The “freedom train” dead-ends?

Thanks to Brian Doherty at Reason, here’s a provocative essay on the ultimate incompatibility of minarchism and anarchism. The Reason comments, provocative in a less salutary way, are answered by radgeek here.

I can’t argue with his end-of-line metaphor. At the point where the minarchists get off, they’ll want to stop the train, wherever that is, because once you’ve stipulated to the principle of government, you’re going to want to govern someone. If a minarchist never lost their minarchism, they’d keep shrinking government to the point that it was functionally invisible, and at that point, the anarchist would find nothing to oppose that was worth opposing. But most minarchists will bail long before that.

I fail to see what the Dallas Accord has to do with anything. An anarchist cannot work within the LP and be philosophically consistent, ergo anyone involved with the LP is by definition a minarchist. A political party exists to elect political candidates; it is not a debating society. Yet the LP requires, if not anarchists, then minarchists headed for a stop farther down the line than anyone is currently gathering their baggage for. They’re the soul of the party, what keeps it from selling out. It’s very possible that the LP could at some point take over from the Republican party, but that will only happen if the LP jettisons its soul. Right now there’s not a constituency for what the LP is selling . The GOP has a chance to vote for a relatively principled if moderate pro-freedom candidate, and over 90% are choosing not to. The only constituency they have which is not to some extent being served by the Democrats is the anti-abortion movement. If we got rid of the anarchists, it would help the success of the party. (“Anarchists” are scary; they’re those people who rioted in Seattle.) But what price success?

In radgeeks follow-up, he makes the point that those who disregard the law have been more successful at practical freedom than those who would change the laws. Again, I can’t argue. But his argument largely rests on lawbreaking being widely-enough practiced that the Power basically gives up. At the point of any action, one is free. For example, everyone has freedom of speech, even North Koreans. It’s freedom after speech that is seriously lacking. Likewise, disregard of drug laws promotes the freedom of those wishing to do drugs. But, because there is a constituency to ban drugs, it also means that drug agents will be hired, which means in practice that those who have no opinion about drugs will have their freedom harmed by SWAT raids. And the minarchists will gleefully deny that the law is the problem, and vote to send heroes of American capitalism to jail for 10 years.

So am I mini or an? Can I be a hemisemidemiminarchist? I’m not sure, but I’ll be examining my own position a little more carefully.