Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy, and Order by Anthony de Jasay
reviewed by Butler Shaffer
"Those who understand the distinction between “rights” and “liberties,” and of how “property” and “liberty” are inextricably intertwined, will appreciate de Jasay’s analysis. To those who wish to challenge the foundations of all systems of collective authority, his book will be of great value in confronting the arguments that have been historically offered on behalf of such systems. The author’s title is, in the end, perfectly descriptive, for the book indeed makes the case against politics and in favor of liberty as the means of establishing order in human society."

All Government is Excessive: A Rejoinder to 'In Defense of Excessive Government' by Dwight Lee
by Walter Block

All moral arguments for the state are wrong.
by Roy Halliday
Appendix C of Enforceable Rights: A Libertarian Theory of Justice.

American Anarchism
by Wendy McElroy
"They rejected actual capitalism, the making of profit through capital in practices such as charging interest on loans. And, yet, one of the points I want to drive home today is that individualist anarchism was profoundly free market and that its anti-capitalism is the not the ideological barrier it is usually considered to be."

Anarchism and Feminism
More articles are linked to here in the Memory Hole.

Anarchism and Government
by John V. Peters

Anarchism and the State
by Benjamin R. Tucker
"But the word Anarchy as a philosophical term and the word Anarchists as the name of a philosophical sect were first appropriated in the sense of opposition to dominion, to authority, and are so held by right of occupance, which fact makes any other philosophical use of them improper and confusing."

Anarchism as Constitutionalism: A Reply to Bidinotto
by Roderick Long
An anarchist reply to Robert Bidinotto's The Contradiction in Anarchism.

Anarchism as Constitutionalism, Part 2
by Roderick Long
Contains Robert Bidinotto's reply to Anarchism as Constitutionalism: A Reply to Bidinotto and Roderick Long's reply to the reply.

Anarchism as Political Philosophy: A Review of Robert Paul Wolff's In Defense of Anarchism
by Dr. Edwin G. Dolan
"Wolff recognizes that "only extreme economic decentralization could permit the sort of voluntary economic coordination consistent with the ideals of anarchism and affluence", but he does not, I think, appreciate the degree to which the free market could accomplish such a decentralization."

Anarchism, True and False
by Henry Appleton
"The philosophy of Anarchism has nothing whatever to do with violence, and its central idea is the direct antipodes of levelling."

Anarchist Theory FAQ
by Bryan Caplan

Anarcho-Capitalism: An Annotated Bibliography
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Anarchophobia: The fear of liberty’s logical conclusion
June 12, 2009
by Thomas Hill
"Anarchy, in my opinion, simply means no rulers. Humans should be free to live their own lives."

Anarchy
by Patrick B. Yancey
"Anarchists believe that people are capable of governing themselves, and do not require the shepherding hand of government to help them along through life."

Anarchy, State, and Mixture, Part I: Six Possibilities
by Roderick T. Long
The beginning of an analysis of the possible combinations of legislative, judicial, and executive monopoly and legislative, judicial, and executive competition.

Anarchy versus Anarcho-Capitalism
by Brian Micklethwait

The Anatony of the State
by Murray N. Rothbard

Are Libertarians 'Anarchists'?
by Murray N. Rothbard
"This article was written in the mid-1950s under the byline "Aubrey Herbert," a pseudonym Rothbard used in the periodical Faith and Freedom. It was never published."

"Argumentum Ad Shootem"
by John Perich
"A properly witty response to the “what if … guns” argument might be phrased (and in fact, was phrased in one instance, by the author) as follows:
“That’s not an argument against anarchism; it’s an argument against everything. One might as well say, ‘Well, we’d like to stage a production of Oklahoma!, but what if somebody gets all the guns and takes over? Screw that plan’.”

Benjamin Tucker, Individualism, & Liberty
by Wendy McElroy

Bridge-Building: 21 Talking Points for Discussions with Anarcho-socialists
by Nexus X Humectress
"Building a bridge to the anarcho-socialists is probably a doomed endeavor, given that they tend to be so dogmatic, vicious, and unwilling to listen. But not entirely doomed. You see, despite significant values and theoretical differences, a lot of the conflict is due to misunderstanding. This is because both ansocs and market anarchists use the same terms to mean different things. Hence, the two groups talk past one another. To get on the same page, you must learn to communicate so that they will understand you. This means framing your issues within their worldview, and refraining from language that sends up their red flags."

