Libertarian perspectives on revolution

Libertarian perspectives on revolution include the disparate views held by various libertarians on the desirability of creating fundamental change in power or organizational structures in a relatively short time. Libertarian revolutionary goals often include dissolution of current states and even the abolition of all states.

Necessity for revolution

Murray Rothbard, after noting that convincing the ruling groups, and the recipients of their largesse, of their own iniquity would be almost impossible in practice, opines:

Samuel Edward Konkin III, who founded Agorism, and Wally Conger wrote: cquote|"Get-Liberty-quick" schemes from anarchozionism (running away to a Promised Land of Liberty) to political opportunism will seduce the impatient and sway the incompletely informed. All will fail if for no other reason than Liberty grows individual by individual. Mass conversion is impossible. There is one exceptionndash radicalization by statist attack against a collective. Even so, it requires entrepreneurs of Liberty to have sufficiently informed the persecuted collective so that they laze coherently libertarian-ward rather than scatter randomly or worse, flow into out-of-power statism. These Crises of Statism are spontaneous and predictablendash but cannot be caused by moral, consistent libertarians. [Wally Conger, Samuel Edward Konkin III, "New Libertarian Manifesto and Agorist Class Theory," Lulu.com, 2006, 44. ISBN 1847287719, 9781847287717]

The Libertarian Party, U.S. platform quotes the U.S. Declaration of Independence in the “Self-determination” plank of its platform: "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of individual liberty, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to agree to such new governance as to them shall seem most likely to protect their liberty." [ [http://www.lp.org/platform Libertarian Party, U.S. platform] ]

Lew Rockwell raises the example of the American Revolution, asking, " [w] ho writing about politics today might have joined the founding fathers in their conspiracy to overthrow imperial rule? The question is an important one because this event, more than any other in our history, embodies the core of the American political idea, that men are entitled to liberty from despots. This idea, the founders believed, ought to be acted upon by real people against really existing governments." [Lew Rockwell, [http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/generalline.html The General Line] , LewRockwell.com, December 7, 2001.]

Author Pierre Lemieux writes: "Could we say that the more powerless the tyrant, the less likely it is that the revolution will devolve into the destruction of all social authorities? If so, it would mean that a libertarian revolution now would be much less dangerous than a revolution when tyranny has become unbearable. Better to make the revolution when it does not have to be devastating; better to do it sooner than later." [ [http://www.pierrelemieux.org/artsmash.html Pierre Lemieux personal web site] .]

Professor Bruce L. Benson writes about the interaction of rebellion and state power: "Unfortunately, once an economy becomes strong, the opportunity costs of rebellion and other efforts to constrain the state become higher and the temptations to use the state as an internal wealth transfer mechanism get stronger, so resistance to the state can decline. When that happens, the state grows faster, and the economy can collapse under its weight unless the state is rolled back (New Zealand is a recent example that comes to mind)." [Bruce L. Benson, [http://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/08/15/bruce-l-benson/the-most-significant-market-failure/ The Most Significant Market Failure] , Cato Institute [http://cato-unbound.org blog] , August 15th, 2007.]

Methods

Nonviolent action and non-cooperation

"The Voluntaryist", a publication founded in 1982, promotes a libertarian form of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience they call voluntaryism. Its statement of purpose reads: “Voluntaryists are advocates of non-political, non-violent strategies to achieve a free society. We reject electoral politics, in theory and in practice, as incompatible with libertarian principles. Governments must cloak their actions in an aura of moral legitimacy in order to sustain their power, and political methods invariably strengthen that legitimacy. Voluntaryists seek instead to delegitimize the State through education, and we advocate withdrawal of the cooperation and tacit consent on which State power ultimately depends.” [ [http://www.voluntaryist.com The Voluntaryist main page and "support us" page.] ]

Otto Guevara of Movimiento Libertario told "Reason" that the "revolutionaries of the 60s and 70s were all socialists. Now the natural impulse of youth to rebel is being channeled against the socialist establishment." He used as examples young people engaging in acts of "self-ownership" like tattooing and piercing, sexual liberty, the freedom to use drugs, as these are all areas where our position is appealing to the young. He described supporting one form of rebellion: "a huge, subterranean informal economy that's opposed by the larger, established companies...'el diputado pirata.' Someone wants to import and sell a used car... we said, 'what's the problem?' Used clothing, used shoes, these are big markets, and we thought it was absurd that there should be legal obstacles to people trading in these things." [Julian Sanchez, " [http://www.reason.com/news/show/33309.html The Other Guevara, Reason interviews Costa Rica's Libertarian revolutionary] ", "Reason (magazine)" interview with Otto Guevara of Movimiento Libertario, August 12, 2003.]

John T. Kennedy promoted the libertarian/anarchist technique economic secession, for example, replacing use of fiat money with barter or commodity money, refusing to submit to government regulations and licensing and avoiding taxation. [John T. Kennedy, [http://www.anti-state.com/article.php?article_id=395 Economic Secession] at (http://anti-state.com anti-state.com] , March 18, 2003.] [Gene Callahan and Paul Birch, [http://mises.org/story/1204 Economic Secession Won't Succeed] , Ludwig Von Mises Institute, April 10, 2003.] Sam Konkin created the similar term counter-economics. ["The Agorist Institute Report to Supporters", Vol. 2, No. 1, Winter 1996] Survivalist-libertarian author Claire Wolfe writes about economic and political freedom and withdrawing from state control in her [http://www.backwoodshome.com/wolfe_index.html Backwoods Home Magazine column] and her books, starting with "101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution: Ideas and Resources for Self-Liberation, Monkey Wrenching and Preparedness." [Claire Wolfe, "101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution: Ideas and Resources for Self-Liberation, Monkey Wrenching and Preparedness," Breakout Productions; Revised edition (January 1999) (ISBN 1-893626-13-X).]

