Social Stability, Rule of Law, and the Free Society

Written by Wheylous for The Voluntaryist Reader.

Democracy has been hailed as the great system of governance that keeps a nation balanced on the thin line between authoritarianism and lawless anarchy. The voluntaryist’s suggestion that the core responsibilities of the state – provision of courts, police, and national defense – be demonopolized (that is, allowed to work in private hands instead of being financed by coercive government taxation) is met with amusement at best, fury at worst. “The nation would devolve into perpetual struggles of one man against another!” critics cry out. If this is true, it may be a death blow to the idea that man can exist in peaceful, law-abiding voluntary relationships. Indeed, Hobbes would be right that man must be coercively controlled to rear in his savage nature. Is this what we must accept?
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