Libertarian perspectives on revolution
Encyclopedia
Libertarian perspectives on revolution include the disparate views held by various libertarians
on the desirability of creating fundamental change in power or organizational structures in a relatively short time. Libertarian revolutionary goals often include dissolution of current states
and even the abolition of all states.
, after noting that convincing the ruling groups, and the recipients of their largesse, of their own iniquity would be almost impossible in practice, opines:
Samuel Edward Konkin III
, who founded Agorism
, and Wally Conger wrote:
The Libertarian Party, U.S.
platform quotes the U.S. Declaration of Independence in the “Self-determination” plank of its platform: "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of individual liberty, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to agree to such new governance as to them shall seem most likely to protect their liberty."
Lew Rockwell
states that libertarianism is a revolutionary movement and raises the example of the American Revolution
, asking, "[w]ho writing about politics today might have joined the founding fathers in their conspiracy to overthrow imperial rule? The question is an important one because this event, more than any other in our history, embodies the core of the American political idea, that men are entitled to liberty from despots. This idea, the founders believed, ought to be acted upon by real people against really existing governments."
Author Pierre Lemieux
writes: "Could we say that the more powerless the tyrant, the less likely it is that the revolution will devolve into the destruction of all social authorities? If so, it would mean that a libertarian revolution now would be much less dangerous than a revolution when tyranny has become unbearable. Better to make the revolution when it does not have to be devastating; better to do it sooner than later."
Professor Bruce L. Benson
writes about the interaction of rebellion and state power: "Unfortunately, once an economy becomes strong, the opportunity costs of rebellion and other efforts to constrain the state become higher and the temptations to use the state as an internal wealth transfer mechanism get stronger, so resistance to the state can decline. When that happens, the state grows faster, and the economy can collapse under its weight unless the state is rolled back (New Zealand is a recent example that comes to mind)."
and civil disobedience
they call voluntaryism
. Its statement of purpose reads: “Voluntaryists are advocates of non-political, non-violent strategies to achieve a free society. We reject electoral politics, in theory and in practice, as incompatible with libertarian principles. Governments must cloak their actions in an aura of moral legitimacy in order to sustain their power, and political methods invariably strengthen that legitimacy. Voluntaryists seek instead to delegitimize the State through education, and we advocate withdrawal of the cooperation and tacit consent on which State power ultimately depends.”
Otto Guevara
of Movimiento Libertario
told Reason
that the "revolutionaries of the 60s and 70s were all socialists. Now the natural impulse of youth to rebel is being channeled against the socialist establishment." He used as examples young people engaging in acts of "self-ownership" like tattooing and piercing, sexual liberty, the freedom to use drugs, as these are all areas where our position is appealing to the young. He described supporting one form of rebellion: "a huge, subterranean informal economy that's opposed by the larger, established companies...'el diputado pirata.' Someone wants to import and sell a used car... we said, 'what's the problem?' Used clothing, used shoes, these are big markets, and we thought it was absurd that there should be legal obstacles to people trading in these things."
John T. Kennedy promoted the libertarian/anarchist technique economic secession
, for example, replacing use of fiat money
with barter
or commodity money
, refusing to submit to government regulations and licensing and avoiding taxation. Sam Konkin created the similar term counter-economics
. Survivalist-libertarian author Claire Wolfe
writes about economic and political freedom and withdrawing from state control in her Backwoods Home Magazine column and her books, starting with 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution: Ideas and Resources for Self-Liberation, Monkey Wrenching and Preparedness.
Libertarians support the right of individuals, communities, states and regions to secede from larger entities. Libertarian professor Walter Block
writes: "Those who are not free to secede are in effect (partial) slaves to a king, or to a tyrannous majority under democracy. Nor is secession to be confused with the mere right to emigrate, even when one is allowed to take one’s property out of the country. Secession means the right to stay put, on one’s own property, and either to shift alliance to another political entity, or to set up shop as a sovereign on one’s own account."
Many anarcho-capitalists of the Free State Project
support non-violent revolution
.
senior editor Brian Doherty
observes in Radicals for Capitalism
that "[l]ibertarians have always been more likely to head to a bookstore than an armory, which some think is half the problem."
In The Ethics of Liberty
, Murray Rothbard notes: "To say that someone has the absolute right to a certain property but lacks the right to defend it against attack or invasion is also to say that he does not have total right to that property." However, Rothbard warns against harming innocents: "…the libertarian goal, the victory of liberty, justifies the speediest possible means towards reaching the goal, but those means cannot be such as to contradict, and thereby undercut, the goal itself. We have already seen that gradualism
-in-theory is such a contradictory means. Another contradictory means would be to commit aggression (e.g., murder or theft) against persons or just property in order to reach the libertarian goal of nonaggression."