But Who Would Make Law?
by Jacob Halbrooks
"I am not an anarchist because I think that a private legal system would be perfect. I know that it would not. But I would not support the actions of a rogue court any more than I support the policies of the current government or the actions o a burglar. I do not support anarchy as a personal preference; I support anarchy because every form of government must by definition violate individual liberty. I cannot tell you that no one would ever be wronged in an anarchist society or that no firms would ever engage in unethical behavior, but I can point to one institution now that is illegitimate and ought to be abolished. That is the state."

Can Anarchy Save Us from Leviathan?
by Andrew R. Rutten
"In his book Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy and Order, anarcho-liberal theorist Anthony de Jasay argues that, without the State, society would evolve incentives for peace and order, rather than a Hobbesian war of all against all. Although De Jasay fails to show why anarchists themselves wouldn’t abuse power, he effectively argues that the Hobbesian assumption is not always true."

Classical Liberalism Versus Anarchocapitalism
by Jesús Huerta de Soto
"The fatal error of classical liberals lies in their failure to realize that their ideal is theoretically impossible, as it contains the seed of its own destruction, precisely to the extent that it includes the necessary existence of a state (even a minimal one), understood as the sole agent of institutional coercion."

The Constitution of no Authority
by Lysander Spooner
"The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between persons now existing. It purports, at most, to be only a contract between persons living eighty years ago. And it can be supposed to have been a contract then only between persons who had already come to years of discretion, so as to be competent to make reasonable and obligatory contracts. Furthermore, we know, historically, that only a small portion even of the people then existing were consulted on the subject, or asked, or permitted to express either their consent or dissent in any formal manner. Those persons, if any, who did give their consent formally, are all dead now. Most of them have been dead forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years. And the constitution, so far as it was their contract, died with them. They had no natural power or right to make it obligatory upon their children. It is not only plainly impossible, in the nature of things, that they could bind their posterity, but they did not even attempt to bind them. That is to say, the instrument does not purport to be an agreement between any body but "the people" then existing; nor does it, either expressly or impliedly, assert any right, power, or disposition, on their part, to bind anybody but themselves."

The "Criminal" Metaphor in the Libertarian Tradition
by Carl Watner

David Kelley and the Supossed Necessity of Government
by Richard A. Garner
"The main crux of his argument, though, is the fact that assuming that the market can provide laws and law enforcement necessary to maintaining a capitalist economy implies that there is a market to supply these things on, but that already presumes legal rules and enforcement for that market to exist. Therefore anarchism must be circular. Part of this argument is the belief that economic principles or laws do not hold outside the context of a free market, which is itself predicated by the existence of laws and their enforcement."

Dear Tucker: The Letters from John Henry Mackay to Benjamin R. Tucker 1905-1933
by John Henry Mackay

Defining Anarchy
by Mark Davis
"Government failure is not anarchy. Anarchy is a society that functions without government control, a free society. Society can continue to function somewhat with limited government control, but that doesn’t mean government control is required to have a society."

Delete the State: A Challenge to Minarchists
April 21, 2009
by David Gordon
"Aeon Skoble's excellent book poses a fundamental challenge to minimal-state libertarians. All libertarians take freedom to be the highest political value and oppose coercion. Why, then, do some libertarians reject anarchism? Under anarchism, people freely choose their own protection agency; but the minarchist variety of libertarianism forbids them to do so, so long as they remain on the territory controlled by the minimal state. How can libertarians justify coercing people in this way?"

Demon Democracy
by David MacGregor
"If it was possible to limit the nastier consequences of democracy by means of a constitution that protected individual rights, then I wouldn't need to be writing missives like this to remind you of your right to keep the money you earn. I wouldn't need to remind you that taxation is theft - and that playing "goody-two- shoes" with other people's money is not the hallmark of a generous person, but of a deranged mind."

Do Rights Only Come Into Existence With the State?: A Randian Critique of An Allegedly Randian Position
by Nicholas Dykes

Drawing the Line
by Sheldon Richman
"State and market, then, are opposites, embodying, respectively, force and creativity. That is why the mission to finely adjust the frontier between the two, as Yergin and Stanislaw wish, is misconceived. It is not a shade of gray that we should be seeking, but the bright line between force and reason (creativity)."

