Minarchism: The Worst Kind of State Idolatry

[This article is Per Bylund’s opening speech he gave for Sociedad de la Libertad’s VIII Cumbre Mundial de la Libertad (the Seventh World Summit of Freedom) on November 9, 2025.]

Is a little wet, still wet? It seems like a question with an obvious answer. But, for many, the correct answer—for which they argue vociferously—is that “a little wet is not wet.”

I am, of course, talking about minarchism and statism. Both are positions with designs for how society must be organized, guaranteed by the monopolization of the use of force and violence. Wherein they differ is “how wet” they are. Yet they want us to believe that there is much more than a difference in their respective degree of wetness. They claim it is a matter of principle, not of magnitude.

From my anarchist perspective, this is at the same time funny and sad. A state is a state regardless of how big it is. It has a nature that comes from simply being a state. And this nature applies regardless of how you choose to measure its size or impact. This is important to remember, and it needs to be core to libertarian philosophy.

Walter Block has posed the question, what would be the true libertarian position if the options are, on the one hand, a higher tax rate that generates less state revenue and, on the other, a tax cut—lower tax rate—that, due to the Laffer curve, generates more revenue for the state? Both options seem to have effects that are both libertarian and anti-libertarian. So, do we want lower tax rates or lower state revenue if we cannot have both?

While I appreciate what Walter is trying to do with this supposed conundrum, the answer is not one or the other. The options show the fundamental error of subjecting one’s principles to incrementalist reasoning. In this case, the principle is private property rights—the individual’s right to what they have justly acquired and accumulated. In both options, private property rights are violated by the state. So is one option better than the other?

The answer is that it depends. Where you end up is a matter of your personal situation—your preference. But your preference is different from the principle. You might prefer a higher or lower tax rate depending on how it ends up affecting you. It is a matter of defending what is yours. But where both options are bad. So you probably choose what you consider to be the lesser of two evils. But the lesser evil is still evil.

The true libertarian answer to Walter’s question is that we are opposed to violations of private property rights—especially when institutionalized, centralized, and monopolized in a state. The extent of theft does not matter to whether it is theft. The principle is clear: theft is a crime.

Certainly, petty theft or shoplifting is less intrusive and causes less of a burden on the property owner than, say, a tax that consistently steals a third of your income. So we may prefer the former. But it is still theft. It is not less theft just because the thief stole less of value.

Rights are, in this sense, black-or-white, they are either violated or they are not. This is a matter of guilt and responsibility. It is not a matter of making the perfect the enemy of the good. The practice of enforcing, upholding, and defending rights deals with magnitudes and metes out punishment, penalties, and consequences in the specific case. But it hinges on the black-or-white assessment of whether a right was violated. Without a rights violation, there will be no sanction. But the sanction depends on the magnitude of the crime.

What does this have to do with wetness and minarchism? Just as we must distinguish between a rights violation and the sanctions, we must keep principles and preferences apart. Some libertarians may prefer a higher tax rate because it decreases the state’s tax revenue. Other libertarians may prefer a lower rate even if it means increased revenue for the state. But neither position is a matter of principle. In both cases, property rights are violated—by the state.

In other words: you cannot make a principled libertarian argument for either position. The principled libertarian argument is against taxation. It is also against the state, since the state’s very existence violates people’s rights.

So-called minarchists typically consider themselves libertarian, although they may use other labels for it such as objectivism. But they adhere, or at least pay lip service, to a principled position of non-aggression. Libertarians, including the minarchists, hold that no one—whether acting themselves or cowardly doing it through someone else—is allowed to violate the rights of others.

Then what about the state? This is where minarchists make a fundamental error that they refuse to acknowledge. To them, if the state is small, it no longer has any of the bad that comes with being a monopoly on violence. But why? Not only do we have the issue of what “small” means—to again refer to Walter’s hypothetical, is a small state the one that collects a lower tax rate but brings in more revenue, or is the higher-tax-rate, less-revenue state smaller? We also have the issue of why the nature of the state no longer applies.

Certainly, minarchists have come up with all kinds of schemes that supposedly keep the state small. Some of the more honest attempts recognize that the state will attempt to increase its power, influence, and realm in society. Much like the American founders, they therefore draft different types of institutional leashes to chain the beast. This has been tried in history and never worked. The reason is that the state is power, force, and violence. This is its fundamental principle; it is how it is defined, what distinguishes it from other types of organizations. The monopoly of violence.

To be a proponent for this beast is to be a proponent for what it is. Certainly, you can have a preference for some specific type of beast. This is at the very core of what minarchists argue. Their particular beast is small, unthreatening, and kept on a tight leash. It is still a beast, however. And as such it violates rights, has the power to violate rights, and has the incentive to grow large and threatening—and break free from the leash.

The anarchist solution is simple: kill it. If we don’t have a beast, we do not need to fear one. And if we don’t have a beast, then we are free to figure out solutions to our problems on our own.

What is fascinating here is that minarchists will not even consider this solution, which should be rather obvious when considering the libertarian principle of non-aggression. In fact, many of them are very vocal opponents to it. Why is that? Would it not be reasonable to spend the time, effort, and energy that minarchists invest in producing schemes that supposedly leash the state, to instead figure out solutions without it?

The reason, although minarchists do not want to hear it, is that they cannot imagine a world without a state. The state is to them not merely a solution to a problem, but a guarantee. The state guarantees that people’s rights are protected, defended, and upheld. It is the guarantee of justice, peace, and freedom in society. Ask any minarchist, and they will make it clear that it is anarchism’s inability to provide such a guarantee that they are against. They can neither fathom nor accept that society might work without a design or central authority.

This is, in fact, core to the statist delusion. Whether they advocate for a “big” or a “small” one, proponents of the state fundamentally believe the fantasy that we cannot do without it. The only way that minarchists are different from bigger-statists is that they realize that the state does not function as a guarantee in other realms of society. But, they claim, it must guarantee our rights. By maintaining its monopoly on violence and disallowing people from solving their own problems.

Now, I would personally prefer to live under the minarchist state than other varieties, such as the Nazi or communist or welfare state. But, as a matter of principle, it is an abomination. It must be abolished.

Finally, let me add that minarchists are not our compatriots or fellow freedom fighters. They are in fact the worst kind of statists. Not only do they accept the principle of the state, which is fundamentally anti-libertarian, but they have a glorified unrealistic view of it. Other statists rightly consider the state a source of power that they will use to impose their preferred structure of society. They often recognize that it is a means to their end, and that they will wield it as a sword. For minarchists, however, the state is the necessary guarantor of all that is good: the protector, defender, and enforcer of our natural rights. It is, in other words, the bringer of freedom, peace, and justice.

You really cannot be more statist than that.