Power Vacuum And Anarchism (Libertarian Anarchocapitalism)
INTRODUCTION
I am the kind of guy who likes to think through the implications of something if we were to actually do it. One of the best ways to do this is to simulate it logically. Anarchism Capitalist Libertarians argue that we can completely destroy the government and replace it with alternatives in the private sector. I think that the need to fight evil cannot be handed over to the free market/ private sector. I fundamentally believe that certain things need to remain in place for order. If they are taken away, then evil men will have no check and, therefore, will be able to do whatever they want.
The Main Argument
The irony for this simulation is that it has been dramatized for me already. I have been watching an early 1900s European gang warfare show. The show focuses on one of the crime lords, who is a Romanian Gypsy. In order to get ahead in that world, you had to conquer other people’s businesses and expand. You would usually expand through either deals/alliances or war. Based on this, my argument is that there is such a thing as a power vacuum. I can argue all day that in principle, people in an ideal world should not need to have people maintaining peace, but there are always evil, greedy men who want to play king of the hill. There has never been a gathering of people or animals that could perpetually exist without a leader to manufacture structure and order for long.
Domestic Issues with Anarchocapitalism
If in theory, everyone was bought into the Anarchocapitalistic view of politics, everyone was inherently good (thus did not need to be protected from evil men), and everyone took seriously their own responsibility to self-govern themselves and not try and coerce others against their will, then we could possibly pull it off. I do want to bring something up really quickly before we move on from this. I think that New Jerusalem (the eternal state on the New Heaven/Earth) will be a type of Anarchocapitialism, but the reason that is possible is that there will no longer be evil in the hearts of men. The type of Anarchism is going to be a Theocratic Anarchocapitalism. God will rule over us, and we will submit to His will without fault, but man will never need to rule over one another again (unless you want to count the man Jesus as a man, but I do not. I think that His humanity is for humility and connection with His bride, the Church. He is first and foremost the eternal God who happens to have sealed Himself in flesh for the rest of time.)
Anarchists say that no person has a right to stop another person from doing what they want. They mainly refer to stopping them from doing good things that are not harming anyone else. The problem is, if they do this, then they must also say they have no right to stop evil. You cannot throw out the bathwater without throwing the baby, also in this case. Another way of putting it is if someone was being tortured to death or raped, could they be stopped from this evil or not? If you say, well, they can stop evil, obviously, I would say that you are saying the same thing as minarchists (the libertarians who want to put the government on a diet but still believe it is necessary to curb evil). A minarchist thinks there should be established people to fight evil on a domestic level and foreign level. An anarchist might respond that they believe in fighting off evil through private security, but they do not consider if private security did not want to just stay small or over a few neighborhoods or cities. Leaders in that group or multiple companies start making deals and growing to bigger and bigger expansions. Who will stop them? Who is there to keep them from becoming the monopoly on the security of millions of people? This is why I argue for fixing the government currently instead of giving it over to evil men in cohorts with evil men who got their power little by little and have most innocent people under their thumb. It would start off free and deregulated, but it would eventually become limitless. Evil men “protecting” people with no limitations is what we would be trading out. You cannot get rid of the police state and get a new wife and hope all the problems will go away. Nope, you will just give the evil one (who is known as the prince of this world) a chance to rule mankind on levels we have never seen. To summarize this point, God made the government to stop evil men via coercion (the sword as stated in Romans 13). If we took away that God made things, then we would have a power vacuum on all levels that would eventually be replaced by the very evil men the state was meant to keep under control. They could grow in men, information and money to a level that no company or person could stop them. The Anarchocapitalist have the right heart about it but are not realist because they underestimate how prevalent and crafty evil is, and the evil one is. The Bible calls sin deceitful. They think of an ideal world, which, like I said earlier, we will be Anarchocapitlistic one day under God in the next life, but this world is not ideal. This is why I said that one of the requirements for a coerciveless society is that man is inherently good.
