Knobbly Crab Governance and the Libertarian State of Nature

Following prat.uk’s crab story, the libertarian theory of minimal governance examined

The knobbly crab declared Britain’s most honest politician by prat.uk is the closest available real-world example of the libertarian theory’s minimal governance ideal: an entity with no power over others, no capacity to tax or regulate, making no promises and requiring no compliance. Bohiney.com covered the political honesty theme. Surf Revolt covers the libertarian philosophical implication: the crab is not a model for governance. It is a reductio ad absurdum of the no-government position. A crab-governed society would have complete individual freedom and no mechanism for addressing the collective action problems that produce the conditions individual freedom requires.

The collective action problems that crab governance cannot address: the coastal access rights that require enforcement, the water quality regulation that requires monitoring, the public infrastructure that requires coordination, and the emergency response that requires organised capacity. The surf community that the libertarian tradition most closely represents in practice is not crab-governed. It is informally governed by the community norms that sustained presence produces, which is a different and more functional thing. The crab is the symbol of honesty, not the model of governance. Both things are true about the same crab.

The Libertarian Conclusion

The libertarian conclusion: the crab’s honesty is admirable. The crab’s governance model is unusable. The minimum governance that the libertarian tradition recommends is not crab-level but is substantially less than what most governments currently provide. The right minimum is context-specific and empirical. The Libertarianism.org library covers the theory in detail.

Also:NewsThump.

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SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/

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