Early Christians Were Anti-War and Anti-State
by Matthew Truitt
" . . . these early Christians, as will be seen below, held a radically anti-war and anti-state belief system, based on the teachings of Christ."

The Fallacy of 'Libertarian Socialism'
by Perry de Havilland
"The logical flaws in the 'collectivist society replacing collectivist state' notion are so obvious that they have been pointed out a great many times by a great many people, but I will add my voice to the throng anyway. Hain, like Marx before him, clearly sees libertarian socialism as working towards the 'withering away of the state' as a true collectivist 'society' comes to replace it. But to maintain such a condition of total political governance will require the use of force to prevent any consensual but not democratically sanctioned acts between willing individuals. To maintain this suppression of spontaneous several relationships, a collectivist socialist 'society' must be organised and structured in certain ways that make it indistinguishable from a collectivist socialist state."

Federalism
by Walter Block and Stephan Kinsella
"Do we libertarians side with the federalist centralizers, or the anti federalist de-centralizers? Well, neither or both. The point is, these two groups are speaking past each other. Some are focusing on one crucial element of the situation, their own, and ignoring the insights of the other."

Free Market Anarchism
by weebies
"There is wide disagreement among anarchists, especially about how an individual should use his freedom to choose a method to live by. This is not unusual, undesirable, or bad, but indicative of how humans can arrive at different solutions to similar problems. The one thing that all anarchists can agree on is that the state is the enemy of anarchism and freedom, and needs to be eliminated for anarchism and freedom to flourish.
The free market is the best method for determining who is right. It will provide the best solutions for the widest variety of interests. The free market is the best vehicle for determining what people want and how they want to live."

The Free Market Model versus Government: A Reply to Nozick
by John T. Sanders

The Function of Government and the Criminality of the Justice System
by Anthony Gregory
"The function of something is properly defined by what that thing does. Most libertarians would admit that government in America – which plunders the people of about half their wealth, right off the bat, and then uses almost all of the loot to violate individual rights in myriad ways ­– is more damaging to liberty than not. And that’s America ! As far as domestic policy goes, most governments in the world treat their own people worse than the US government treats its own. . . .
The function of government is not to protect life, liberty, and property – as much as I’d like to see those things protected. The function of government is to plunder, and to provide to those at the reins of the state with the loot stolen from those at the losing end. Sometimes it takes on other functions – kidnapping, brainwashing, torture, maiming, and murder. But the core function of government is theft. The core function is hardly to do something that it never has done – protect liberty."

Government Courts: By What Principle? Libertarian Justice, Part 1
by John Lopez
"In summary, we have The Choice: Endorse the State, or work for liberty. We cannot give "just a little" power to government courts, or soon thereafter the State will use them to own us. Liberty and the State are irreconcilable opposites--they are like oil and water, or food and poison. We cannot "compromise" when our compromise is mixing half a glass of water with half a glass of poison, or a glass of water with "just a little" poison. Justice is far too precious of an ideal to contaminate with even a drop of the State."

Government Is a Weapon of Mass Destruction
by Anthony Gregory
"I don’t have anything against weapons, per se, but I tend to believe that when 40% of the economy is absorbed through the violence of taxation and directed by the violent hand of the state, there’s a bit too much weaponry being brandished and employed, and a bit too much government destruction of the harmony of the market and the peaceful interaction of people."

The Great Divorce
by Roderick Long
"I’m not convinced, then, by Dr. Machan’s arguments for the undesirability of an anarchist legal system. Suppose, however, that he turns out to be right, and such a system is indeed undesirable. My question then would be: what kind of undesirability is it? Is it so undesirable as to be unjust? that is, does Dr. Machan think the government should prohibit any attempt to offer legal services comeptitive with its own within the same geographical territory? If he does, he is a minarchist; if he doesn’t, he is an anarchist. There is no “rapprochement”: tertium non datur."

Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethic: A Critique
by Bob Murphy and Gene Callahan
"At best, Hoppe has proven that it would be contradictory to argue that someone does not rightfully own his mouth, ears, eyes, heart, brain, and any other bodily components deemed essential for debate. But this clearly would not include, say, a person’s legs; after all, it is certainly possible for someone to engage in fruitful debate without having any legs at all."

Henry Bool’s Apology for His Jeffersonian Anarchism
by Henry Bool
Letters and editorials on political philosophy.

