The Obviousness of Anarchy

Liberty, understood in light of equality and solidarity, is a revolutionary doctrine demanding anarchy, with no room for authoritarian mysticism and no excuse for arbitrary dominion, no matter how “limited” or benign. Individual liberty is essential to political justice for both minarchist and anarchist libertarians. For anarchists, the rights of liberty and self-defense expose even the “night-watchman” State as professionalised usurpation, and reveal all government laws and written constitutions as mere paper without authority. Classical liberals and minarchist libertarians have sometimes tried to sidestep anarchist objections by appealing to the consent of the governed. Minarchism eventually requires abandoning our commitment to liberty; but the dilemma is obscured when minarchists fracture the revolutionary triad, and seek “liberty” abstracted from equality and solidarity, the intertwined values that give the demand for freedom its life, its meaning, and its radicalism. Thus the libertarian emphasis on both personal freedom and private property rights.