See also The Limits of Armchair Theorizing: The case of Threats.
Update: See Libertarian Button Pushers and Political Compromise, By Patrick McEwen; Robert Capozzi, Push the Button?; Comment 11684 here (the Ordeal of Hoppe); Stephan Kinsella Ought To Shut His Stupid Cake Hole; Big Government, Thy Name is Privatization (comments).
“I have no idea what it means to “favor the immediate abolition of the state”. I say the state is illegitimate and not justified. What in the world does it mean for it to be “immediately abolished”? I think of the Genie jokes where the guy wishes for something and all kinds of…
— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) April 12, 2025
that is different i think. he is right that anarchy is our ideal goal and the concerns that it would not be stable are in a sense self-defeating. this is different from my criticism of acontextual button-pushing hypos.
— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) April 12, 2025
Leonard Read is known for “I, Pencil” essay. But see “I’d Push the Button” https://t.co/Oo5OCCC2Mr. (@RMEbeling discusses it at https://t.co/06er9tmwLy). The question is non-specified, too armchair … but…sure. I’d push the button. Whatever that means (https://t.co/wBqzGTpJ5G)
— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) March 12, 2021
Some of us “radical” (read: principled) libertarians are sometimes accused of refusing to compromise, refusing to accept incremental movements toward liberty; that we would only accept a magical “push of the button”. Of course, this is not true. I want the income tax abolished, but I would view a reduction in the marginal tax rates as an unambiguous improvement by libertarian standards.
The problem lies in reforms that do not clearly and unambiguosly improve the situation, however minutely; but that might even make things worse, at least for some people. For example, moving to a “flat tax” of 20% (with no deductions at all) would be a good thing for me, and maybe even “overall” (whatever that means), but it would amount to a punitive tax increase on people making, say, $25K a year, who pay almost no income tax now. Such a reform would decrease rights violations for some, and increase it for others.
Likewise, talk about shifting from income to VAT or sales tax is dangerous; the problem is not the form, but the level. A sales tax would not replace the income tax; it would add to it. The voucher system is problematic not because it is not a whole solution, but because it is not even moving in the direction of more liberty; it would actually expand the number of education welfare recipients, and further increase the state’s control over currently private schools.
Similarly, one significant problem with the proposed social security reform is not that it does not go far enough. If it made an incremental, unambiguous improvement in terms of liberty and rights, I would favor it.But both the current system and the proposed new system are going to be terrible. I can’t really rely on receiving benefits from the system, whether it’s reformed or not; and even if I got to invest a paltry 4% of my income up to the new FICA income cap (currently about $90K but likely to increase, as noted below), that would only be at most about $6-7K a year–in a conservative, government limited set of investments. That’s just noise.
However, the the new plan will almost certainly result in an increase in the limit of income subject to FICA. I.e., my taxes will go from 6.2% of $90K to 6.2% of say, $130K at least (for now–probably unlimited thereafter). This means at least an additional $2400 or so of taxes for me, and another $2400K for my employer (which in the end, acts as a tax since it reduces wages). I.e., the cost to anyone earning decent money will be roughly $3-4K a year in extra taxes, just for the privilege of putting $7K of my own money into a government-controlled investment account (you can already put $15K into 401k which has more flexibility, and up to about $40K into a SEP-IRA if you have a business with enough profit, so the $7K in a much less attractive account is not that great a deal).
I would rather they just leave the current FICA tax in place, with no increase; means-test social security benefits, and label it what it is: welfare; and increase the limits on how much you can put into a 401k pre-tax. That way at least the dreadful tax would not increase as much and working people would stop stupidly relying on SS benefits being there when they retire.
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From this thread:
I don’t think the question is meaningful. You are leaving too many means out. You are assuming too many magical things. Clarify it and I can answer it.
For example, what do you mean, end gov’t w/ a push of the button? how does the button do this? Turn poeple into robots? change their mind? blow up go’vt buildings? the only way to get rid of the state really is for most poeple not to believe in it. Are you saying woudl I prefer most poeple not believe in the state’s legitimacy? Or would I push a button that would make them change their minds? If so, how?
As I wrote elsewhere,
I will tell you I have no idea what this means. Magic makes no sense to me. I could only answer such a question if the means by which the end occurs is described. For example, if the magic button destroys all life on earth with a billion hydrogen bombs, that would be one way of achieving your proposed end result. I would not be in favor of that. Presumably you have some other meachanism in mind that achieves some defined result–could you explain the mechanism, and the result? That would allow other libertarians to evaluate whether they believe this action would be consistent with liberty or not.
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From a defunct thread:
Kennedy: “You’ve appeared to say that you would favor open borders now if the state were abolished now, but I note that Hoppe’s argument which you cite here would still stand intact. So would you really favor the immediate abolition of the state, or is that a disingenuous pose?”
Hoppe’s argument would not call for any restriction of immigrants if there were no states. In fact there would be no immigrants, only invitees of particular owners.
I have no idea what it means to “favor the immediate abolition of the state.” I say the state is illegitimate and not justified. 1 What in the world does it mean for it to be “immediately abolished”? I think of the Genie jokes where the guy wishes for something and all kinds of bizarre changes have to be made in the world to make the outcome happen. Does it mean that the state evaporated even though most people remain socialistic? If so, it would soon arise again. Does it mean that all state employees died instantly? I would not oppose this but again, a new state would arise. Does it mean that the vast majority of poeple change their minds and now favor voluntarism and libertarianism? That would do it, but how does such a change of mind occur, especially “immediately”? These Leonard Read “push the button” hypos are stupid.