The Hole in the Contractarian Theory of the State
by Gene Callahan
"People cannot trust each other's contracts without an enforcer, so the contractarians say, therefore they all agree to sign a contract with a universal enforcer, a state. But if they could not trust their contracts with each other, what makes them think they can trust their contract with the state? If I couldn't trust you not to steal my gold, how in the world can I trust this other fellow, the new king, especially since we've just equipped him with an army, a police force, and the ability to levy taxes? At least when it was just me against you, I stood a chance, but now I've got a whole army stealing my gold. What kind of a bargain is that?"

Human Government is a Rejection of God
by Matthew Truitt
"Repeatedly throughout the Old Testament, the Israeli people reject God and His laws in order to worship other idols. One example of this is rejection of God is when the Israeli people request human government."

The Incredible Lameness of Left-Anarchism
by Jason McQuinn

In Defense of Rational Anarchism
by George H. Smith
"I don't defend anarchism because I ever expect to see an anarchist society. (An anarchist America is almost as unlikely as an Objectivist America.) But I do think we can effectively combat statism with the right intellectual ammunition, and this includes the total repudiation of political sovereignty in favor of individual rights and voluntary institutions."

Individualist Anarchism
More articles are linked to here in the Memory Hole.

Individualist Anarchism v. Communist Anarchism and Libertarianism, Part 1, Part 2
by Wendy McElroy
"As libertarianism becomes increasingly political, it will become increasingly hostile to individualist anarchism, because anarchism poses as great a threat to the political ambitions of the LP as it does to the conventional defenders of government. I have no intention of amending the slogan "Smash the State" to read "Smash the State Except for the LP." And if the LP is ever successful they will quickly turn on the anarchists, turn on their supposed fellow travelers. The anarchists will then learn from political libertarians the same lesson that the Russian anarchists learned from the Bolsheviks -- we are fellow travelers no more."

Internal Inconsistencies in Arguments for Government: Nozick, Rand, Hospers
by David Osterfeld

The Invisible Hand Strikes Back
by Roy A. Childs

Is Government a Mistake? Exploring the Anarchist Option
by Jan Narveson
"The state is, then, almost certainly a mistake. Or alternatively, the state is a fraud: it is in fact a gang of thieves, but it masquerades as a benevolent association."

Is the state legitimate?
by Roy Halliday
Chapter 6 of Enforceable Rights: A Libertarian Theory of Justice.

Josiah Warren and the Sovereignty of the Individual
by Ann Caldwell Butler

Legitimacy of the State
by Per Bylund
"The conclusion of this fundamental question whether man is inherently good or evil is that there is no place for a state – no matter what we consider being the fundamental qualities of man. Either man is good, which means there is no need for government, or man is evil, which means there is no hope of forming a government. Thus, government can only be somewhat justified as a means to forcibly mold a society into whatever one prefers."

Libertarian Anarchism: Why It Is Best for Freedom, Law, the Economy, and Why Direct Action Is the Way to Get It
by Daniel C. Burton

The Libertarian Dogma: Non-Initiation of Force
by George Justin Mallone
"Therefore, if one is in a position to preserve liberty through generally disagreeable means, even if the means' existence is wrong, even if innocents will be harmed, their usage in the preservation of greater freedom is not immoral. In fact, if one truly prioritizes freedom as a value, then not using such means is acting against your explicit values, and thus immoral."

Libertarianism vs. Objectivism: A Response to Peter Schwartz
by Walter Block

The libertarian minimal state: a critique of the views of Nozick, Levin and Rand
by Walter Block

Liberty Defined: An Objectivist Anarchist Manifesto
by Richard Slomon

Limited Government - A Moral Issue?
by Chet W. Anderson
"It may be helpful to rephrase the question by bringing into the center of this analysis our own personal commitment and integrity. The question then becomes: Which functions of government are so unquestionably proper that I, personally, would be willing to support and enforce them? Mind you, not hire and pay someone to collect tax money, for example, but personally force those who oppose the law to pay their tax."

The Logic of Anarchy
by Carl Watner

Market Anarchism: Are You Guys Crazy, or Just Nuts?
by Stephan Molyneux
"After twenty years as a "small government" libertarian, I have spent the last 18 months or so strenuously – and unsuccessfully – resisting the implacable logic of 'market anarchy.'"

