I think both of those hypotheses contain some truth, and I also think it’s a mistake to limit either of them to modern times. In pre-modern times the governing institutions may not have looked like a state in the modern sense, but life involved as much as or much more coercion controlling individual behavior and imposing unchosen obligations on us. Sometimes this was a matter of mutual dependence for survival, sometimes of enforcing norms for peaceful coexistence without constant infighting, and so on.
If there is a fundamental problem, I think it’s the one Aristotle pointed out:
Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.
Libertarianism takes as a foundational principle that society cannot justly compel or coerce us to accept obligations we do not choose. This generally includes a large degree of distrust in any institution labeled “government.” But to function in society without governing institutions, we would need to put much more trust in individuals to manage their own affairs without harming others (we have no non-coercive dispute resolution mechanisms efficient and fair enough to use them consistently and frequently in normal life), to efficiently negotiate and enforce agreements among one another, to control their own behavior and make good decisions (or else stand by and watch them fail and suffer without the benefit of scaled-up systems to help people recover from failures). This would be much easier if people were on average much smarter and saner, but still hard, since essentially you’re removing a lot of the defaults we rely on in our own and others’ behavior and forcing deliberate choice.
I’m fairly sure there could be a society organized around libertarian principles that would be great to live in, but I’m not sure there’s a practical stepwise path for getting from here to there. Robin Hanson has done a pretty good job posing hypothetical institutions that could do many of the things governments currently do, without much government involvement, but still more than many libertarians claim to want.
Also, even if we had such a society, it’s hard to make it stable over time. Some people are going to have more success than others, the kinds of success that lead to wealth and the power wealth can buy, including power over people who choose to work for you or otherwise form economic relationships with you. This includes inherited wealth you get by accident of birth. I’m consistently amazed by the degree to which the libertarians I know IRL are so opposed to government coercing anyone in any way, while also having no problem with the power private actors like corporations have to coerce their customers and employees. And in fact most people don’t want to live in a world where they’re free to act as they choose but powerless to access any actual choices they find even remotely compatible with what they consider a good life.
I think both of those hypotheses contain some truth, and I also think it’s a mistake to limit either of them to modern times. In pre-modern times the governing institutions may not have looked like a state in the modern sense, but life involved as much as or much more coercion controlling individual behavior and imposing unchosen obligations on us. Sometimes this was a matter of mutual dependence for survival, sometimes of enforcing norms for peaceful coexistence without constant infighting, and so on.
If there is a fundamental problem, I think it’s the one Aristotle pointed out:
Libertarianism takes as a foundational principle that society cannot justly compel or coerce us to accept obligations we do not choose. This generally includes a large degree of distrust in any institution labeled “government.” But to function in society without governing institutions, we would need to put much more trust in individuals to manage their own affairs without harming others (we have no non-coercive dispute resolution mechanisms efficient and fair enough to use them consistently and frequently in normal life), to efficiently negotiate and enforce agreements among one another, to control their own behavior and make good decisions (or else stand by and watch them fail and suffer without the benefit of scaled-up systems to help people recover from failures). This would be much easier if people were on average much smarter and saner, but still hard, since essentially you’re removing a lot of the defaults we rely on in our own and others’ behavior and forcing deliberate choice.
I’m fairly sure there could be a society organized around libertarian principles that would be great to live in, but I’m not sure there’s a practical stepwise path for getting from here to there. Robin Hanson has done a pretty good job posing hypothetical institutions that could do many of the things governments currently do, without much government involvement, but still more than many libertarians claim to want.
Also, even if we had such a society, it’s hard to make it stable over time. Some people are going to have more success than others, the kinds of success that lead to wealth and the power wealth can buy, including power over people who choose to work for you or otherwise form economic relationships with you. This includes inherited wealth you get by accident of birth. I’m consistently amazed by the degree to which the libertarians I know IRL are so opposed to government coercing anyone in any way, while also having no problem with the power private actors like corporations have to coerce their customers and employees. And in fact most people don’t want to live in a world where they’re free to act as they choose but powerless to access any actual choices they find even remotely compatible with what they consider a good life.