Libertarian Perspectives On Revolution - Perspectives

Perspectives

Murray Rothbard, after noting that convincing the ruling groups, and the recipients of their largesse, of their own iniquity would be almost impossible in practice, opines:

...beyond the problem of education lies the problem of power. After a substantial number of people have been converted, there will be the additional task of finding ways and means to remove State power from our society. Since the state will not gracefully convert itself out of power, other means than education, means of pressure, will have to be used. What particular means or what combination of means – whether by voting, alternative institutions untouched by the State or massive failure to cooperate with the State – depends on the conditions of the time and what will be found to work or not to work. In contrast to matters of theory and principle, the particular tactics to be used – so long as they are consistent with the principles and ultimate goal of a purely free society – are a matter of pragmatism, judgment, and the inexact "art" of the tactician.

Samuel Edward Konkin III, who founded Agorism, and Wally Conger wrote:

"Get-Liberty-quick" schemes from anarchozionism (running away to a Promised Land of Liberty) to political opportunism will seduce the impatient and sway the incompletely informed. All will fail if for no other reason than Liberty grows individual by individual. Mass conversion is impossible. There is one exception – radicalization by statist attack against a collective. Even so, it requires entrepreneurs of Liberty to have sufficiently informed the persecuted collective so that they laze coherently libertarian-ward rather than scatter randomly or worse, flow into out-of-power statism. These Crises of Statism are spontaneous and predictable – but cannot be caused by moral, consistent libertarians.

The Libertarian Party, U.S. platform quotes the U.S. Declaration of Independence in the “Self-determination” plank of its platform: "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of individual liberty, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to agree to such new governance as to them shall seem most likely to protect their liberty."

Lew Rockwell states that libertarianism is a revolutionary movement and raises the example of the American Revolution, asking, "ho writing about politics today might have joined the founding fathers in their conspiracy to overthrow imperial rule? The question is an important one because this event, more than any other in our history, embodies the core of the American political idea, that men are entitled to liberty from despots. This idea, the founders believed, ought to be acted upon by real people against really existing governments."

Author Pierre Lemieux writes: "Could we say that the more powerless the tyrant, the less likely it is that the revolution will devolve into the destruction of all social authorities? If so, it would mean that a libertarian revolution now would be much less dangerous than a revolution when tyranny has become unbearable. Better to make the revolution when it does not have to be devastating; better to do it sooner than later."

Professor Bruce L. Benson writes about the interaction of rebellion and state power: "Unfortunately, once an economy becomes strong, the opportunity costs of rebellion and other efforts to constrain the state become higher and the temptations to use the state as an internal wealth transfer mechanism get stronger, so resistance to the state can decline. When that happens, the state grows faster, and the economy can collapse under its weight unless the state is rolled back (New Zealand is a recent example that comes to mind)."