Rothbard's For a New Liberty
cites the revolutionary war of the Bengali public
against the Punjabi
occupying state as being the recent conflict that comes closest to satisfying his criteria for a just war – namely, that it avoids injuring civilians in their persons or property; and uses volunteer rather than conscript armies; and is financed by voluntary methods instead of taxation. In response to Rothbard's rebuttal of the New Libertarian Manifesto
, Konkin writes, "Rothbard’s statement that violent revolution (what other kind is there against a ruling class—would he like to mention an Establishment that stepped down peacefully?) never succeeded in history distorts either the language or history," and cites many examples of freedom-fighters throwing off oppressive democratic governments. But Konkin also spoke out against initiating violence against the State in his New Libertarian Manifesto, as mentioned below.
The Libertarian Forum newsletter that Rothbard edited frequently addressed issues related to revolution. Rothbard condemned, on several occasions, "going over into armed struggle" on tactical even if not on moral grounds.
In 1996, Claire Wolfe
wrote in her 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution: "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." But in her more recent 2003 book, I Am Not A Number: Freeing America from the ID State, she recommended to readers the writings of nonviolent resistance
theorist Gene Sharp
.
Libertarian and crypto-anarchist Jim Bell
invented the concept of an assassination market
, a prediction market
or dead pool
where any party can place a bet on the date of death of a given individual, and collect a payoff if they "guess" the date accurately. After he was found in possession of various allegedly suspicious materials and weapons, and after placing a “stink bomb” in an Internal Revenue Service
office, he was prosecuted and convicted of two felonies, for which he served eleven months in prison.
argues in The Machinery of Freedom
that "[c]ivil disorder leads to more government, not less. It may topple one government, but it creates a situation in which people desire another and stronger. Hitler's regime followed the chaos of the Weimar years. Russian communism is a second example, a lesson for which the anarchists of Kronstadt
paid dear. Napoleon is a third."
In The Market for Liberty
, Linda and Morris Tannehill argue that "[n]ot only is violent revolutionary action destructive, it actually strengthens the government by giving it a 'common enemy' to unite the people against. Violence against the government by a minority always gives the politicians an excuse to increase repressive measures in the name of 'protecting the people.' In fact, the general populace usually join the politicians' cry for 'law and order.'"
The Tannehills fear the tendency of revolutionary leaders to seize power: "…revolution is a very questionable way to arrive at a society without rulers, since a successful revolution must have leaders. To be successful, revolutionary action must be coordinated. To be coordinated, it must have someone in charge. And, once the revolution has succeeded, the 'Someone in Charge' (or one of his lieutenants, or even one of his enemies) takes over the new power structure so conveniently built up by the revolution. He may just want to 'get things going right,' but he ends up being another ruler. Something like this happened to the American Revolution, and look at us today."
Libertarian and anarcho-capitalist professor Bryan Caplan
argues that "when terrorism succeeds in destroying an existing government, it merely creates a power vacuum without fundamentally changing anyone's mind about the nature of power. The predictable result is that a new state, worse than its predecessor, will swiftly appear to fill the void."
Samuel Edward Konkin III wrote, in The New Libertarian Manifesto: "Heed well, you who would be a paladin of Liberty: never initiate any act of violence regardless how likely a 'libertarian' result may appear. To do so is to reduce yourself to a statist. There are no exceptions to this rule. Either you are fundamentally consistent or not.
Robert LeFevre
based his view of libertarian theory on aggression itself being inherently statist, and opposed both retaliatory and initiatory violence. He wrote, "We must concern ourselves with the moral recognition that we must not join the ranks of the aggressors, even for what may appear to be cause. Governments, by their nature, are invariably agencies of aggression [...] But to the degree that we rely on government, which is our agency of aggression, to this degree do we reject civilization. If we can learn to recognize the merit of non-aggression, and hence of voluntary action, we will begin to employ the market place to a fuller degree and ultimately we may be able to abandon government reliance totally"
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
on the desirability of creating fundamental change in power or organizational structures in a relatively short time. Libertarian revolutionary goals often include dissolution of current states
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
and even the abolition of all states.
Necessity for revolution
Murray RothbardMurray Rothbard
Murray Newton Rothbard was an American author and economist of the Austrian School who helped define capitalist libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism." Rothbard wrote over twenty books and is considered a centrally important figure in the...