Mere Anarchy
by Chris Cooper
An anarcho-capitalist's story.

Market vs. State
by Walter Block
"It is no exaggeration to say that the most important distinction in all of libertarian theory is that between coercion and non-coercion. Obliterate this divergence and there is nothing left to libertarianism at all. This is so important, it bears repeating: libertarianism consists of nothing more than the implications of this one single solitary distinction. Without it, there is absolutely no theory."

The minarchists' attack on anarcho-capitalism
by Brian Caplan

The Minarchist's Dilemma
by Anthony Gregory
"I comprehended that the state, properly defined, possessed a monopoly on force. This always puzzled me. It obviously should not have a monopoly on defensive force (I totally understood the arguments against gun control). So what kind of force does it monopolize?
The initiation of force. The precise disease I envisioned the ideal state to combat."

Morality and Libertarianism
by Henry Sturman
"My conclusion is that it is reasonable to say that libertarianism is the best morality."

The Moral Problem with the Power Principle
by Randy E. Barnett
"Power Principle posits a fundamental inequality of human beings. Those in power are thought to have qualitatively different rights than those who are not-that is, rulers have rights that subjects may never possess."

The Most Crucial Gap in Politics
by Gene Callahan
Compares the moral difference between minarchists and anarchists to the difference between men who advocate fewer wife beatings and men who oppose all wife beatings.

Mrs Logic and the Law: A Critique of Ayn Rand's View of Government
by Nicholas Dykes

The Myth of a 'Social Contract'
by Jim Davies
"It [the state] will stay safe, I dare say, until the green curtain is moved aside and the "Social Contract" too is exposed for the fairy tale that it is. My attempt here will employ mathematics."

The Myth of the Social Contract
by Tim Starr
"It turns out that the alleged "social contract" is doubly one-sided: the only party to agree to it is the State, and the only party that is obliged by it is the People. The State agrees to collect taxes & enforce its rules upon the People, and the people are obliged to pay those taxes & abide by those rules. There is no mutuality of agreement nor any mutuality of obligation between the State and the people, and, therefore, can be no contract. There is no more contract between the State and the People than there is between the Mafia and the victims of its extortion rackets or rapists and their victims. Thus, the People have no obligation to pay taxes or to obey the State, and the State has no legitimacy in attempting to enforce any such obligations."

Natural Order, State, and Looting
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
"In conclusion, rather than cause and reason for the State, Hobbesian anarchy as seen in Baghdad is result and consequence of State-making and -overtaking, otherwise known as 'regime change.'"

The Nature of the State
by Murray N. Rothbard
"The State indeed performs many important and necessary functions: from provision of law to the supply of police and fire fighters, to building and maintaining the streets, to delivery of the mail. But this in no way demonstrates that only the State can perform such functions, or, indeed, that it performs them even passably well."

New England Non-Resistance Society Declaration of Sentiments
by William Lloyd Garrison
"We cannot acknowledge allegiance to any human government; neither can we oppose any such government by a resort to physical force. We recognize but one KING and LAWGIVER, one JUDGE and RULER of mankind. We are bound by the laws of a kingdom which is not of this world; the subjects of which are forbidden to fight; in which MERCY and TRUTH are met together, and RIGHTEOUSNESS and PEACE have kissed each other; which has no state lines, no national partitions, no geographical boundaries; in which there is no distinction of rank, or division of caste, or inequality of sex; the officers of which are PEACE, its exactors RIGHTEOUS-NESS, its walls SALVATION, and its gates PRAISE; and which is destined to break in pieces and consume all other kingdoms."

The New Libertarian Manifesto
by Samuel Edward Konkin III
A free-market anarchist tract.

Note on Anarchy, State, and Utopia
by James Dale Davidson
Argues that Robert Nozick's case for the origin of the state fails.

Objections to Anarchism: The Principles of Anarchism are Timeless Truths
by Michael E. Coughlin
"The following was originally published in serial form in the dandelion between Summer 1977 and Summer 1979."

"Oh, Ye Are For Anarchy!": Consent Theory In the Radical Libertarian Tradition
by Carl Watner

On Locke's Argument for Government
by David B. Suits

On Peter Sabatini's "Libertarianism: Bogus Anarchy"
by Richard A. Garner
"It is clear from simple deductive logic that allowing capitalist acts amongst those who want to be involved in them in perfectly compatible with anarchism, because suppressing them would require governments and states, so anarcho-capitalism is compatible with anarchism. Given this, get off our backs and simply discuss whether it would work or not, instead of whether we are anarchists or not."

