[From my Webnote series]
From a tweet:
Not really. First, in practice most don’t. Even honest Randians eventually admit this — e.g. David Kelley, annoying pest Jan “Helfeld,” Rand’s attorney Murray Franck, Marsha Enright (I think), and many others. https://t.co/wKbx8ijabC
Second, to have a criminal state you don’t…
— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) July 12, 2025
Another reason why “voluntary” and tax-free minarchism is a chimera.
More:
“Law and Intellectual Property in a Stateless Society,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), p. 378 and n.53:
Such an agency necessarily commits aggression against either human bodies or owned property (usually both), either by taxing or by outlawing competition (usually both).53
53 States invariably claim both powers, but either one alone is sufficient to give the state its unique status, and in fact each power implies the other. The power to tax alone would provide the agency with the ability to outcompete competing agencies that do not have this power, in the same way that public (government) schools outcompete private schools. Thus, the power to tax gives the taxing agency the practical ability to monopolize the field and outlaw or restrict competition. And the power to exclude competition alone would permit the monopolizing agency to charge monopoly prices for its services, akin to a tax.
KOL154 | “The Social Theory of Hoppe: Lecture 2: Types of Socialism and the Origin of the State”
What must an agent be able to do to qualify as the state? He must be able to insist that all conflicts – now remember, this goes back to his view of conflict as conflicts over the use of a conflictable or rivalrous or scarce means. All conflicts among the inhabitants in a given territory must be brought to him for ultimate decision-making for his final review. In particular, this agent must be able to insist that all conflicts involving himself be adjudicated by him or his agent.
00:35:20
Now, implied in this power to exclude all others from acting as ultimate judge, as the second defining characteristic of a state, is the agent’s power to tax, that is, to unilaterally determine the price that justice seekers must pay for his services. Now, you can see that this actually applies to any state, even a minarchy, and Hans says in other places – he combines the power to tax with the power to have a monopolistic decision-making power in a given territory. And these are actually sort of both sides of the same coin. And in fact, either one is sufficient for the other.
00:35:58
Imagine an agency that didn’t have a monopolistic right to outlaw competition in adjudication services but it has the power to tax. Well, if it has the power to tax, then it can outcompete all other agencies because it can take money from the people and use it to subsidize its services, similar to the way that public or state schools, government schools in, say, the US are hard for private schools to compete with, and that’s why private schools are a minority. Conversely, if you didn’t have the power to tax but you had the power to outlaw competition, then the agency could simply charge a monopoly price for its services, which people will be forced to use because you’re preventing them from using competing services. So that’s the same as a tax. So basically, taxing implies monopoly, and monopoly implies taxes.
An Objectivist IP Argument for Taxation:
Objectivists say they are against taxation; they say that you can fund a state by some kind of contract fee or lottery system. Obviously, you can’t, not without the state compelling membership or outlawing competitors, which permits them to charge monopoly prices which amounts to a tax.
But Objectivists are strongly pro-intellectual property (see Why Objectivists Hate Anarchy; IP: The Objectivists Strike Back!). They believe you deserve to be rewarded for creative, innovative, inventive action. But note that they also are extremely fond of the American Constitution and Founders; they believe the Constitution is a great achievement of the intellect–this corresponds with their belief that a proper state, such as the original American state, is a great value to man. Well, put two and two together: the Founders gave us a great creation: the Constitution, and our system of government. We all benefit from it. It’s only fair that the Founders charge us a royalty for our use of their creation–and naturally, the state itself is the agency as the natural successor to its parent-creators, the Framers and Founders, to inherit and manage this royalty-collecting right. Don’t call it a tax–call it a royalty.
Objectivists: “All Property is Intellectual Property”:
Force that is consented to, or that is in response to initiated force, is perfectly legitimate.
The problem with the state is that it engages in aggression. You cannot oppose aggression, and favor the state. PEriod. IF the “state” does not commit aggression, then it is not a state, and we do not oppose it. You say that you oppose taxation. This is not really true, because your alternative funding mechanisms are either ridiculous and non serious (a lottery!?) or tantamount to a tax (charging a contract enforcement fee–after monopolizing the courts! … say, I guess the price charged will be Objectively Reasonable!). If your state outlaws competing defense agencies, it does this by committing aggression to stop them. Once it does this, it’s the only game in town. This permits it to charge monopoly prices, and to provide bad service. Anyone who is aware of the problem of state monopolies knows this. Any person who wants protection and justice has no choice but to use the state, and pay whatever fees it sets. This is the same as a tax, and in any event is aggression.
If you do not support this, surrpise–you’re an anarchist too! If you do support this, you cannot claim to be against the initiation of force. Choose.
Stephan Kinsella, “What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023):
States always tax their citizens, which is a form of aggression. They always outlaw competing defense agencies, which also amounts to aggression.
KOL231 | Let’s Talk Ethereum—Libertarianism, Anarcho-Capitalism & Blockchains
So it has to be the monopolistic provider of law and justice and force in a given community. And those two things combined, and actually either one of them implies the other – that’s far afield, but those two things are both acts of aggression. They’re basically acts of violence against innocent people who have done nothing wrong.
Kinsella comments to Steve Horwitz, Thoughts on Sciabarra, HNN:
It is not “government” per se that is the problem, as Tibor Machan has noted. We can say that a free society with no states has “government” but no states. The question is whether there is a state. A state is an entity that both taxes people and forcibly outlaws competition. There is no reason to say that private justice agencies would have these characteristics. See on this, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, The Private Production of Defense, http://www.mises.org/journals/scholar/Hoppe.pdf
