Rothbardian Anarchism vs. Friedman Minarchism

Murray N. Rothbard is probably the most famous modern anarchist of the Austrian school of thought. Rothbard became an anarchist from a minarchist because he believed that the free market would be more efficient in all aspects, including militarily. If the free market is truly superior, why would this cease to be the case when it comes to personal security, and collectively, national security. National security has always been the achilies heel of anarchy. If the anarchist country is attached, how do we, as a nation respond without a central government.

Milton Friedman came up with a semi-solution of this by ceding national security to the government. He said there were two types of goods and services: divisible and indivisible. Divisible goods could be easily separated by individual. I can decide which type of tie I prefer and purchase accordingly. If you have a different preference, you can purchase differently. That is a divisible good. National security is an indivisible good. I cannot purchase one level of national security, while you purchase another. We must purchase equal amounts, even if this does create the free rider problem.

Why is this important today? The TSA has recently been accused of unnecessary procedures to keep us safe. The TSA has claimed that this is necessary, in part because it is an indivisible good (without using that language). The problem is that this is inaccurate. Security could be, and in my opinion, should be provided by the individual airline companies. These different airlines could then provide varying levels of security, if they chose. The “traveling public,” as the TSA calls us, would then get to choose whichever level of security we are comfortable with.

Note that the real financial losers here are also the “traveling public.” Not only do they have to go through time consuming and humiliating procedures, but they are forced to pay for it… literally. The taxpayers fund the TSA who then executes the safety procedures. They also provide partial immunity to the airline industry, meaning that if another disaster occurred the government would be forced to bail out the airline industry again. The airlines get what they want: less liability. The government gets what it wants: more control. The people get to pay for it all.