Libertarians Must Be Spellwarriors
In a recent video, Stefan Molyneux discussed the reasons for the prevalence of left-leaning political views among history faculty at universities. In so doing, he used an analogy from Dungeons and Dragons-type fantasy environments to explain the two major types of statists. In fantasy settings, there are two major types of combat characters: those who fight with swords, bows, and other such conventional pre-modern weaponry, and those who fight with magic. The warriors are stronger than wizards at lower levels, but peak early due to physical limitations, such as injuries and aging. But wizards continually grow stronger at a rate that outpaces the warriors, eventually becoming very powerful.
In the real world, the wizards are the politicians, government regulators, and academics, while the warriors are the government police, soldiers, and other armed agents. Just like fantasy wizards, politicians and academics use words and gestures to effect changes in the material world. But unlike their fictional counterparts, the wizards of this world do not have the magical power to force reality to conform to their wills. They must use their words and gestures to convince other people to support their agendas and carry them out. The purpose of universities, then, is to teach the wizards how to use public speaking effectively to cast a sort of spell over the citizenry.
The warriors are not so different from their fantasy counterparts. Police and soldiers grow in effectiveness with training and experience, but will suffer from injuries and aging, eventually to the point of no longer being useful. And just as fantasy warriors protect the wizards in the party from the types of threats that they cannot deal with so easily themselves, the main function of police and soldiers is to protect the ruling classes from a violent rebellion by the citizenry or an invasion by soldiers in the employ of rulers of another country. The only major difference is that police and soldiers carry out the spell effects of politicians, while fantasy wizards need no such help.
Clearly, both the wizards and the warriors present a threat to liberty. One option for dealing with them is the wizard’s approach. We can counter the wizards’ spells by refuting the arguments made by politicians and academics who seek to propose new government policies and justify existing ones. While this is useful for convincing people of the evils of government policies and for educating future generations to be less statist, wizardry alone will not stop the victimization of innocent people. Some of the warriors may be persuaded to drop their arms and discontinue their service to the state, and some of the citizenry will join the ranks of libertarianism. But others will be dismissive or even violent in response to such arguments.
Another option is the warrior’s approach. Violent rebellion has been tried many times throughout history with varying results, but it has never produced a lasting success. One reason for this is that simply overthrowing a state creates a power vacuum, and as no one has ever been able to apply the force necessary to maintain such a vacuum, some ruler fills that vacuum. Another reason is that without a desire for liberty and an understanding of the dangers of statism, people will simply create another government after toppling the established order. There is also the matter that while violence in self-defense against agents of the state is always morally justifiable, it tends to end very badly for those rebels who do not have sufficient manpower and resources to win that conflict.
So, how does a libertarian respond in terms of this analogy? There is a third type of character: the spellwarrior, also known as the mystic warrior or battlemage. In fantasy settings, a spellwarrior is competent with both the sword and the spell. Such a character may not be as good at fighting as a pure warrior or as good at magic as a pure wizard, but is more well-rounded than either and can respond to a wider range of foes. By combining both approaches, a spellwarrior gains the benefits of each character type while blunting some of the drawbacks. This is what libertarians must do in order to be successful against the state. We must counter both the words and the weapons of the enemies of liberty. We must rebut arguments in favor of state power, convince others to join the cause of liberty, and eventually muster both the intellectual prowess and military might to end the state and maintain a free society. Neither the path of a pure wizard nor the path of a pure warrior can be sufficient. Libertarians must be spellwarriors.
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