[Or from Comment 11684 here (the Ordeal of Hoppe): ]
[Update, April 2025: Last weekend, at APEE in Guatemala, 2 I was criticizing the activist perspective and someone pushed back and said but isn’t the purpose of all that you do, we do here, to work to achieve a free society? I said well suppose I could “push a button” that simply “made the world more libertarian”****
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- Stephan Kinsella
Some of us “radical” (read: principled) libertarians are sometimes accused of refusing to compromise, refusing to accept incremental movements toward liberty; that we would only accept a magical “push of the button”. Of course, this is not true. I want the income tax abolished, but I would view a reduction in the marginal tax rates as an unambiguous improvement by libertarian standards.
The problem lies in reforms that do not clearly and unambiguosly improve the situation, however minutely; but that might even make things worse, at least for some people. For example, moving to a “flat tax” of 20% (with no deductions at all) would be a good thing for me, and maybe even “overall” (whatever that means), but it would amount to a punitive tax increase on people making, say, $25K a year, who pay almost no income tax now. Such a reform would decrease rights violations for some, and increase it for others.
Likewise, talk about shifting from income to VAT or sales tax is dangerous; the problem is not the form, but the level. A sales tax would not replace the income tax; it would add to it. The voucher system is problematic not because it is not a whole solution, but because it is not even moving in the direction of more liberty; it would actually expand the number of education welfare recipients, and further increase the state’s control over currently private schools.
Similarly, one significant problem with the proposed social security reform is not that it does not go far enough. If it made an incremental, unambiguous improvement in terms of liberty and rights, I would favor it.
But both the current system and the proposed new system are going to be terrible. I can’t really rely on receiving benefits from the system, whether it’s reformed or not; and even if I got to invest a paltry 4% of my income up to the new FICA income cap (currently about $90K but likely to increase, as noted below), that would only be at most about $6-7K a year–in a conservative, government limited set of investments. That’s just noise.
However, the the new plan will almost certainly result in an increase in the limit of income subject to FICA. I.e., my taxes will go from 6.2% of $90K to 6.2% of say, $130K at least (for now–probably unlimited thereafter). This means at least an additional $2400 or so of taxes for me, and another $2400K for my employer (which in the end, acts as a tax since it reduces wages). I.e., the cost to anyone earning decent money will be roughly $3-4K a year in extra taxes, just for the privilege of putting $7K of my own money into a government-controlled investment account (you can already put $15K into 401k which has more flexibility, and up to about $40K into a SEP-IRA if you have a business with enough profit, so the $7K in a much less attractive account is not that great a deal).
I would rather they just leave the current FICA tax in place, with no increase; means-test social security benefits, and label it what it is: welfare; and increase the limits on how much you can put into a 401k pre-tax. That way at least the dreadful tax would not increase as much and working people would stop stupidly relying on SS benefits being there when they retire.
Published: February 4, 2005 7:52 AM
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[Comment at 09/27/2008 09:32 PM by Stephan Kinsella]
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For Rothbard on this, see Toward a Theory of Strategy for Liberty (archived comments on related Mises blog post)
Murray Rothbard’s For A New Libery:
In short, to really pursue the goal of liberty, the libertarian must desire it attained by the most effective and speediest means available. It was in this spirit that the classical liberal Leonard E. Read, advocating immediate and total abolition of price and wage controls after World War II, declared in a speech, “If there were a button on this rostrum, the pressing of which would release all wage and price controls instantaneously, I would put my finger on it and push!”2
The libertarian, then, should be a person who would push the button, if it existed, for the instantaneous abolition of all invasions of liberty. Of course, he knows, too, that such a magic button does not exist, but his fundamental preference colors and shapes his entire strategic perspective.
Such an “abolitionist” perspective does not mean, again, that the libertarian has an unrealistic assessment of how rapidly his goal will, in fact, be achieved. Thus, the libertarian abolitionist of slavery, William Lloyd Garrison, was not being “unrealistic” when in the 1830s he first raised the glorious standard of immediate emancipation of the slaves. His goal was the morally proper one, and his strategic realism came in the fact that he did not expect his goal to be quickly reached. We have seen in chapter i that Garrison himself distinguished: “Urge immediate abolition as earnestly as we may, it will, alas! be gradual abolition in the end. We have never said that slavery would be overthrown by a single blow; that it ought to be, we shall always contend.”3 Otherwise, as Garrison trenchantly warned, “Gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice.” [p. 303]
- Stephan Kinsella, “What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023); The Irrelevance of the Impossibility of Anarcho-Libertarianism. [↩]
- Speaking at APEE IP Panel in Guatemala. [↩]
Hi Stephan,
A slight correction; your FICA rate is not 6.2% up to $90K (actually $108K, send me the difference, LOL), it is closer to 15.3%, as the self-employed are liable for, since monies paid to Social Security and Medicare are employment expense that would otherwise have been paid out as wages;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Insurance_Contributions_Act_tax
I once wrote an article about a “Magic Wand” (rather than button):
http://fare.livejournal.com/56768.html