What Must Be Done

How should anarcho-capitalists engage the modern state? Hans-Hermann Hoppe dissects the nature of the modern democratic state and suggests strategies for enacting a bottom-up libertarian revolution in ideology and civil government.

Hoppe begins by examining the nature of the state as “a monopolist of defense and the provision and enforcement of law and order.” Like all state-mandated monopolies, the monopoly of law enforcement also leads to higher prices and lower quality of services. Why is this state of affairs tolerated? The modern democratic states, much more than the monarchies and princely estates of old, are seen as moral and necessary despite ample evidence to the contrary.

In the minds of most modern citizens of democratic states, law and order is what the state says it is, and this has led to a long period of centralization and power consolidation by those states.

How can the libertarian fight back against this trend? Hoppe offers a program that can pave the way for a new libertarian society.