Freedom, Society, and State - Ludwig von Mises Institute

There is, however, the potential for an additional
pro b I em. Sup po s e, the 0 r i z e s Roy Ch i Ids, t hat in the
midst of an establ ished minimal state an agency arises
which uses procedures identical to those of the state's
agents. Since, under this condition, the incipient
agency could not be any more risky than the state, a
s tat e 0 per a tin g 0 n N0 z i c k ian pr inc i pies wo u I d ha ve no
grounds for prohibiting its activities. But, continues
Chi Ids, since the state was already compensating those
who would have patronized agencies using risky procedures,
the new agency would not have to assume this burden
and could therefore charge lower prices for the same
qual i ty service. This would, in turn, create an economic
incentive for people to subscribe to the new agency,
thereby forcing the minimal state to abandon its own
compensation policy. But this would mean that the minimal
state had reverted to the ultraminimal state. But,
cont inues Chi Ids, provided the new agency continued to
win new cl ients, and other entrepreneurs, seeing the
success of the new agency, entered the field themselves,
the u I t ram i n i mal s tat e W 0 u 1 d de g e n era t e in to a me r e
dominant agency, and eventually that into "simply one
age n c yam 0 n g mIi n y • " Insh0 r t, Ch i 1ds a r gue s, therei s
no reason, on strietly Nozictian grounds, why the invisible
hand could not strike back.(80)
But regardless of how it is justified, the minarch
i s t advoca t es 8 single agency wi th a monopoly on the
use 0 f for c e ins 0 c i e t y and wh 0 S e sol e fun c t ion i s the
protection of individual rights.
d. Evolutionary Individualist Anarchism.
)
An interesting view, which proposed a minimal state
for the present, wh i Ie espousing an anarchist society
for the future, was that advanced by the nineteenth
century English philosopher, Herbert Spencer, and the
French economist, Frederic Bastiat. Both condemned any
extens ion of government beyond the minimum necessary to
protect the natural rights of every individual. Spencer
argued that "every man has freedom to do as he wills,
provided he infringes not the equal freedom of every
other man." From this it follows, he believed, that if
government does anything more than protect individual
rights "it becomes an aggressor instead of a protector."
(81) Thus Spencer was an ardent opponent not only
of any. regulation of commerce, religion, health, education,
etc., but of taxation as well. Indeed, Spencer
goes even further and declares that the individual has a
"right to ignore the state." His reasoning is instruc-
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