Book:Achieving Freedom

Achieving Freedom is a book by Stefan Molyneux. It was preceded by Everyday Anarchy and Practical Anarchy. Only the first part of the book has been released so far.

How (Not) To Achieve Freedom

Before we start talking about how to achieve a stateless society, I think that it is important to spend some time talking about how not to achieve a stateless society.

For the past several hundred years – really since the late eighteenth century – intellectuals, priests, philosophers, academics, and activists of every stripe and hue have been striving with all their considerable intellectual and moral might to place theoretical and practical limits upon the power of the state.

The original American experiment was at least intellectually founded upon the ideal of creating a government by and for the people, with the express knowledge that the state was a dangerous servant and a terrible master.

It is hard to think of other examples in history where so many checks and balances were placed upon centralised political power – and it is also impossible to think of a more dangerous and powerful government than the modern American leviathan.

The abysmal failure of such a noble experiment should give all moralists pause.

If the smallest possible government has grown into the largest conceivable government – within a few hundred years – it is hard to imagine what kind of theoretical system could conceivably control state growth in the future.

Triple Treat

Traditionally, three approaches have been taken to reducing the power and size of the state. The first is political action, the second is academic education, the third is religious partnership.

Political Action

This approach takes as its fundamental axiom the idea that if the general citizens were educated enough, motivated enough, and insistent enough, then the natural democratic process would shrink the size and power of the state. Candidates such as Ron Paul would gain enough of a popular mandate to stride into Washington, wrestle the entrenched special interest groups, flush out the sewage of accumulated corruption, and take back the government for the people!

To this end, libertarians of all persuasions have either directly participated in or supported the pursuit of political action, usually from a grass-roots level. The political process is considered either to be a practical way of gaining – and thus diminishing – political power, or at the very least a “bully pulpit” from which to communicate to a wider audience the libertarian ideals of small government.

Academic Education

This second approach – often allied with the political approach – is based on the belief that if knowledge about the efficiency and virtue of the free market can be researched, peer-reviewed, published, and communicated clearly and widely enough, the general population will forsake their desire for statist solutions to complex social problems in favour of voluntary and free market solutions. In a similar manner to the political approach, the growth in state power is perceived to result from a deficiency in knowledge among the general population about the free market – just as the political approach assumes that state power increases as a result of a deficiency of political knowledge among the general population, such as a detailed understanding of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, and so on.

Religious Partnership

At the true heart of the libertarian movement, however, sits a well-worn altar. Religious faith is the very bedrock of the anti-government movement – in particular, the anti-Federal movement. Ron Paul is a fundamentalist Christian who rejects evolution, the Mises Institute is specifically Catholic, Bob Barr is also a fundamentalist Christian...

It is not exactly that the libertarian movement is populated by fundamentalists, but rather that libertarianism can be considered an off-shoot of Christian fundamentalism.

Follow The...

What these three approaches have in common, of course, is money. Political activism raises tens of millions of dollars in an election cycle – while free-market academic economists take home an income in the six figures, along with tenure, months off in the summer, plenty of travel, and extended sabbatical leaves.

However, the real money in libertarian circles comes from religion. Religious organisations raise billions of dollars a year, and are happy to spend that money funding compatible causes. Americans gave an estimated ninety-three billion dollars to religious organisations in 2005. A large proportion of that money is dedicated to the pursuit of religious goals – one of which is the shrinking of the Federal government through libertarian activism.

The only way that this money can be gotten a hold of is through the perception – well reinforced by libertarians – that not only are these three approaches effective in reducing the power of the state, but they are in fact the most effective approaches.

External links

• Digital version
• Audio version