Freedom, Society, and State - Ludwig von Mises Institute

4. BENJAMIN TUCKER, LYSANDER SPOONER AND THE
PROVISION OF POLICE AND COURT SERVICES
The development of philosophical anarchism into a
complete system reached its fruition in the writings of
Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner on the difficult
problem of the protection of individual rights within a
no-government system. Josiah Warren" sUbscrib"ing to
the Owenite belief in environmental determinism, believed
that crime was a product of an environment characterized
by poverty and disorder. Since the implementation
of his ideas, he believed, would produce a har-monious
society characterized by an ever increasing
standard of living, it followed that individuals would
I ear n t 0 I i vet 0 get her h arm 0 n i ously, and c rime, and
therefore the need for government, would disappear.
Warren's successors took a somewhat less sanguine view
of human na t u r e. They agreed that a society based on
"individual sovereignty" would end economic injustice
and allow for a much greater degree of flexibility as
well as a higher standard of living. While they felt
these factors would eliminate most of the causes of
cr ime, they doubted that crime would cease altogether.
But 0 nee sue han a dmiss ion i s rna de, the que s t ion t hat
mu s t be i mme d i ate I y fa c edis wo u I d not suehas0 c i e t y
b e p I ace d a t the mer c y 0 f the r ema i n i ng c rim ina I e I e ­
men t, whie h pres uma b I Y wo u I d not hesitate toengage i n
violence whenever it suited its purpose?
Tucker admitted that "Where crime exists, force
mu.st exist to suppress it" and denied that anarchism
was simply a "revival of non-resistance."(61) He defined
anarchism in terms of the "sovereignty of the individual"
and Herbert Spencer's "law of equal liberty,"
and contended that the use of force was not necessarily
incompatible with either pr"inciple. Force, he pointed
out, could be either invasive or non-invasive. The
former was defined as the initiation of the use of
coercion and was incompatible with anarchism since it
was a clear violation of the "sovereignty of the
individual." The latter, however, was the defensive
use 0 f co ere ion, i. e ., the mea n s by wh i c h the nona
g g res s i ve i nd i v i d ua I wa s a blet 0 protee t hims elf from
those who would initiate the use of coercion. The noni
n vas i ve use 0 f for c e wa s per f ec t I Y compa t i blew i t h
anarchism, he argued, since it not only did not violate
t he p r inc i pie 0 fin d i v i d u a Iso verei gn t y but wa s, i n
fact, the only means by which that principle could be
upheld in the face of attempted violation. Since
crime, by defInition, involved the invasion of the
r i gh t s of others, Tucker and his colleagues argued that
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