Ask a Libertarian: "Can a libertarian work for Leviathan?" #6

Welcome to Ask a Libertarian with Reason's Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch. They are the authors of the new book The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong With America. 

Go to http://declaration2011.com to purchase, read reviews, find event dates, and more.

On June 15, 2011 Gillespie and Welch used short, rapid-fire videos to answer dozens of reader questions submitted via email, Twitter, Facebook, and Reason.com. In this episode, they answer the question:

"Can a libertarian realistically hold his head up high while working for Leviathan, either directly or as a consultant?"
For the complete series, go to http://reason.com/archives/2011/06/10/ask-a-libertarian and Reason.tv's YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/reasontv

Produced by Meredith Bragg, Jim Epstein, Josh Swain, with help from Kyle Blaine, Katie Hooks, and Jack Gillespie.

Comments

[Zuo]

This was a good question. Kudos!

[Bee Tagger]

Change of clothes already?

[steve]

Damn, beat me to it. I was going to suggest a new question: "Leather jacket or Winged shirt?"

[SugarFree]

The kids love alt-country.

[steve]

Looks like the artwork on the fedex box in Castaway?

[fresno dan]

I work for the gubermint, but I do as little as possible, so as to undermine the leviathan...

LAZINESS IS FREEDOM!

[Otto]

Ah, the "Ron Swanson" tactic.

[robc]

I think Rand had this one right...if what you are doing is something that would exist without the government and there isnt a reasonable opportunity to do it outside of leviathan, then there is no problem with it.

[R C Dean]

Can a libertarian work for Leviathan?

Sure. Libertarians are minarchists, not anarchists, and recognize a proper role for a minimalist state. Which will have a few employees. As long as your job is doing a legitimate state function, no conflict at all.

[Jim]

Actually there are many libertarian anarchists. Quite a few are on these very comment threads. Many more are over at mises.org.

[wylie]

Just because there's a lot of something doesn't mean that thing makes any sense.

[Jim]

Which is a true statement, and would be a great rebuttal, if this is what I had written: "Anarcho-capitalism makes complete sense because there are a lot of them."

Unfortunately, that is not what I wrote.

I wrote, "Actually there are many libertarian anarchists.", in response to the OPs assertion that, "Libertarians are...not anarchists..."

Would you instead care to counter my assertion that there is a sizeable minority of libertarians who are anarcho-capitalists? Myself, Episiarch, and Old Mexican come to mind quickly. I'm sure there are others that I'm just not thinking of off the top of my head.

[Joe M]

There was actually a huge argument on wikipedia about this, with a number of people saying libertarians were only minarchists, and that calling them anarchists was tantamount to slander.

[SugarFree]

I don't think it's slander, but pointing out that under the "libertarianism supports miniarchy" definition that it is not the same as the definition of "anarchism means there is no state" is not improper.

One believes in a limited voluntary state, and the other believes there should be no state. If you follow those definitions, "libertarian anarchist" is an oxymoron. Properly, they are considered and routinely call themselves "anarcho-capitalists."

I am not one, so will accept instruction on my semantic failings.

[Jim]

In my strictly personal opinion, since there has been no divinity come down from upon high to settle once and for all the minutiae distinguishing one faction of an already very small political movement from another, it largely depends on what people call themselves.

For example, I actually know people who have fits whenever anyone, including the man himself, refers to Obama as "black". "He's not black, he's mixed!" they cry. One guy told me point blank that it doesn't matter if O considers himself black and refers to himself as such or not; he's just wrong and should always refer to himself as mixed-race.

I think it detracts from serious discussion to get bogged down on something as trivial as parsing definitions (declaring that "libertarians cannot be anarchists", or "anarchists cannot be libertarian"), when there's a number of an-caps who call themselves "libertarian", largely in the tradition of Rothbard. Has someone been appointed the libertarian definition gatekeeper, to tell those people that they're wrong, and need to correct their language?

[CrackertyAssCracker]

The only oxymoron here "voluntary state". If its voluntary, then it's not a state. If its a state, then it's not voluntary.

[hk]

So he changes the name of his philosophy, I don't think you won that point though. 😉

[CrackertyAssCracker]

Anarchocapitalism and minarchism are subsets of libertarianism. If you take the phrase "The government that governs best, governs least" to it's logical conclusion, you'd notice that zero is less that all non-zero amounts*, so you could even consider anarchocapitalism to just be the subset of minarchists who are good at math if you wanted to.

*unless somebody can show me what negative government would look like.

So you are stuck with us even if you think we are stupid. Too bad. Neener Neener.

[Episiarch]

Explain how anarchism "makes no sense". Show your work. You might want to read some Spooner before you embarrass yourself, though.

[hazeeran]

I'll make it even easier for him: http://www.lysanderspooner.org/node/44

[Fist of Etiquette]

Can a libertarian believe in the rightful supremacy of the State?

[SugarFree]

Depends on what you mean by supremacy. If you are a miniarchist in a voluntarily-agreed to state, then yes, you should defer to the state in the matters of self-ownership protection that you have allowed them to hold in proxy.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Maybe I should have said natural supremacy.

[SugarFree]

Then, no. The state only has the power we consent to defer to it. It has no moral authority in of itself.

[Abdul]

Screw these guys! no way I'm working for a biblical monster.

[Kool]

I thought it was a bad movie that came out at the same time as The Abyss.

[Sudden]

Actually it was a MTG card that required a metric fuckton of blue mana and was 10/10 with trample.

/dorky preteen from the mid 90's

[CE]

I'd say no. If you believe that taxation is theft, don't benefit from the stolen loot, unless it is unavoidable.

[NAL]

In general, I have no problem with people who work a gov't job or contract with the gov't. It's the system we have and you have to work within it. The problem comes in when people who work in those jobs feel entitled to those jobs and band together to extract more and more largess FROM the taxpayers for less and less benefit TO the taxpayers.

Put another way, if you work for the gov't with the constant awareness of, and acceptance of, the fact that your job can go away at any time due to budget cuts, voter whim, etc., then you are okay with me.

[Monty]

I suck cause I work on ROOOAADZ!!!11

[scarpe Nike Store]

is good