tive terms and ask the question: Given where we are at any
moment in time, what policies and mindsets increase the avail-
able options for how to live? The late Reason Contributing Editor
Thomas Szasz once told me he was against medical marijuana
because it simply extended the medical profession’s control
over more substances. Other libertarians have told me that legal-
izing pot is not a win because it simply regulates and taxes it like
beer, wine, and alcohol.
I loved and admired Szasz, and I get where the ancaps and
libertarian edgelords are coming from, but give me a break
already. Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, except
when it makes basic conversations about the quality of everyday
life essentially impossible.
Libertarian-minded people can choose to be principled and
effective, by constantly pushing for more freedom in discus-
sions about public policy and by advocating and living out the
general social attitudes that go along with such beliefs—tol-
erance, pluralism, optimism, skepticism toward public and
private concentrations of power, etc. Or we can choose to be
principled and annoying as fuck by spending our energy pre-
tending to be anarchists. I know the direction in which I’m
walking even if I don’t yet know my final destination. See you
when I see you, comrades.
Reply: Mangu-Ward to Gillespie
MUCH OF NICK’S critique of anarchism seems to boil down to the
fact that ancaps are totally not fun at parties—plus their ideas
are so unpopular. Which creates an awkward pot-kettle situa-
tion, since that’s precisely the kind of thing that most people
would say about libertarians. And atheists. And vegans. Which
are all categories to which Nick belongs, by the by.
Unpopular and untrue are nearly, if not totally, unrelated
concepts. Taxation really is theft and war really is murder. None
of which is any excuse for bad behavior during conversations
over beers.
Political reactionaries, even revolutionaries, come in all ide-
ological flavors. Your ends don’t have to be extreme to justify
extreme means, or vice versa. I have known plenty of anarchists
who are perfectly happy to sit quietly and chat with their social-
ist buddies about whether anything can be done to tweak the
wording of Chicago’s asset forfeiture provisions to minimize
harm to the city’s least well-off. And I’ve seen shirt-grabbing
shouting matches over which candidate should win the Repub-
lican primary between people who couldn’t fit one thin dime
in the gap between their policy goals or aesthetic preferences.
Minarchists and anarcho-capitalists should be bosom bud-
dies, by my lights. But none of that changes the fact that I’ve
found it fiendishly difficult to get a toehold in the slippery slope
of minarchism—and not for lack of trying.
I’ll say it again: If you think the state is uniquely ill-suited to
meet people’s needs when it comes to shoes, soup, school, or
science—and I think we both do—then I fail to see why you’re
keen to have the same batch of bunglers be responsible for far
more fundamental services like courts, cops, and charity. Espe-
cially when the evidence is all around that, given a chance, pri-
vate mechanisms can provide all of the above more fairly, more
cheaply, and more innovatively. When I set out walking, I like
to know where I’m headed. But you’re welcome to walk with me
as long as you like, Nick.Reply: Gillespie to Mangu-Ward
FOR STARTERS, I’M an apatheist, not an atheist. Raised Catholic
and the recipient of not fewer than five holy sacraments before
Ronald Reagan left office, I have simply lost interest over the
years in questions of personal faith, even as I respect and admire
many believers and the communities, organizations, and tra-
ditions they have built over millennia. My veganism, like my
libertarianism, is directional and based on plants having fewer
calories than meat and dairy products, not on the idea that ani-
mals have the same rights as people. It’s a default setting, not a
rigid commitment. Maybe I’ll see you at the seafood buffet.
Similarly, not all taxation is theft, is it? Don’t you give con-
sent, however grudgingly, when you choose to stay in a particu-
lar jurisdiction or move to a new one? Maybe some forms of taxa-
tion are kinda-sorta-like theft, but surely there are important
differences worth itemizing and discussing.
Indeed, if taxation is theft, by the time we’re old enough to
vote we’re all sitting on thousands of dollars in stolen property
that we should be trying to return to its rightful owners. My res-
ervations about anarchy are not simply that its proponents are
often unpopular and usually annoying.
But yes to Katherine’s generous offer of walking together in
the direction of limited government and lower, fairer taxes. Like
the farmer and the rancher, anarchists and minarchists should
be friends, at least as long as we agree that neither farming nor
ranching should be subsidized by taxpayers.KATHERINE MANGU-WARD is editor in chief of Reason.NICK GILLESPIE is editor at large at Reason.40 OCTOBER 2018