, after noting that convincing the ruling groups, and the recipients of their largesse, of their own iniquity would be almost impossible in practice, opines:
Samuel Edward Konkin III
Samuel Edward Konkin III
Samuel Edward Konkin III was the author of the New Libertarian Manifesto and a proponent of the political philosophy which he called agorism. Agorism is a leftward evolution of anarcho-capitalism, and subset of market anarchism...
, who founded Agorism
Agorism
Agorism is a political philosophy founded by Samuel Edward Konkin III and developed with contributions by J. Neil Schulman that holds as its ultimate goal bringing about a society in which all "relations between people are voluntary exchanges – a free market." The term comes from the Greek...
, and Wally Conger wrote:
The Libertarian Party, U.S.
Libertarian Party (United States)
The Libertarian Party is the third largest and fastest growing political party in the United States. The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects its brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated, laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated migration...
platform quotes the U.S. Declaration of Independence in the “Self-determination” plank of its platform: "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of individual liberty, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to agree to such new governance as to them shall seem most likely to protect their liberty."
Lew Rockwell
Lew Rockwell
Llewellyn Harrison "Lew" Rockwell, Jr. is an American libertarian political commentator, activist, proponent of the Austrian School of economics, and chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.-Life and work:...
states that libertarianism is a revolutionary movement and raises the example of the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
, asking, "[w]ho writing about politics today might have joined the founding fathers in their conspiracy to overthrow imperial rule? The question is an important one because this event, more than any other in our history, embodies the core of the American political idea, that men are entitled to liberty from despots. This idea, the founders believed, ought to be acted upon by real people against really existing governments."
Author Pierre Lemieux
Pierre Lemieux (economist)
Pierre Lemieux is an economist and author born in Sherbrooke in 1947.He holds graduate degrees in economics from the University of Toronto , and in Philosophy from University of Sherbrooke ....
writes: "Could we say that the more powerless the tyrant, the less likely it is that the revolution will devolve into the destruction of all social authorities? If so, it would mean that a libertarian revolution now would be much less dangerous than a revolution when tyranny has become unbearable. Better to make the revolution when it does not have to be devastating; better to do it sooner than later."
Professor Bruce L. Benson
Bruce L. Benson
Dr. Bruce L. Benson is an American academic economist who is widely recognized as an authority on law and economics and a major exponent of anarcho-capitalism legal theory. He is DeVoe L. Moore Professor and Distinguished Research Professor at Florida State University, where he serves as Chairman...
writes about the interaction of rebellion and state power: "Unfortunately, once an economy becomes strong, the opportunity costs of rebellion and other efforts to constrain the state become higher and the temptations to use the state as an internal wealth transfer mechanism get stronger, so resistance to the state can decline. When that happens, the state grows faster, and the economy can collapse under its weight unless the state is rolled back (New Zealand is a recent example that comes to mind)."
Nonviolent action and non-cooperation
The Voluntaryist, a publication founded in 1982, promotes a libertarian form of nonviolent resistanceNonviolent resistance
Nonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence. It is largely synonymous with civil resistance...
and civil disobedience
Civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...
they call voluntaryism
Voluntaryism
Voluntarism, or voluntaryism, is a philosophy according to which all forms of human association should be voluntary. This moral principle is called the non-aggression principle, which prohibits the initiation of aggressive force or coercion...
. Its statement of purpose reads: “Voluntaryists are advocates of non-political, non-violent strategies to achieve a free society. We reject electoral politics, in theory and in practice, as incompatible with libertarian principles. Governments must cloak their actions in an aura of moral legitimacy in order to sustain their power, and political methods invariably strengthen that legitimacy. Voluntaryists seek instead to delegitimize the State through education, and we advocate withdrawal of the cooperation and tacit consent on which State power ultimately depends.”