International Issues with Anarchocapitalism
The country that is arguably most known for being anti-war and non-interventionalist is Sweden. If Sweden were to take the leap and go from non-interventionalist but anarchocapitalist, they would quickly be in trouble. I put the domestic argument first because it would be the long tail issues with Anarchocapitalism. It would take at least months, possibly decades, to truly take over whole states or even the former country of the United States. The more immediate problem that would easily overwhelm any country would be other countries' desires to conquer vulnerable and standing armless people. The individuals might be heavily armed so as to government themselves (like Texans are known for), but they still would not be one hive, mind trained for years, if not decades, in warfare on mass levels. They would be the equivalent of the early Americans against the British army. The militaries of today would easily crush those early revolts if they were to have happened today. Even the countries with the biggest military in the world have been attacked by stupid countries who were immediately squashed. America has had one of, if not the biggest, military since the World Wars, and yet we still have been arrogantly attacked on our own soil during Pearl Harbor by the Japanese and the Twin towers by terrorists from the Middle East. This is where I scratch my head at the Anarchist. If we are currently at a multi-decade stalemate now, with one of the biggest and best armies in the world (us being the United States), how in the world do you think we could wake up tomorrow without a standing army and not be conquered by the afternoon? China alone as an army is similar to the population of all the United States. Sweden would be someone else’s territory by the afternoon because they are so small. The United States would fight for a few weeks because we are like that; the only reason we would be able to hold out is that the other countries would be so busy fighting each other to try and get us. They know that if they could rule the United States, they would become the most powerful country in the world for good. Do I wish all these countries had not stacked up their own men in an international cockfight? Yes, I do wish this. But it is the world we live in. Let me summarize this point. No matter the size of a country, if it did not have a standing army of some kind, it would be eaten by a big shark who smelled blood in the water and decided to eat its former enemy and rival.
God’s purpose of government
Now that I have brought you through this simulation of what would happen in the short-term and long-term, you should be screaming out uncle with your arm twisted behind your back intellectually. Should all people desire for an anarchocapitilistic world? Yes, absolutely .God has put eternity in our hearts. He was meant to be our king, not us ruling over one another. That is why He was Israel’s king for such a long time before the people demanded a king and got Saul. God rebuked them because God is the perfect, sinless, wise king that all of us desire. Government is part of God’s common grace that keeps evil back from its full potential like it was before the Noahic flood.
I want to show you the text in Romans, so we can see God speak on why we need people with the sword to protect us from evil ones.
“For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise form the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.” Romans 13:3-4
As you can see, my argument is really God’s argument in this text. I just flesh out the logic more fully. I pick up His reasoning and walk it out. Minarchists and Anarchists both agree that the police are being forced to punish people for doing things that are not evil; they might be immoral, but they are not evil in the sense of harming others. In political theory, there must be a distinction between these things. (I will probably do a whole article dealing with the difference in the future). Minarchists think we need to reform the state because its role is too important to the flourishing of the average innocent citizen who just wants to live a decent life and enjoy their days on this Earth. Those people are punished in the Anarchist system. Currently, the innocent are punished in some ways, but mainly, they are protected in many others. We want to keep the vacuum sealed by the thing God created to seal it and try and fix what is wrong with it because the alternative is much worse, whether it be domestic or foreign. Let us have faith that government can be done well. God created it, let us pray that He will redeem it for everyone’s sake. Do not become arrogant and wish to destroy what God created for our protection. Instead, keep working to purge the evil from amongst it.
Tim Bankes II
Tim is a Christian author. His worldview that informs his writing is Calvinist, Baptist, and Libertarian. His main series is his Christian picture book series, "About God for Kids", where he discusses the attributes of God in a way kids can digest. He also wrote a Christian Romance novel, libertarian book for beginners, and Christian coloring books. He graduated with a Bachelor's in Biblical Studies from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
He has written a book on freedom called “Are You Free” and he has written multiple children’s books about God. You can find his works at his amazon author page, https://amazon.com/author/timbankes. He even has a free digital ebook on how God is the creator. Get your free copy today at, Greater Creator