? Polls of Libertarian Party members, of ISIL members, and of the readers of libertarian magazines show profound splits among "libertarians" over a wide range of issues, from abortion to immigration to drugs to foreign policy. For instance: Should kids be allowed free access and use of drugs? Should sex between adults and young children be allowed? Should kids be freed from the control of their parents, and should they be permitted to walk out at whim? If yes in each case, should parents who interfere be stopped -- by deadly force, if necessary?

Believe it or not, there are "free marketers" who answer "yes" to each question. Well, what is their status as minority thinkers under "anarcho-capitalism"? Since the majority is likely to find their views on "kids' rights" abhorrent, whose interpretation of "rights" will the majority of protection agencies be likely to enforce -- and against whom?

The fact that bad things can happen in no way makes monopoly government preferable. In fact, if we look to history, we find that concentrated monopoly power tends to aggravate the negatives of human nature.

Ah, you see, even anarcho-capitalism may not look at all like what some anarcho-capitalists envision. Given current cultural attitudes, in fact, it may be considerably more repressive than the status quo.

To bring this even closer to home, consider the heated debates over fundamental issues (like this one) that characterize this forum. [The forum referred to is an online discussion group, the Moderated Discussion of the Objectivist Philosophy mail list.] How many of you would trust all the other participants to interpret "rights" for you? Even the presumably "like-minded" people on this list can't seem to agree whether Detroit street gangs are merely sociopathic thugs (Bidinotto's view), or unfairly "vilified and scape-goated groups" (Tim Starr's apparent view...) -- whether they rob, beat and kill "because they like it" (Bidinotto's view, echoing Dirty Harry), or because the poor lads are rebellious, anti-state "heroes," reacting "defensively" to the fascistic forces behind the War on Drugs (libertarian Prof. Walter Block's view).

And what if a government decides to incarcerate hundreds of thousands of non-criminals each year? (drug users and tax evaders), or worse, decides to murder millions of individuals as occurred in China, The Soviet Union, and Germany.

Monopoly governments are champion aggressors compared to street thugs and gangs.

And if we brilliant, free-market luminaries can't agree on the philosophical source and interpretation of such basic concepts as "aggression" and "self-defense," then what about mere ordinary mortals? If even "we" can't agree on who's the aggressor and who's the victim, how can we expect the millions of Unwashed (who lack our clever intellectual insights and peerless moral integrity) to figure it all out?

Granted: there are many, many problems involved in limiting government to its proper role of being a protector rather than violator of individual rights. There are big problems in staffing and funding such an institution in ways that don't contradict its end. These problems arise largely because there is no social consensus over the philosophy to underpin government.

Anarcho-capitalists such as Randy Barnett and Murray Rothbard defend philosophical underpinnings in regards to the governing institutions that they support so Bidinotto is attacking a strawman. If Bidinotto assumes a social philosophical consensus is needed for such problems to be resolved, he will find good company with AC writers such as Rothbard and Barnett who strongly support peace and individual rights.

For the same reason, though, expecting today's voters -- who flirted with Ross and George, and then chose Billary -- to be magically be transformed into "rationally self-interested consumers" who, "voting with dollars," will create private "security" firms that will all perfectly understand and interpret "rights" and "liberty," implementing these principles in peaceful harmony, is not simply beyond belief; it is beneath belief.

Immaterial. The relevant question is the moral legitimacy ("standards by which we can judge the legitimacy of a particular government" as Smith says) of the legal institutions that act on behalf of individuals, not the fact that anarcho-capitalism and limited objectivist government is unlikely.

Yes, creating and maintaining a truly limited government is a huge problem.

Perhaps "beneath belief"?

But that problem is not solved by simply throwing all definitions and uses of force in society onto a free-market auction block.

So, to borrow from Patrick Henry: I know not what course others may take; but as for me, I'll take my chances trying to create or reform one agency, rather than a host of "competitors," each backed by the likes of The 700 Club, the Islamic Jihad, good-ol'- boy bigots, Detroit street thugs, South L. A. rioters, graying New Dealers, animal rights activists, welfare rights activists, LaRouchies, Greenies, the GOP, the Democrats, United We Stand, the NRA, the Black Muslims, Libertarians for Life, the Association of Libertarian Feminists, atheists, Christian Scientists and god only knows.

Monopoly governments and the unlimited sovereign power that sustains them have murdered millions of more people than these groups could and ever will do. An attempt at reform is like going one on one with Jordan. Yes, you might get lucky and score a few points from time to time, but in the end a new game and opponent is needed if you're to have a chance. As Rothbard eloquently said-

"In this century, the human race faces, once again, the virulent reign of the State-of the State now armed with the fruits of man's creative powers, confiscated and perverted to its own aims. The last few centuries were times when men tried to place constitutional and other limits on the State, only to find that such limits, as with all other attempts, have failed. Of all the numerous forms that governments have taken over the centuries, of all the concepts and institutions that have been tried, none has succeeded in keeping the State in check. The problem of the State is evidently as far from solution as ever. Perhaps new paths of inquiry must be explored, if the successful, final solution of the State question is ever to be attained."