Introduction

So, Chaos Theory, huh? Yeah, it’s not actually about chaos theory,¹ but it is a really cool title. And the book itself—may be the most important to date on anarchist theory and its possible application to the “real world.”

When I first read the draft of Bob’s book, I was blown away by the sheer simplicity of his arguments, something I think is lacking in much of the existing important anarchist literature. His simple explanations, a smart mixture of common sense and slimmed-down economic theory, provide a perfect starting point for the curious non-anarchist, or a fantastic finishing point for the committed anti-statist who has a few logistical doubts about the stateless society.

I’ve known Bob for a while now, since “way back” when we were regular columnists on LewRockwell.com. In May 2001, he helped me set up anti-state.com, which has grown into the largest market anarchist site on the Internet (seriously!). He continues, with this book, his generous contribution to the next generation of anarchist evolution, which seems to have stagnated until recent months. The continued expansion of the philosophy of non-aggression and cooperation hinges on the ability of its supporters to bring high economic and moral theory down to the level of the common man.

Bob addresses the most common arguments against the abolition of the State—and completely obliterates them. “Who will protect the borders if there’s no State?” Nobody, moron. There are no borders, except for those of private property. And that’s defended without the State the same way we do it now with the State.

I know. “What about a psycho neighboring State that has it in for the stateless country that vastly outperforms it economically (and in every other area)?” Well, just because there is no State, it does not follow that there is no defense. It’s a common tactic of statists to accuse us of wanting to abolish, say, assistance for poor people, since they think that would be impossible without the State. But this isn’t true at all: We don’t want the State to steal our money and give it to those who don’t deserve it. We want the right to our property, including all our money, and the right to help out whomever we deem deserves it. This is consistent with the only rule of libertarianism: the Non-Aggression Principle.²

In the first section, Bob explains how a society without government would still have laws and “regulations.” There would be no (legal) violations of the rights of property owners. In market anarchy, justice would be based on restitution, not retribution, meaning that criminals would have to pay back their victims rather than be punished by the sadistic State.

In the second section, Bob brilliantly tackles the issue of private defense. I refuse to ruin it for you—hurry up and read this intro then get to the first chapter.

To sum up my impression of the book, basically: intelligent; succinct; and most important of all, written in the language of the common person, without the haughty academic snobbery so present in the currently available body of work, which tends to be a major problem for those of us trying to popularize the movement.

This is sure to become a fixture in the personal libraries of countless libertarians and anarchists, and a classic in the realm of anarchist and Austrian economic theory.

Jeremy Sapienza, Editor
anti-state.com

¹ Chaos theory is the “qualitative study of unstable aperiodic behavior in deterministic nonlinear dynamical systems.” See http://www.duke.edu/~mjd/chaos/chaos.html.

² The NAP states that “no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, nor to delegate its initiation.” So simple, you’d think it would catch on more widely. Oh, and having the State do your dirty work is delegating, so the State, by its very existence, violates the NAP.