Moral Consequence of Minarchism

By
Mitchell Gray

Advocates of limited government tell us there must be some level of state interference in our lives if for nothing else than to ward off any potential invaders to our rights. Most, however, will tell us that it is fine for the state to issue money, provide police protection and courts, armies and even regulate some parts of the economy for the public good. But any interventions in the lives of ordinary people must always be limited in scope and focused on protecting rights not violating them. That is the mantra of minarchist: We need governments to ensure our rights are being protected. We’ll just ignore the overwhelming body of evidence collected throughout mankind’s history that shows it is the state that is the single largest violator of basic human rights and not the protector of them. But ignoring all of the atrocities and rights violations the state has committed over the course of human history we are still faced with a glaring moral problem.

Minarchist will usually agree that to steal is to violate the property rights of another and rightly the robber should be punished for his crimes. They will usually appeal to the authority of the state to see that the criminal is captured, prosecuted and punished. Why, nothing else but the state can ever do anything like that! We must have the state if for nothing else than to lock up criminals. Yet here we find our moral hypocrisy in minarchism: If private theft is illegal then why is government theft lawful? Justice, to be blind, must apply the same principles and punishments equally to everyone no matter their wealth or status. Justice can only see the right and wrong, black and white and nothing else.

The state is always funded by coercive force, that is, using state power to confiscate the wealth of its subjects in a practice known as taxation. If states were voluntarily funded through charitable donations the state would soon collapse because of financial insolvency. Why would you voluntarily give your money to a bunch of bureaucrats when you could use it to buy food, clothing, a new house or car or maybe take a vacation? Proponents of limited government will say that taxes are required, that it is your duty to pay them, that what taxes you pay is your “fair share” for the maintenance of these vital programs (police, courts, prisons, roads, etc.). But what if I don’t want to pay those taxes? It’s all fine and good for you to pay them if you really wanted these services and actually believed it was your duty to pay your “fair share” but what of those people that don’t feel the same way? Why are they to be to forced to pay their “fair share” of taxes if those taxes go to fund programs and services they don’t agree with or want?

We come to the sticky problem for minarchist that taxation is theft. If you take from me without my consent there is no other word for it than theft and that is exactly what taxes are to millions of people in this country. The moral implications of this is are thus: If it is lawful for the state to steal my money then it is equally lawful for me to steal your money. Justice, assuming that it should treat everyone equally, must recognize that if the state is allowed to steal money from people by force or the treat of force then I must also be allowed to use force or threaten to use force to take money from anyone I so please. Along the same line I would also have the right to imprison anyone I wanted who did not hand over their money and if they resisted to hard I would have the right to shoot them dead without fear of prosecution for murder. After all, is this not what the state does to those who do not pay their taxes? Indeed, according to the minarchist logic I should be allowed to do just that.

Morally we must suppose that since theft is a violation of a persons property rights then any violators of those rights, up to and including the state, must be held liable for their actions. Failure to provide equal footing and protection for all people under the law undermines the whole concept of a free society which minarchist attempt to create with a limited state to rule over them.

The only moral solution is that the state cannot be allowed to exist because it violates the non-aggression axiom that all libertarians abide by (or at least should). State coercion and theft is just as unlawful and just as much a violation of property rights as private theft. If we allow state theft (taxation) to continue then it is only fair that all laws regarding private theft, and even the imprisonment or murder of those who refuse to be robbed, must be overturned. But that creates another moral issue in that no one has the right to use coercive force against another or violate their property rights unless it is in self-defense. So we are at a crossroads. Either we must throw out the whole philosophical and moral principles which define libertarianism (the non-aggression principle) or we must throw out the concept of the state. We cannot have it both ways. As the Tannehill’s point out in their book The Market for Liberty to “advocate government is to advocate slavery. To advocate government is to put oneself in the ridiculous position of advocating limited slavery.” (The Market for Liberty, p. 35.)

Minarchism cannot produce a free society because it allows for a state which violates the property rights of all people through the coercive act of taxation – theft on a massive scale. To have a truly free society we must attack the common enemy of all men – the very existence of the state itself. Governments are the single largest violators of human rights and even the Constitution of the United States, which was the most ambitious attempts by men to restrain the hands of a “limited government”, has proven to be a failure when it comes to protecting the rights of man. It is important to adopt a philosophy of peace instead of violence. We cannot have a peaceful philosophy so long as minarchist see fit to endorse the state and its coercive actions, such as taxation.