Otto Guevara
Otto Guevara
Otto Guevara Guth is a politician in Costa Rica and founder of the Partido Movimiento Libertario . He served in the Costa Rican legislature from 1998-2006...
of Movimiento Libertario
Movimiento Libertario
The Partido Movimiento Libertario is a political party based on classical liberalism in Costa Rica.It was founded in May 1994 and has since enjoyed a number of victories. It succeeded in getting attorney Otto Guevara elected to the Legislative Assembly in its first campaign in 1998...
told Reason
Reason (magazine)
Reason is a libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 60,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the Chicago Tribune.- History :...
that the "revolutionaries of the 60s and 70s were all socialists. Now the natural impulse of youth to rebel is being channeled against the socialist establishment." He used as examples young people engaging in acts of "self-ownership" like tattooing and piercing, sexual liberty, the freedom to use drugs, as these are all areas where our position is appealing to the young. He described supporting one form of rebellion: "a huge, subterranean informal economy that's opposed by the larger, established companies...'el diputado pirata.' Someone wants to import and sell a used car... we said, 'what's the problem?' Used clothing, used shoes, these are big markets, and we thought it was absurd that there should be legal obstacles to people trading in these things."
John T. Kennedy promoted the libertarian/anarchist technique economic secession
Economic secession
Economic secession has been variously defined by sources. In its broadest sense, it is abstention from the state’s economic system – for instance by replacing the use of government money with barter, Local Exchange Trading Systems, or commodity money .-Variations:Wendell Berry may have coined the...
, for example, replacing use of fiat money
Fiat money
Fiat money is money that has value only because of government regulation or law. The term derives from the Latin fiat, meaning "let it be done", as such money is established by government decree. Where fiat money is used as currency, the term fiat currency is used.Fiat money originated in 11th...
with barter
Barter
Barter is a method of exchange by which goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. It is usually bilateral, but may be multilateral, and usually exists parallel to monetary systems in most developed countries, though to a...
or commodity money
Commodity money
Commodity money is money whose value comes from a commodity out of which it is made. It is objects that have value in themselves as well as for use as money....
, refusing to submit to government regulations and licensing and avoiding taxation. Sam Konkin created the similar term counter-economics
Counter-economics
Counter-economics is a term originally used by Samuel Edward Konkin III and J. Neil Schulman, libertarian activists and theorists. Konkin defined it as "the study and/or practice of all peaceful human action which is forbidden by the State." The term is short for "counter-establishment economics"...
. Survivalist-libertarian author Claire Wolfe
Claire Wolfe
Claire Wolfe is a libertarian author and columnist. Some of Wolfe's favored topics are gulching or homesteading, firearms, homeschooling, open source technology, and opposition to national ID and the surveillance state or nanny state....
writes about economic and political freedom and withdrawing from state control in her Backwoods Home Magazine column and her books, starting with 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution: Ideas and Resources for Self-Liberation, Monkey Wrenching and Preparedness.
Libertarians support the right of individuals, communities, states and regions to secede from larger entities. Libertarian professor Walter Block
Walter Block
Walter Edward Block is a free market economist and anarcho-capitalist associated with the Austrian School of economics.-Personal history and education:...
writes: "Those who are not free to secede are in effect (partial) slaves to a king, or to a tyrannous majority under democracy. Nor is secession to be confused with the mere right to emigrate, even when one is allowed to take one’s property out of the country. Secession means the right to stay put, on one’s own property, and either to shift alliance to another political entity, or to set up shop as a sovereign on one’s own account."
Many anarcho-capitalists of the Free State Project
Free State Project
The Free State Project is a political movement, founded in 2001, to recruit at least 20,000 libertarian-leaning people to move to New Hampshire in order to make the state a stronghold for libertarian ideas....
support non-violent revolution
Non-violent revolution
A nonviolent revolution is a revolution using mostly campaigns of civil resistance, including various forms of nonviolent protest, to bring about the departure of governments seen as entrenched and authoritarian...
.
Violent rebellion or terrorism
ReasonReason (magazine)
Reason is a libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 60,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the Chicago Tribune.- History :...
senior editor Brian Doherty
Brian Doherty (journalist)
Brian Doherty is an American journalist. He is a Senior Editor at Reason magazine. He is the author of This Is Burning Man: The Rise of a New American Underground , Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement and Gun Control on Trial: Inside the...
observes in Radicals for Capitalism
Radicals for Capitalism
Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement is a book by American journalist and Reason senior editor Brian Doherty. It is about the history of libertarianism in the 20th century. It traces the evolution of the movement, as well as the life stories...
that "[l]ibertarians have always been more likely to head to a bookstore than an armory, which some think is half the problem."
In The Ethics of Liberty
The Ethics of Liberty
The Ethics of Liberty, by American economist and historian Murray N. Rothbard, first published in 1982, is an exposition of the libertarian political position...
