MINARCHISM
Term coined in 1971 by SEK3 to substitute for the clumsy phrase, "limited-government Libertarian."
[agorist]
"[Minarchists] ... believe government's only purpose is to protect people from coercion and violence." (See libertarianism.)
World's Smallest Political Quiz
[quiz]
The minarchist position was summarized by Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who said, "That government is best which governs least."
bkMarcus, A Brief Introduction to Philosophical Anarchism
[bk]
Minarchism, sometimes clumsily called minimal statism, is the view that government should be as small as possible. Supporters argue that it continues the tradition of classical liberal philosophy in its original form.
Radical minarchists usually agree that government should be restricted to its "minimal" or "night-watchman" state functions of government (courts, police, prisons, defence forces). Some other minarchists include in the role of government the management of essential common infrastructure (roads, money); some, by what is sometimes reproached to them as a slippery slope, include quite a lot in such essential infrastructure (schools, hospitals, social security). Actually, these minarchists often accept (in a conservative rather than principled way) as valid some of current government's domain, and consider it more urgent to stop the expansion of government than to reduce its domain to any particular size. Minarchists are generally opposed to government programs which transfer wealth or which subsidize certain sectors of the economy.
Minarchists usually justify their vision of the state by referring to basic principles rather than arguing in terms of pragmatic results. For example, in his book Anarchy, State and Utopia, Robert Nozick defines the role of a minimal state as follows:
"Our main conclusions about the state are that a minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified; that any more extensive state will violate persons'rights not to be forced to do certain things , and is unjustified; and that the minimal state is inspiring as well as right. Two noteworthy implications are that the state may not use its coercive apparatus for the purpose of getting some citizens to aid others, or in order to prohibit activities to people for their own good or protection."
Another point: in my view, we are about as likely to achieve minarchy as we are to achieve anarchy. I.e., both are remote possibilities. What is striking is that almost every criticism of "impracticality" that minarchist hurl at anarchy is also true of minarchy itself. Both are exceedingly unlikely. Both require massive changes in views among millions of people. Both rest on presumptions that most people simply don't care much about.
N. Stephan Kinsella, "What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist"
[kinsella]