Libertarians support the right of individuals, communities, states and regions to secede from larger entities. Libertarian professor Walter Block writes: "Those who are not free to secede are in effect (partial) slaves to a king, or to a tyrannous majority under democracy. Nor is secession to be confused with the mere right to emigrate, even when one is allowed to take one’s property out of the country. Secession means the right to stay put, on one’s own property, and either to shift alliance to another political entity, or to set up shop as a sovereign on one’s own account." [Walter Block, [http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block18.html Secession] , LewRockwell.com, July 2, 2002.]

Violent rebellion or terrorism

"Reason senior editor Brian Doherty observes in "Radicals for Capitalism" that " [l] ibertarians have always been more likely to head to a bookstore than an armory, which some think is half the problem." [cite book|title=Radicals for Capitalism|author=Doherty, Brian|pages=378]

In "The Ethics of Liberty", Murray Rothbard notes: "To say that someone has the absolute right to a certain property but lacks the right to defend it against attack or invasion is also to say that he does not have total right to that property." [Murray Rothbard, [http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/twelve.asp "The Ethics of Liberty"] , Chapter 12 "Self-Defense," at Ludwig Von Mises Institute.] However, Rothbard warns against harming innocents: "…the libertarian goal, the victory of liberty, justifies the speediest possible means towards reaching the goal, but those means cannot be such as to contradict, and thereby undercut, the goal itself. We have already seen that gradualism-in-theory is such a contradictory means. Another contradictory means would be to commit aggression (e.g., murder or theft) against persons or just property in order to reach the libertarian goal of nonaggression." [Murray Rothbard, [http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/thirty.asp "The Ethics of Liberty"] , Chapter 30 "Toward a Theory of Strategy for Liberty," at Ludwig Von Mises Institute.]

In 1996, Claire Wolfe wrote in her "101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution": "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."

Libertarian and crypto-anarchist Jim Bell invented the concept of an assassination market, a prediction market or dead pool where any party can place a bet on the date of death of a given individual, and collect a payoff if they "guess" the date accurately. After he was found in possession of various allegedly suspicious materials and weapons, and after placing a “stink bomb” in an Internal Revenue Service office, he was prosecuted and convicted of two felonies, for which he served eleven months in prison. [" [http://jya.com/jimbell6.htm IRS Says Man From Tacoma Part of Plot ] ", "The Oregonian", 1997-11-20, p. C02] [cite web |url=http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40102,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev2 |title=IRS Raids Cypherpunk's House |accessdate=2007-11-07 |date=2000-11-11 |last=McCullagh |first=Declan |work=Politics : Law |publisher="Wired" ] [Associated Press, " [http://jya.com/jimbell7.htm Bell gets 11 months in prison, 3 years supervised release, fine] ", "The Oregonian", 1997-12-12.]

Opposition to violence

David D. Friedman argues in "The Machinery of Freedom" that " [c] ivil disorder leads to more government, not less. It may topple one government, but it creates a situation in which people desire another and stronger. Hitler's regime followed the chaos of the Weimar years. Russian communism is a second example, a lesson for which the anarchists of Kronstadt paid dear. Napoleon is a third." [cite book|title=The Machinery of Freedom|pages=149-150|chapter=Revolution Is the Hell of It|author=Friedman, David D.|isbn=0-8126-9069-9]

In "The Market for Liberty", Linda and Morris Tannehill argue that " [n] ot only is violent revolutionary action destructive, it actually strengthens the government by giving it a 'common enemy' to unite the people against. Violence against the government by a minority always gives the politicians an excuse to increase repressive measures in the name of 'protecting the people.' In fact, the general populace usually join the politicians' cry for 'law and order.'"cite book |title=The Market for Liberty |pages=161 |author=Tannehill, Morris and Linda |isbn=0-930073-08-8 |chapter=The Force Which Shapes the World]

The Tannehills fear the tendency of revolutionary leaders to seize power: "…revolution is a very questionable way to arrive at a society without rulers, since a successful revolution must have leaders. To be successful, revolutionary action must be coordinated. To be coordinated, it must have someone in charge. And, once the revolution has succeeded, the 'Someone in Charge' (or one of his lieutenants, or even one of his enemies) takes over the new power structure so conveniently built up by the revolution. He may just want to 'get things going right,' but he ends up being another ruler. Something like this happened to the American Revolution, and look at us today."

Libertarian and anarcho-capitalist professor Bryan Caplan argues that "when terrorism succeeds in destroying an existing government, it merely creates a power vacuum without fundamentally changing anyone's mind about the nature of power. The predictable result is that a new state, worse than its predecessor, will swiftly appear to fill the void." [Bryan Caplan, [http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/anarfaq.htm Instead of a FAQ, by a Man Too Busy to Write One] , Version 5.2, section 22.]

Related topics

* Anarchism and violence
* Anarcho-capitalism and minarchism
* Controversies within libertarianism
* Libertarian pledge
* Nonviolent revolution
* Nonviolent resistance
* Voluntaryists

References

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