Tag: anarchy

Daoism and the Limits of Rule: Ethical Anarchism Without Natural Rights

Modern libertarian political theory is usually presented as a distinctly Western inheritance—emerging from medieval natural law, sharpened by early modern liberalism, and culminating in the radical critiques of state power advanced by thinkers such as Murray Rothbard. And, while to a large extent accurate, hostility to governance, skepticism toward authority, and confidence in spontaneous social order are not uniquely Western phenomena. Long before Locke or Aquinas, classical Daoist (Taoist) thinkers articulated a political philosophy that rejected administration, moralized rule, and social engineering with remarkable consistency. While Daoism never developed a doctrine of natural rights or property in the classical liberal sense, it nonetheless represents a form of pre-modern ethical anarchism, grounded in epistemic humility and a profound distrust of rule itself.

Examining Daoism through a Rothbardian lens clarifies both its affinities with libertarian thought and its limits. Daoism aligns strikingly with Rothbard’s critique of the state as a coercive institution driven by hubris, ignorance, and moral pretense. At the same time, Daoism’s quietism and lack of juridical theory prevent it from supplying a positive foundation for liberty. Appreciating both dimensions avoids romanticizing Daoism while recognizing its genuine anti-statist force.

At the heart of Daoist political philosophy lies the concept of wu wei—often translated as “non-action,” but better understood as non-interference. The Daoist ruler is not a reformer, planner, or moral instructor. He governs best by refraining from governance. Classical Daoist texts repeatedly insist that political disorder arises not from insufficient rule, but from excessive attempts to impose order.

The Tao Te Ching states bluntly that the proliferation of laws produces poverty, disorder, and criminality. This is not merely a moral critique of harsh rule; it is an epistemological one. Daoist thinkers deny that rulers possess the knowledge required to improve society. Attempts to regulate economic activity, enforce moral conformity, or “improve” human behavior distort natural social processes and generate unintended consequences.

This epistemic skepticism closely parallels Rothbard’s critique of state planning. In Man, Economy, and State, Rothbard emphasizes that centralized authority lacks the dispersed knowledge necessary to allocate resources or direct human action without distortion. While Rothbard grounds this insight in Austrian economics rather than metaphysics, the underlying intuition is similar: insufficient knowledge.

Daoism thus rejects political authority, not because rulers are evil a priori, but because rule itself presupposes an impossible epistemic vantage point. This places Daoism far closer to libertarian critiques of technocracy than to classical Chinese Confucian-infused Legalism.

Daoism also departs sharply from Confucianism in its rejection of moralized rule. Confucian political thought treats governance as a pedagogical enterprise: the ruler cultivates virtue in himself and thereby models proper conduct for the people. Daoism regards this entire project as perverse. The moment rulers attempt to teach virtue, they produce hypocrisy, ambition, and social decay.

This hostility toward moral governance aligns with Rothbard’s sustained critique of the “public interest” tradition. In The Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard argues that moral rhetoric is among the state’s most effective tools for legitimizing coercion. Appeals to virtue, order, and social harmony disguise violence and transform obedience into a moral obligation.

Daoist texts anticipate this critique by centuries. They portray moral reformers as dangerous meddlers whose efforts create the very vices they claim to oppose. The Daoist ruler does not instruct, uplift, or correct. He leaves people alone.

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State Intervention and Anarchy

In Against the State, Lew Rockwell emphasizes that the assault on our liberties from the state is not merely “the product of temporary malfunctions. To the contrary, the state is by nature evil.” Rockwell shows that the state is founded on coercion and maintains its power by use of force.

In recent years, following the rise of environmentalism, public health “safetyism,” and the war against “hate,” state interventions have encroached even further into private and family life. Against the State shows that these interventions are not only coercive but also antihuman in prioritizing their goals above human life. A striking example of this was the lockdown policy of closing schools and playgrounds, on the basis that children are resilient and so there is no reason why the state should not keep them under house arrest for several months of their lives.

Another example is the prioritization of the needs of the socialized medicine behemoths such as the United Kingdom’s cultish National Health Service: the British journalist Sherelle Jacobs comments that “with NHS spending now more than that for education, transport, the Home Office and defense put together, Britain is arguably now merely a health service with a state attached.” Similarly, in Canada, private healthcare is banned, and citizens struggling to cope with life are offered state assistance in killing themselves.

With the state on the rampage enforcing the “public good,” its defenders see no need to limit the power conferred on it to achieve that goal—after all, if the goal is noble and worthy, why should there be limits on the power to achieve it? In this way, the ideal of limited government is extinguished.

Rockwell also highlights the fact that the state creates the very problems for which it is then said we need state power to resolve:

The state is not a neutral observer. It will pass environmental legislation. It will regulate relations between races and sexes. It will put down this religion in order to raise that one up. In each case, the intervention only exacerbates conflicts, which in turn creates the impression that there really is an intractable conflict at work.

An example of state interventions fueling conflict is the protected status given to different groups based on their identity, notably race, sex, religion, and gender.

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WILL AARON BUSHNELL’S DEATH TRIGGER ANARCHISM WITCH HUNT?

AARON BUSHNELL’S DEATH by self-immolation in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington last month has provoked nationwide soul-searching about the war in Gaza. For the U.S. government though, the airman’s death excites a different kind of search: for so-called extremists, particularly left-wing ones. 

Last Wednesday, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., former Army officer and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin asking why and how the Pentagon could tolerate an airman like Bushnell in its ranks. Calling his death “an act of horrific violence” that was “in support of a terrorist group [Hamas],” Cotton goes on to ask about the Defense Department’s internal efforts to address extremism and whether Bushnell was ever identified as exhibiting extremist views or behaviors.

Cotton’s agitation to find Hamas supporters in uniform twists Bushnell’s political act, which Bushnell said was in support of the Palestinian people. But it also follows a longstanding urging by other members of Congress like Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa — ranking Republican of the Judiciary Committee and former president pro tempore of the Senate — for the military to pursue some kind of similar treatment for leftists.

While studies show that support for extremism is similar or even lower among veterans than the general population, extremism in the active-duty military has become an obsession of the Washington brass since January 6. Soon after taking office, new secretary of defense Austin, a retired Army general, directed the military to conduct an all-hands “stand down” to address extremism in the ranks, commissioning a number of panels and studies to evaluate white nationalism and neo-Nazi support among service members.

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