, Murray Rothbard notes: "To say that someone has the absolute right to a certain property but lacks the right to defend it against attack or invasion is also to say that he does not have total right to that property." However, Rothbard warns against harming innocents: "…the libertarian goal, the victory of liberty, justifies the speediest possible means towards reaching the goal, but those means cannot be such as to contradict, and thereby undercut, the goal itself. We have already seen that gradualism
Gradualism
Gradualism is the belief in or the policy of advancing toward a goal by gradual, often slow stages.-Politics and society:In politics, the concept of gradualism is used to describe the belief that change ought to be brought about in small, discrete increments rather than in abrupt strokes such as...
-in-theory is such a contradictory means. Another contradictory means would be to commit aggression (e.g., murder or theft) against persons or just property in order to reach the libertarian goal of nonaggression."
Rothbard's For a New Liberty
For a New Liberty
For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto is a book by American economist and historian Murray N. Rothbard, first published in 1973, that helped launch the modern libertarian movement in the United States, and was the first modern free market anarchist manifesto For a New Liberty: The...
cites the revolutionary war of the Bengali public
Bengali people
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...
against the Punjabi
Punjabi people
The Punjabi people , ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ), also Panjabi people, are an Indo-Aryan group from South Asia. They are the second largest of the many ethnic groups in South Asia. They originate in the Punjab region, which has been been the location of some of the oldest civilizations in the world including, the...
occupying state as being the recent conflict that comes closest to satisfying his criteria for a just war – namely, that it avoids injuring civilians in their persons or property; and uses volunteer rather than conscript armies; and is financed by voluntary methods instead of taxation. In response to Rothbard's rebuttal of the New Libertarian Manifesto
New Libertarian Manifesto
The New Libertarian Manifesto is a work of agorist philosophy written by Samuel Edward Konkin III. In it, Konkin proffers various arguments of how a free society would function as well as examples of existing gray and black markets. It contains criticisms of utilizing political or violent means,...
, Konkin writes, "Rothbard’s statement that violent revolution (what other kind is there against a ruling class—would he like to mention an Establishment that stepped down peacefully?) never succeeded in history distorts either the language or history," and cites many examples of freedom-fighters throwing off oppressive democratic governments. But Konkin also spoke out against initiating violence against the State in his New Libertarian Manifesto, as mentioned below.
The Libertarian Forum newsletter that Rothbard edited frequently addressed issues related to revolution. Rothbard condemned, on several occasions, "going over into armed struggle" on tactical even if not on moral grounds.
In 1996, Claire Wolfe
Claire Wolfe
Claire Wolfe is a libertarian author and columnist. Some of Wolfe's favored topics are gulching or homesteading, firearms, homeschooling, open source technology, and opposition to national ID and the surveillance state or nanny state....
wrote in her 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution: "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." But in her more recent 2003 book, I Am Not A Number: Freeing America from the ID State, she recommended to readers the writings of nonviolent resistance
Nonviolent resistance
Nonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence. It is largely synonymous with civil resistance...
theorist Gene Sharp
Gene Sharp
Gene Sharp is Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He is known for his extensive writings on nonviolent struggle, which have influenced numerous anti-government resistance movements around the world.-Biography:Sharp was born in Ohio, the son of an...
.
Libertarian and crypto-anarchist Jim Bell
Jim Bell
James Dalton Bell is an American crypto-anarchist who created the idea of arranging for anonymously-sponsored assassination payments via the Internet, which he called "assassination politics". Since the publication of the "Assassination Politics" essay, Bell was targeted by the federal government...
invented the concept of an assassination market
Assassination market
An assassination market or market for assassinations is a prediction market where any party can place a bet on the date of death of a given individual, and collect a payoff if they "guess" the date accurately...
, a prediction market
Prediction market
Prediction markets are speculative markets created for the purpose of making predictions...
or dead pool
Dead pool
A dead pool, also known as a death pool, death watch, dead cert or ghoul pool, is a game of prediction which involves guessing when someone will die. Sometimes it is a bet where money is involved...
where any party can place a bet on the date of death of a given individual, and collect a payoff if they "guess" the date accurately. After he was found in possession of various allegedly suspicious materials and weapons, and after placing a “stink bomb” in an Internal Revenue Service
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...
office, he was prosecuted and convicted of two felonies, for which he served eleven months in prison.
