Individual Liberty - Evernote

But perhaps Egoist means the exchange value of protection. If so, I answer that, under
free competition, the exchange value of protection, like the exchange value of
everything else, would be its cost, which might in any given case be more or less than
the economic rent. The condition of receiving protection would be the same as the
condition of receiving beefsteak - namely, ability and willingness to pay the cost
thereof.
If I am right, the payment of rent, then, would not be an essential feature in the
contract between the land-holder and the protector. It is conceivable, however, though
in my judgment unlikely, that it might be found an advantageous feature. If so,
protectors adopting that form of contract would distance their competitors. But if one
of these protectors should ever say to land-holders "Sign this contract; if you do not, I
not only will refuse you protection, but I will myself invade you and annually
confiscate a portion of your earnings equal to the economic rent of your land," I
incline to the opinion that "intelligent people" would sooner or later, "by the process
of natural selection," evolve into Anarchy by rallying around these land-holders for
the formation& of a new social and protective system, which would subordinate the
pooling of economic rents to the security of each individual in the possession of the
raw materials which he uses and the disposition of the wealth which he thereby
produces.
If government should be abruptly and entirely abolished tomorrow, there would
probably ensue a series of physical conflicts about land and many other things, ending
in reaction and a revival of the old tyranny. But if the abolition of government shall
take place gradually, beginning with the downfall of the money and land monopolies
and extending thence into one field after another, it will be accompanied by such a
constant acquisition and steady spreading of social truth that, when the time shall
come to apply the voluntary principle in the supply of police protection, the people
will rally as promptly and universally to the support of the protector who acts most
nearly in accordance with the principles of social science as they now rally to the side
of the assaulted man against his would-be murderer. In that case no serious conflict
can arise.
Egoist neglects to consider my statement in reply to him in the last issue of Liberty, to
the effect that the source of the protectors power lies precisely in the patronage. The
protector who is most patronized will, therefore, be the strongest; and the people will
endow with their power the protector who is best fitted to use it in the administration
of justice.
If the masses, or any large section of them, after having come to an understanding and
acceptance of Anarchism, should then be induced by the sophistry of tyrants to reject
it again, despotism would result. This is perfectly true. No Anarchist ever dreamed of
denying it. Indeed, the Anarchist's only hope lies in his confidence that people who
have once intelligently accepted his principle will "stay put."
The present State cannot be an outgrowth of Anarchy, because Anarchy, in the
philosophic sense of the word, has never existed. For Anarchy, after all, means
something more than the possession of liberty. Just as Ruskin defines wealth as "the
possession of the valuable by the valiant," so Anarchy may be defined as the
possession of liberty by libertarians - that is by those who know what liberty means.