Is government inevitable? Comment on Holcombe's analysis.

• Author: Leeson, Peter T.
• Position: Controversy

Randall G. Holcombe's article "Government: Unnecessary but Inevitable" (2004) offers excellent insights into the sustainability of anarchy and the creation of government. Holcombe recognizes that "government was not created for the benefit of its citizens, it was created for the benefit of those who rule." Although he agrees that government is unnecessary for the provision of public goods, he believes that libertarian anarchists ignore more practical questions about the sustainability of anarchy. He argues that because the stronger individuals will always get their way and form a government, the relevant debate among advocates of liberty should be about how weaker individuals can "create and sustain preemptively a liberty-preserving government." The inevitability of the state forces society to decide between evils. Instead of advocating anarchy, Holcombe believes that libertarians should advocate the establishment of minimal governments that can prevent takeover by more tyrannical ones.

Inspired by Holcombe's discussion, we reconsider here some of his claims. Despite Holcombe's interesting hypothesis, we believe that his argument fails on two counts: he does not show, first, that anarchy must break down and, second, that limited government will remain limited. The arguments he uses against the viability of anarchy can be applied to the viability of limited government, and the arguments he uses for the viability of limited government can be applied to the viability of anarchy. In this comment, we discuss the problems of Holcombe's theoretical arguments and the historical evidence that shows he cannot have his cake and eat it too. Holcombe, who might be considered a pessimistic anarchist, is in our opinion too pessimistic about anarchy and too optimistic about government.

Some Observations Concerning the Sustainability of Anarchy

Building on earlier criticisms of anarchy (Tullock 1972, 1974; Nozick 1974; Cowen 1992), Holcombe argues that government is inevitable. Conventional wisdom is that stateless orders must be short-lived because of their susceptibility to outside forces. There may be truth in this claim, but we believe that the historical record calls it into question.

The ubiquity of government today causes us to forget that many societies were stateless for most of their histories and that many remained so well into the twentieth century. The historical presence of long-standing, primitive, anarchic societies spans the globe. Consider, for example, societies such as the Eskimo tribes of the North American Arctic, Pygmies in Zaire, the Yurok of North America, the Ifugao of the Philippines, the Land Dyaks of Sarawak, the Kuikuru of South America, the Kabyle Berbers of Algeria, the Massims of East Paupo-Melanesia, and the Santals of India--none of which had governments (Leeson forthcoming).

Many stateless societies also populated precolonial Africa; a few encompassed significant numbers of people. Consider, for example, the Tiv, which included more than one million individuals; the Nucr, whose population has been estimated at four hundred thousand; or the Lugbara, with more than three hundred thousand members. In Africa, the Barabaig, Dinka, Jie, Karamojong, Turkana, Tiv, Lugbara, Konkomba, Plateau Tonga, and others long existed as stateless or near-anarchic orders as well. Today Somalia is essentially stateless and has remained effectively so since its government dissolved in 1991 despite predictions that a new government would emerge immediately (Little 2003).

More striking yet is that the world as a whole has operated and continues to operate as international anarchy (Cuzan 1979, 156). The continuing presence of numerous sovereigns creates massive ungoverned interstices for many of the interactions between the inhabitants...