Is government a monopoly of force w/ the right of succession?

[Maestro]

I've been trying to bridge the gap between the ideas of minarchist libertarians with pure anarchists. I think both sides agree on the non-aggression principle and advocate for personal liberty in economics, social interactions, and so on. The argument that pure anarchists use against minarchists is that government is by definition, a monopoly of force. I'm wondering if government is still a monopoly of force if you have the option of opting out or seceding.

Minarchists think that government has a legitimate role in protecting the liberties of individuals against theft and aggression. Anarchists believe that these protections should not come from a monopoly of force but from a free market. But what if people voluntarily form a collective band of defense with the option of opting out? Is that a monopoly of force then?

We recognize that society should have a certain degree of common standards (like no muder, theft, fraud, etc.), and should not necessarily follow a standard profit business model (like charity, or the FDR donation model). So what about having a certain standard of protection in a given locality with a collectively financed model? You could have a voluntary society that includes a justice/despute-resolution system, a police system, and a geographical defense system, and those within that society will pay certain fees and elect certain leaders for living in that society. We can argue semantics, but to me that sounds like a government. The one caveat is that states, cities, or even individuals have the option of leaving that society without penalties if you so choose to. Now obviously, people recognize that 300,000,000 individual "states" would be impractical, so people would probably voluntarily choose to band into certain geographical systems. Again, if individuals have the option of opting out, is this really a monopoly of force?

Of course, I do recognize that with the current mindset of the U.S. government, the country would never allow a group to secede, but my hypothetical situation is meant to apply to the minimal, constitutional system that many mainstream libertarians argue for.

*Edit: I mean secession, not succession. My spelling is bad.*

[dsayers]

Would rape be so bad if you could opt out of it? The moment you can opt out of sexual intercourse, it's not rape. Consent is the key element of voluntary interaction and with governments, consent is not present. The moment consent is present, you're not talking about government.

 

I've been trying to bridge the gap between the ideas of minarchist libertarians with pure anarchists.

 

Minarchy is an unprincipled conclusion. It's the belief that there are some problems that require violence to be solved. But the only thing that you can achieve with violence that you cannot achieve without violence is violence itself. Either theft, assault, rape, and murder are immoral or they are not. If they are, there's no reason to abide any amount of State. If they're not, there's no reason to limit any amount of State.

[Maestro]

Right, but I think we're arguing semantics here. The dictionary definition of government does not say government has to be involuntary. The definition is simply "The system by which a nation, state, or community is governed."

If we were to add an amendment to the U.S. Constitution stating that states, cities, or individuals may secede from the Union without penalty, would that suddenly transform the U.S. into anarchy? I think most people would still refer to it as the U.S. "government" because there are laws, taxes, and armies.

[dsayers]

Semantics is how they've got you right now. That's why they say laws instead of commands. It's why they say government instead of theft of any aspect of your life they're interested in. The term govern itself is without consent. For example, the Earth's gravitational pull governs the rate at which something falls to the Earth.

 

Humans do not have the power/right to govern other humans because they are not fundamentally different. If you own a restaurant, you can enact a policy such as no shirt, no shoes, no service. But that's because that is YOUR restaurant. In order for government to be valid, it (mind the anthropomorphism) would have have to own all the land it governs as well as everybody on that land. This claim is inherently immoral because it bypasses consent where consent is required.

 

I don't get to say "I own you, but if you don't like that, just tell me." That is immoral because it's the simultaneous acceptance and rejection of property rights. I am not claiming ownership of you, nor you me. We don't have to secede because we've not been forcibly corralled by one another to begin with. THIS is voluntary interaction. Government is predicated on a lack of consent. The debts they create are in fact their way of claiming ownership of humans that don't even exist yet. Are you prepared to argue the unborn's complicity in this arrangement?