On Libertarianism and Anarchism

I'd like expand on some of my thoughts about libertarianism from my last post commenting on Stephan Kinsella's article defining libertarianism, and reiterate my general viewpoint about libertarianism and anarchism.

In terms of the relationship between libertarianism and anarchism, my view is actually rather subtle. I think that there are libertarians that are not anarchists (such as the various varieties of minarchy), anarchists that are not libertarians (such as certain amoral egoists and perhaps certain elements within social anarchism), and libertarian anarchists. This analysis makes sense if we use basic and minimalistic definitions for both libertarianism and anarchism: if by "anarchism" we simply mean any ideology that rejects the legitimacy of the state and by "libertarianism" we refer to a specific conception of justice (or a specific set of conceptions of justice that have a similar root).

Of course, things get even more complicated once we dig deeper into the multiple percieved meanings of both libertarianism and anarchism. Some define anarchism not as merely being a rejection of the state, but in terms of opposition to heirarchy or as a more holistic anti-authoritarianism. And some define libertarianism in a way that is ethically value-neutral, even in terms of conceptions of justice. There are also numerous specific strands of libertarianism that differ over the details of the conception of justice (such as geolibertarianism, paleo-libertarianism, left-libertarianism, libertarian socialism, etc.). While libertarianism may be somewhat less pluralistic than anarchism, it is also fragmented into numerous sub-categories.

Flavors and definitions of anarchism encompass a wide range of social, economic and political positions (anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-primitivism, mutualism, anarcha-feminism, green anarchism, christian anarchism, anarcho-pacifism, etc.). If we define anarchism in the narrow sense of opposition to the state, then all of these ideologies potentially pass for forms of anarchism with a different emphasis and different social and economic positions. Using a narrow definition of anarchism, these are all secondary or "unessential" characteristics; a mere matter of "personal preferance".

However, if we use a broader definition of anarchism or if we define the state in a specific way, some of them are ruled out as constituting defacto forms of statism or as insufficiently anarchist in spite of their anti-statism. Even if we do define anarchism in terms of anti-statism, there are multiple viewpoints on precisely what the state is and what the preconditions for state formation are. For example, some would rule out anarcho-capitalism on the grounds that it either devolves into a defacto form of statism due to its property norms or it doesn't oppose authoritarianism or heirarchy and is consequentially insufficient to qualify as anarchism. On the other hand, some would rule out the models of social anarchists in the grounds that it reduces to defacto democracies.

On one hand, I think that the conflict among the different schools of self-styled anarchism sometimes involves a semantical wall in which people have more compatible positions than they think they do but are unable to see it due to their word-association tendencies. But, on the other hand, I don't think that the issue can be completely reduced to semantics and "personal preferance" in that certain normative positions are undeniably irreconcilable and some normative positions either devolve into some form of statism (based on a certain understanding of what states are) or are insufficient to qualify as fully supporting freedom given a more holistic anti-authoritarian definition of anarchism, in spite of them being nominally anti-statist.

From a more holistic perspective, it is possible for a society to not have a state in the modern or common sense of a state, while not being free (or maybe even being less free than certain societies that do have "states"). It could be said that political freedom is only one type or definition of freedom, or that "the state" in a modern or common sense is only one blockade to freedom out of many. From this perspective, anti-statism is necessary but not sufficient to produce a free society. This could even possibly be argued from a certain libertarian perspective in which certain ethical norms that apply beyond anti-statism are a necessary condition for a society to be free. Indeed, libertarianism fits into this in the sense that it provides, by the very least, a particular view or set of views on ethics.

I sympathize most with libertarian anarchism for this reason: that it provides at least some sort of context for a stateless society. But I also object to a narrow sense of libertarianism that tends to be neutral towards authoritarianism in a way that I think undermines itself and ultimately could be said to provide a basis for conditions that reduce to a defacto form of statism (which it is supposed to be against in the first place). This is where how libertarianism is defined or concieved of in terms of one's broader social philosophy starts to become particularly important, because it may end up being incoherant if it does not give itself a strong foundation and oppose authoritarianism in a more general sense. If everything that libertarians claim to oppose can be snuck back in under the banner of a certain conception of libertarianism, then some reconceptualization is needed.