On the Impossibility of Limited Government and the Prospects for a Second American Revolution
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
"In the following, we will identify three main sources of American national pride, the first two of which are justified sources of pride, while the third actually represents a fateful error. Finally, we will look at how this error might be repaired."

On the Need for a Final Arbiter
by Per Bylund
"Nothing disturbs me as much as the minarchist argument that there is a need for a final arbiter and that this arbiter must be external to the market."

Order in the Jungle: Social Interaction Without the State
by Christopher J. Coyne
"In this article, I first clarify the meaning of anarchy. I then argue that Tullock’s concept of anarchy is flawed and that it leads to an inaccurate analysis of law without the state. Next, I reassess Tullock’s analysis of the interaction of individuals and groups in a social setting with no central authority as well as his conclusion that the state is a necessary institution. Finally, I explore the facilitation of social order and interaction in anarchy."

The Political Economy of Monarchy and Democracy, and the Idea of a Natural Order
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Privately Produced Law
by Tom Bell
"Who is going to lay down the law? Statists or consumers? I am going to argue for the latter."

Private-Property Anarchists and Anarcho-Socialists: Can We Get Along?
by Gene Callahan
"All anarchists have in common the desire to eliminate the initiation of aggression as a legitimate form of social interaction. The difference between private-property anarchists and anarcho-socialists most often lies in what each group considers to be aggression. I will attempt to demonstrate that, from a market anarchist point of view, there are two distinct types of anarcho-socialists: the "good" ones, who are willing to live in peace with market anarchist communities, and the "bad" ones, who are not."

Pure Libertarianism
by Jan Narveson
"Now, pure libertarianism seems clearly to imply a general right of private property and acquisition of same."

Pursuing Justice in a Free Society: Part One - Power vs.Liberty
by Randy E. Barnett

Reflections on the Minimal State
by John Hasnas

The Relation of the State to the Invididual
by Benjamin R. Tucker
"To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury. But that is exactly what the State is doing."

The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State, and Other Essays
by Auberon Herbert
"Carrying natural rights theory to its logical limits, Herbert demanded complete social and economic freedom for all noncoercive individuals and the radical restriction of the use of force to the role of protecting those freedoms—including the freedom of peaceful persons to withhold support from any or all state activities." Eric Mack

The Road to Liberty: Persuasion and Aggression
by Gene Callahan
"We don’t have to persuade people that initiating aggression generally is not acceptable. They already know that. We only need to persuade them that it is not acceptable even when the government does it."

Robert Nozick and the Immaculate Conception of the State
by Murray N. Rothbard

Romans 13, 1 Peter, and the Proper Relationship Between the Christian and the State
by Matthew Truitt
"The entire book of Acts, as well as the other writings in the New Testament, tell the story of how not only Peter and John, but Paul and the other apostles were in a constantly rebelling and disobeying the Roman government and local governing authorities. They were persecuted, imprisoned, and most faced a martyr’s death. This IS the story of the New Testament."

Rothbardian Ethics
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
"As simple as the solution to the problem of social order is and as much as people in their daily lives intuitively recognize and act according to the ethics of private property just explained, this simple and undemanding solution implies some surprisingly radical conclusions. For, apart from ruling out as unjustified all activities such as murder, homicide, rape, trespass, robbery, burglary, theft, and fraud, the ethics of private property is also incompatible with the existence of a state defined as an agency that possesses a compulsory territorial monopoly of ultimate decision-making (jurisdiction) and/or the right to tax."

Satan is in Control of Human Governments
by Matthew Truitt
"To think about it logically, for Jesus to truly be tempted, as the scriptures say He was, Satan must have been telling the truth. If Satan truly didn’t control the governments of the world, Jesus would have known this, and would not have been tempted by his offer. Instead, Jesus knew Satan’s offer was legitimate, and was in fact tempted by it."

Six Myths About Libertarianism
by Murray N. Rothbard
"This article, first published in Modern Age, 24, 1 (Winter 1980), pp. 9-15, as "Myth and Truth About Libertarianism," is based on a paper presented at the April 1979 national meeting of the Philadelphia Society in Chicago. The theme of the meeting was Conservatism and Libertarianism."