Opposition to violence
David D. FriedmanDavid D. Friedman
David Director Friedman is an American economist, author, and Right-libertarian theorist. He is known as a leader in anarcho-capitalist political theory, which is the subject of his most popular book, The Machinery of Freedom...
argues in The Machinery of Freedom
The Machinery of Freedom
The Machinery of Freedom is a 1973 nonfiction book by libertarian economist David D. Friedman outlining the means by which an anarcho-capitalist society could operate...
that "[c]ivil disorder leads to more government, not less. It may topple one government, but it creates a situation in which people desire another and stronger. Hitler's regime followed the chaos of the Weimar years. Russian communism is a second example, a lesson for which the anarchists of Kronstadt
Kronstadt rebellion
The Kronstadt rebellion was one of many major unsuccessful left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War...
paid dear. Napoleon is a third."
In The Market for Liberty
The Market for Liberty
The Market for Liberty is an anarcho-capitalist book written by Linda and Morris Tannehill, which according to Karl Hess has become "something of a classic." It was preceded by the self-published Liberty via the Market in 1969. Mary Ruwart credits the Tannehills and their book with winning her over...
, Linda and Morris Tannehill argue that "[n]ot only is violent revolutionary action destructive, it actually strengthens the government by giving it a 'common enemy' to unite the people against. Violence against the government by a minority always gives the politicians an excuse to increase repressive measures in the name of 'protecting the people.' In fact, the general populace usually join the politicians' cry for 'law and order.'"
The Tannehills fear the tendency of revolutionary leaders to seize power: "…revolution is a very questionable way to arrive at a society without rulers, since a successful revolution must have leaders. To be successful, revolutionary action must be coordinated. To be coordinated, it must have someone in charge. And, once the revolution has succeeded, the 'Someone in Charge' (or one of his lieutenants, or even one of his enemies) takes over the new power structure so conveniently built up by the revolution. He may just want to 'get things going right,' but he ends up being another ruler. Something like this happened to the American Revolution, and look at us today."
Libertarian and anarcho-capitalist professor Bryan Caplan
Bryan Caplan
Bryan Caplan is an American economist, a Professor of Economics at George Mason University, Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center, adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute, and blogger for Econlog. He is best known for his work in public choice theory and for his libertarian ideology.-Personal...
argues that "when terrorism succeeds in destroying an existing government, it merely creates a power vacuum without fundamentally changing anyone's mind about the nature of power. The predictable result is that a new state, worse than its predecessor, will swiftly appear to fill the void."
Samuel Edward Konkin III wrote, in The New Libertarian Manifesto: "Heed well, you who would be a paladin of Liberty: never initiate any act of violence regardless how likely a 'libertarian' result may appear. To do so is to reduce yourself to a statist. There are no exceptions to this rule. Either you are fundamentally consistent or not.
Robert LeFevre
Robert LeFevre
Robert LeFevre was an American libertarian businessman, radio personality, and primary theorist of autarchism.-Early life:...
based his view of libertarian theory on aggression itself being inherently statist, and opposed both retaliatory and initiatory violence. He wrote, "We must concern ourselves with the moral recognition that we must not join the ranks of the aggressors, even for what may appear to be cause. Governments, by their nature, are invariably agencies of aggression [...] But to the degree that we rely on government, which is our agency of aggression, to this degree do we reject civilization. If we can learn to recognize the merit of non-aggression, and hence of voluntary action, we will begin to employ the market place to a fuller degree and ultimately we may be able to abandon government reliance totally"
See also
- Anarchism and violenceAnarchism and violenceAnarchism and violence have become closely connected in popular thought, in part because of a concept of "propaganda of the deed". Propaganda of the deed, or attentát, was espoused by a number of leading anarchists in the late nineteenth century, and was associated with a number of incidents of...
- Anarcho-capitalism and minarchismAnarcho-capitalism and minarchismAnarcho-capitalism and minarchism are two distinct strains of libertarianism. Although anarcho-capitalists and minarchists agree on most political issues, they are often hostile towards each other, particularly because most adherents of both philosophies support the non-aggression principle and see...
- Controversies within libertarianismControversies within libertarianismLibertarianism is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the organizing principle of society. Libertarianism includes diverse beliefs, all advocating minimization of the state and sharing the goal of maximizing individual liberty and political freedom...
- Libertarian pledgeLibertarian pledgeThe Libertarian pledge, a statement individuals must sign in order to join the Libertarian Party of the United States, declares, "I hereby certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals." Libertarian Party founder David Nolan...
- Nonviolent revolutionNonviolent revolutionA nonviolent revolution is a revolution using mostly campaigns of civil resistance, including various forms of nonviolent protest, to bring about the departure of governments seen as entrenched and authoritarian...
- Nonviolent resistanceNonviolent resistanceNonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence. It is largely synonymous with civil resistance...
- Voluntaryists