Government: Unnecessary but Inevitable

Abstract

In this chapter, the author aims to examine that proposition critically and to defend and extend the classical liberal idea of limited government. He deals with those theorists, such as Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, who see a need for limited government than with those who see the libertarian ideal as an orderly anarchy. Mises, Hayek, and Milton Friedman, perhaps the best-known twentieth-century academic defenders of liberty, envisioned a role for limited government in protecting liberty. The debate over limited government versus orderly anarchy typically turns on the effectiveness of government versus private means to achieve certain ends. Murray N. Rothbard argues first that national defense is needed only because the governments of some countries have differences with the governments of others. A substantial mainstream academic literature on the inefficiencies of government production and regulation further buttresses the case against government.

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