Nonviolence and Modern Libertarianism

One can’t talk about the modern libertarian movement without talking about Murray Rothbard. He was hugely influential, both academically and as an activist, in shaping libertarianism as we know it today. My own libertarianism is strongly influenced by the work of Rothbard, and as such I was quite interested to read his opinions on nonviolence as a libertarian tactic. As far as I can tell, Murray Rothbard engaged with nonviolence twice. In the March 1983 issue of The Libertarian Forum, he unleashed a scathing diatribe against a current of Gandhi “cultism” in the libertarian movement, which he feared would draw activists away from the Libertarian Party. To be quite frank, it isn’t really worth reading unless you’re interested in decades-​old movement squabbles. One of the “cultists,” Libertarianism.org’s George H. Smith, described Rothbard’s argument this way in issue five of The Voluntaryist (p. 2): “[S]erious criticism requires knowledge of the subject matter and a willingness to present it accurately. Rothbard doesn’t even come close.”

The other instance of Rothbard’s writing on nonviolence I’ve come across is his 1975 introduction to Étienne de La Boétie’s 1576 essay, “Discourse on Voluntary Servitude.” La Boétie’s essay is a seminal text every libertarian should read in full. He identifies the source of political power as obedience, and argues that disobedience destroys political power. Lib​er​tar​i​an​ism​.org hosts two excerpts from the “Discourse” if you are pressed for time, but I recommend the full essay with Rothbard’s introduction. Here’s a brief taste of La Boetie’s eloquence and insight:

Rothbard’s introduction positively glows with admiration. He calls La Boétie “the first libertarian political philosopher in the Western world” (p. 34). He says La Boétie offers “vital insights” into the problem of how to get “from a world of tyranny to a world of freedom” (p. 34), being “the first theorist to move from the emphasis on the importance of consent, to the strategic importance of toppling tyranny by leading the public to withdraw that consent” (p. 37).

Having endorsed more or less without reservation the entirety of La Boétie’s analysis, one would think Rothbard would conclude that libertarians ought to embrace disobedience as their primary strategic tool. Yet, he is lukewarm on this point. Rothbard concludes from his reading of La Boétie that “the primary task of opponents of modern tyranny is an educational one,” that libertarians should attempt “to demystify and desanctify the State apparatus” and to expose state attempts to manufacture the popular consent it requires (p. 35). But surely the point of such education would be to eventually mobilize the ruled population in an effort to disintegrate the ruler’s apparatus of control? Mere awareness of the state’s illegitimacy will not suffice to destroy it. The reason theorists of nonviolence from La Boétie to Gene Sharp have advocated for educating people on the role that consent plays is to enable them to withdraw that consent, i.e., to stop cooperating. All mere education would do is make people aware that they were ruled by a criminal gang rather than benevolent, wise statesmen, and that the source of the rulers’ power was the cooperation or acquiescence of the ruled. But the point is to then get rid of the criminal gang! Yet, Rothbard writes:

This is an astounding conclusion, given what has gone before. If La Boétie is right—and Rothbard seems to think so—then “the strategy of mass, nonviolent civil disobedience of State edicts and exactions” is clearly the most practical strategy. One of the attractive features of Rothbard as a thinker is that he typically unflinchingly followed his arguments where they took him, and embraced those conclusions, “extreme” or no. Yet here he hems and haws.

A group of libertarians calling themselves “voluntaryists” (a name adopted from historical antecedents of the libertarian movement) were far more sympathetic to La Boétie’s conclusion. This was the group Rothbard had in the crosshairs for his 1983 diatribe in The Libertarian Forum. They studied Sharp and other theorists of nonviolent resistance, looking for tools in the fight against the state.

A review of Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action appeared in the first issue of The Voluntaryist, and the third issue featured a review of his Gandhi as a Political Strategist. Both reviews were written by Carl Watner.

The highlight of Watner’s first review is his discussion of how well-​adapted Sharp’s tactics are to libertarian purposes, especially anarchist and libertarian purposes:

Non-​anarchist proponents of nonviolence are often accused of lawlessness or anarchism; to escape this charge, they try to come up with justifications for disobeying the state under certain limited circumstances while retaining a theory of state legitimacy. Disobedience is a tool that can be used against “good,” “legitimate” governments as well as bad, illegitimate ones. It can be used to attack just laws and unjust laws. Furthermore, whenever nonviolence is employed, and for whatever narrow purpose, it weakens the government’s ability to enact its will more broadly. If you think the state has some legitimate functions, this is a potentially negative side effect that must be considered and mitigated if possible. Anarchist proponents of nonviolence have no such problem: One can ethically disobey the state because there was never any obligation to obey it to begin with. Weakening the state generally is a feature for the anarchist, not a bug.

In his review of Sharp’s Gandhi as a Political Strategist, Watner discusses the practicality of nonviolence:

Watner’s analysis here lines up with my remarks about Rothbard above. As I discussed last time, Sharp reframed the discussion of nonviolence from being about ethics to being about strategy. Watner points out that ethics and strategy may not be so independent. If a libertarian society is going to work, people need libertarian tools to deal with problems. Nonviolent strategies are consistent with libertarianism. If the public learns nonviolence in the effort against the state, those skills will help a libertarian society fend off statist takeovers and, as I discussed in Libertarian Papers , allow people to struggle for social change on important issues without violating the rights of the opposition.

Interest in nonviolent methods, and Sharp’s analysis, has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years, especially in the wake of the “Arab Spring” uprisings. In 2011, Sharp gave an interview to Reason, and one of the things they discussed was the potential tie between libertarian politics and nonviolence.

I think Sharp is unnecessarily hedging here. In The Politics of Nonviolent Action, he talks about local governments refusing to cooperate with national governments, up to and including outright secession. He talks, more generally, about the importance of intermediate institutions between the state and the citizenry that can shield people from harm and allow them to organize. He talks about the importance of building up institutions to supplant state services so that current and potential resisters are less dependent on the state for their well-​being. Certainly, nonviolence is not “always” practiced in the context of political decentralization, but Sharp’s work on the subject strongly suggests that it helps, at least in certain circumstances. Not only can libertarianism be advanced by nonviolence, libertarian institutions provide conditions favorable to nonviolent action.

Libertarians have engaged and continued to engage with the tradition of nonviolence. For greater depth, and a look into what the future might hold, I want to leave you with some suggested further reading. Bryan Caplan’s 1994 article, “The Literature of Nonviolent Resistance and Civilian-​Based Defense,” discusses many of the sources I’ve talked about as well as many others. Caplan sees a role for scholars in the classical liberal/​libertarian tradition to contribute to the nonviolence literature:

If you’re interested in nonviolence and want to know where to start reading, Caplan’s piece would serve very well.