Objectivist Anarchists: Can There Be Such A Thing?

by Wayne Simmons

A friend of mine, Wayne Simmons, wrote an article about Anarcho-capitlaists fairly recently. “There is a new convert to Anarchism who seems to be very popular among Anarcho-Capitalists,” Wayne writes.

Wayne wrote: “Stefan is an old friend of mine. We lost touch with each-other about 10 years ago. I remember the days when Stefan and I would discuss Anarcho-Capitalism. He would say that Anarcho-Capitalists should stick to writing science fiction because their theories aren't grounded in the real world. Stefan also stressed the need for philosophical change prior to politics. At the time, Stefan was a consistent advocate of Objectivism. How times have changed. Within the last 2 years he has divorced his political theories from reality and converted to Anarchism. Yet, it appears from his podcasts that Stefan still clings to his Objectivist roots.” Stefan, Wayne complains, “has a tendency towards rationalism - as do all anarchists.”

And: Anarchists such as Stefan Molyneux claim that Anarchy is the logical outcome of Objectivism face the following impossible dilemma:

“If they're loyal to Objectivism they must accept that facts about man's nature have normative consequences. If the distinguishing characteristic of man is his rational faculty then the social consequences are that man should be left free to exercise his rational judgment in the pursuit of his own happiness. Rights are a moral concept derived from our nature. They're social requirements for our existence. The individual's (natural) right to life, liberty and property needs Constitutional protection. As a result, Government and society are subordinated to moral (objective) law.”

To sum up Wayne’s article: “Now, if these so-called Objectivists are loyal to Anarchy they'd have to evade the knowledge they've already sworn allegiance to…Anarchists, on the other hand, believe that there should be a market in the use of force without a final arbiter (Government) to rectify disputes. Justice would be impossible when you can opt out of any judicial decision. How are natural rights - and the rule of law - to be protected when there's no constitutional protection of natural rights? And, whose version of rights has the final authority when the decision is left up to the market place? One way around this is that Anarcho-Capitalists (supposing they actually believe in natural rights) could have their protection agencies force other non-liberty friendly protection agencies out of business. This is, of course, a contradiction because they would then be acting like a de facto Government.”

And:

"Since this is not desired, a consistent Anarchist would have to accept the arbitrary subjective decisions of the market place and strive for shared common opinion to implement their version of anarchy. Enter social chaos and civil war. Left anarchists. Right anarchists(Friedman vs Rothbard). Environmentalists. Islamic extremists. Christian extremists. Welfare/Corporate statists, et al, would all be fighting among themselves for "shared common opinion."

Wayne concludes: “So it's either-or. Objectivist Anarchists cannot exist! Either they remain loyal to their Objectivist premises, or they don't. The claim you can support both is a contradiction.”
Feed-back on Wayne’s point most welcome!

***

Stefan Molyneux is the host of Freedomain Radio and a regular contributor to LewRockwell.com.

In response to Wayne's article on SOLO, I'd written:

If you define 'Objectivism' as agreement with essentially everything Rand wrote, or what the majority of people who call themselves Objectivists believe, then clearly anarchism is not compatible with it. Using Rand's own basic 'standing on one foot' definition of Objectivism, it's not clear that it is incompatible. Obviously many anarchocapitalists - especially of Lew Rockwell stripe - have underlying philosophical disagreements such as theistic worldview or deontological ethics, that do not fit with Objectivism. There are those, however, who hold the same underlying principles and who just disagree on what form laissez-faire capitalism is likely to take.

I don't consider myself anarchocapitalist; I'm too jaded about the virtual lack of real-world stable examples (before die-hard minarchists cheer, remember there's a dearth of examples for minarchy too). I understand the Oist an-cap argument, however, and it's a pretty mundane economic one rather than a philosophical chasm:

Essentially, if you have a substantial majority of people who agree on objective rational law (and without this, any attempt at laissez-faire is doomed) in a laissez-faire capitalism, then the number of agencies involved in dispute resolution/law-enforcement could vary. 1) A monopoly supplier (in minarchy) has no legitimate reason to shut down private arbitration agencies or security forces (assuming they acting by the same laws), meaning if more agencies arise the society could migrate towards anarchocapitalism. 2) Competing agencies (in an-cap) could merge due to economies of scale, migrating towards a single supplier. The stable outcome would be determined by the question of whether such services are a natural monopoly.

Almost all Objectivists assume that a natural monopoly exists and that only the single supplier case could be stable. Oist an-caps assume that natural monopoly is a mythical creature so competing agencies would result. I'm a cynic who still finds it a curiosity, but mainly now just sees how far we are from a world where that question could even be tested.

Hi Aaron,

Selecting this part of your feed-back, and reading in between its lines...

I don't consider myself anarchocapitalist; I'm too jaded about the virtual lack of real-world stable examples (before die-hard minarchists cheer, remember there's a dearth of examples for minarchy too).

...Is sounds as if you think that so-called anarchocapitlaism could work, but that would require human beings to be flawlessly rational and moral? You can see that they are not, and therefore you are a "cynic" and that's why anarcho-capitalism can only be "good in theory."

Am I right...at all?

Victor

Just noticed I missed this old post.



I don't think minarchy or market anarchy require flawless rationality and morality - but both would require some degree of general rationality and agreement on objective law in a society. I don't know how to quantify this degree, but am sadly sure we are not near it now. I have not concluded that reaching this is impossible, but do seriously question it - hence what I regard as cynicism.