The Slavery of Our Times
by Léon Tolstoï

Social Contract: A Critique
by Williamson M. Evers

Society Without a State
by Murray N. Rothbard
"We cannot of course deal here with the numerous arguments in favor of anarchism or against the state, moral, political, and economic. Nor can we take up the various goods and services now provided by the state and show how private individuals and groups will be able to supply them far more efficiently on the free market. Here we can only deal with perhaps the most difficult area, the area where it is almost universally assumed that the state must exist and act, even if it is only a "necessary evil" instead of a positive good: the vital realm of defense or protection of person and property against aggression. Surely, it is universally asserted, the state is at least vitally necessary to provide police protection, the judicial resolution of disputes and enforcement of contracts, and the creation of the law itself that is to be enforced. My contention is that all of these admittedly necessary services of protection can be satisfactorily and efficiently supplied by private persons and institutions on the free market."

The State and Its Five Rationales
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

State Socialism and Anarchism: How far they agree, and wherein they differ
by Benjamin R. Tucker
"This essay, which is the clearest statement on the subject that has ever been produced, was written by Mr. Tucker in 1886, in response to an invitation from the editor of the North American Review to furnish him a paper on Anarchism."

The State Was a Mistake
by Walter Block
A review of Hans-Hermann Hoppe's book, Democracy: The God that Failed.

The Tragedy of Political Government
by Carl Watner
"Few people would directly confront their neighbors with such demands ("Your money or your life!"), but the structure of politics permits this to be done anonymously, and allows the supporters and perpetrators to conceal - even from themselves - the evil nature of what they are doing."

An Uncivilized Argument for Anarchy
by Per Bylund
"What we know about the free society is, there are no guarantees—the exact opposite of what statists demand of us!"

Voluntaryism: The Political Thought of Auberon Herbert
by Eric Mack

Was Spooner Really an Anarcho-Socialist?
by Stephanie Silberstein
"While Spooner was no free-market capitalist, nor an anarcho-capitalist, he was not as opposed to capitalism as most socialists were."

What is Anarchy?
David A. Andrade
"Anarchy is Individualism consistently carried out and put into practice. It is the doctrine of autonomy, laissez faire, independence, and liberty. It is the doctrine which accepts all the social principles of that most advanced school of thinkers of which Herbert Spencer is at the head, and does not fear to carry them to their logical conclusions, even though the greatest expounders of those principles may fail to do so themselves. Anarchy, in short, is to politics what atheism is to theology. Atheism says: defy the priest, who robs you under the authority of a god; Anarchy says: defy the ruler who robs you under the authority of a State, as well. Atheism says: be free in your thoughts; Anarchy says: be free in your thoughts and actions too. Atheism says: face the gods like a man; Anarchy says: face all existence like a man. Atheism says: from the gods be free; Anarchy simply says: BE FREE!"

What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist
by N. Stephan Kinsella
"To be an anarchist does not mean you think anarchy will "work" (whatever that means); nor that you predict it will or "can" be achieved. It is possible to be a pessimistic anarchist, after all. To be an anarchist only means that you believe that aggression is not justified, and that states necessarily employ aggression. And, therefore, that states, and the aggression they necessarily employ, are unjustified. It’s quite simple, really. It’s an ethical view, so no surprise it confuses utilitarians."

Whither Anarchy? Has Robert Nozick Justified the State?
by Randy Barnett

Why Anarcho-(anything but Capitalism) isn't anarchy, but requires hierarchy. Why socialism requires poverty and labor isn't the source of wealth.
by Jet

Why I Call Myself a Free Market Anarchist and Why I Am One
by Brian Micklethwait

Why Objective Law Requires Anarchy
by Roderick T. Long
A reply to Why I Support Limited Government.

Why the State Is Different
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Why We Couldn't Abolish Slavery Then and Can't Abolish Government Now
by Robert Higgs
"Libertarian anarchists bold enough to have publicly advanced their proposal for abolishing the state will have encountered many, if not all, of the arguments used for centuries to prop up slavery."

The Worst Case Scenario Under Anarchy
by Anthony Gregory
"But if the worst-case scenario – and I mean the worst-case scenario – that we can expect under anarchy is simply the end of anarchy and the reemergence of government, it seems we have very little to lose in calling for an end to state violence."

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This page was last updated on November 5, 2009.