The crazy is in the “minarchist” corner. https://t.co/7cJPsEPXJK
— Per Bylund (@PerBylund) November 21, 2025
My new piece for @mises identifies the worst kind of statism: so-called “minarchism.” https://t.co/deoyvvlDJV
— Per Bylund (@PerBylund) November 20, 2025
Per Bylund, “Minarchism Is Statism Lite,” Mises Wire (Nov. 4, 2025)
It may be true that lovers of liberty, originally steeped in society’s preferred form of social democracy, must travel along the spectrum of the state via small (“minimal”) before reaching the conclusion that the state must go. But logically, this is not the case. To cure cancer, it is not necessary to reduce the size of a tumor bit by bit. The cure is to remove it. Similarly, if a rock upsets the flow of a stream, the solution is not to change the size or shape of the rock, to make it more streamlined, but to simply remove it.
This logic seems impossible to recognize for those who have already adopted the minarchist position. Usually hiding behind questions like “but how would it work,” minarchists cannot get their heads around the meaning of anarchism. To them, as to any statist, without the state, society would immediately degenerate into a Hobbesian bellum omnium contra omnes (“war of all against all”). The assumption, which cannot be questioned, is that some form of control or supervised order is necessary for people to get along, solve problems, or coordinate their actions.
Two issues in particular stir minarchists’ ire and they are equally illustrative of the statism that burdens minarchists. One is the alternative of anarchism or statelessness and the other is intellectual property.
See also his “Man and Matter: How the Former Gains Ownership of the Latter,” Libertarian Papers 4 (1): 73–118. Abstract:
This study seeks to investigate the nature of ownership of land, and how the right to its control and use can be inferred from self-ownership as a premise. Hence, the question asked is how ownership (of land) can be justified considering the nature of man from a natural rights point of view. The starting point for the argument is self-ownership as being, where man is identified as an indivisible entirety with inalienable rights to his self emanating from his complex nature. This identification is the point of departure in examining the relation between man and the world, and the concept of ownership. Man’s right to self implies the right to use externals through choice, to “focus his consciousness” in order to achieve values beneficial to his being. The discussion on ownership, as inferred from self-ownership as being, ends in a discussion of the distinct features of land, and how ownership of such can be obtained. The conclusion is that man as a rights-bearer to self can obtain natural use-rights through possession and constructive use of resources, rights which are valid throughout the value-achieving process.
