Grand Strategy
The grand strategy of a nonviolent struggle is the master concept of the struggle, answering the question, “How are we going to win?” Here are some ideas I have for that grand strategy. The American freedom movement currently lacks the strength to effectively implement most of these ideas; however, now is the time to discuss such ideas, so that we know what to aim for.
I discussed some of these ideas at Beyond Ballots or Bullets, in a talk entitled Rule-of-law Anarchism: A Strategy for Destroying the State’s Legitimacy. I’ll just summarize that talk here; you can follow the link for the details.
The idea is to attack the American state by attacking their authority. We promote the message that the state is a lawless organization, both in the particulars of its members’ behavior (think Waco, the wiretapping scandal, etc.) and in its very essence. In fact, the very notion of the sovereign state is incompatible with two basic principles of rule of law. One of these is isonomy, or the principle that both the content and procedures of law are to apply equally to all, with no special immunities or privileges for any group of people. This is summarized in Jefferson’s phrase, “All men are created equal.” The other is the ancient legal principle that “no man should be judge in his own case.”
In practice, this means that we should publicly reject any privileged position for the state. When officers and agents of the state commit some outrage, we should bring suit against them—and demand that the case be tried by an independent third party, not by the state’s own courts. Likewise, when the state charges someone with a crime, it thereby becomes the plaintiff in the case, and cannot legitimately supply the court that will try the case.
To destroy the state’s authority we must provide a replacement authority: a centerless legal system. Therefore, we also need to promote the use of private courts (e.g., existing arbitration services) over the government’s courts in resolving civil disputes, and even in criminal cases (by pursuing restorative justice over penal justice).
Looking at this another way, our struggle against the state is a problem of crime control: there is one organization whose members routinely get away with committing serious crimes against the rest of us. Our problem is that we have no effective legal apparatus (and associated enforcement mechanisms) to deal with crimes committed by officers and agents of the state. We need a legal system not controlled by the state; once this system achieves widespread legitimacy, effective enforcement mechanisms will then become possible.
In addition to the above ideas, I would add these as part of the grand strategy:
- Weaning ourselves from the state. Dependence is vulnerability, and so we should seek to avoid depending on the state for anything. We don’t want to depend on the state for crime prevention, law enforcement, education, consumer protection, etc. We should also seek alternatives to their (adulterated) currency. We want to get to the point where we don’t care what the state does—whether they waste money on foolish expenditures, inflate their currency, or teach arrant nonsense in their schools—as long as they leaves us alone.
- Organizing for large-scale civil disobedience. If enough people disobey an unjust government edict, it becomes very difficult to enforce—only a small fraction of the resisters can be targeted for prosecution. If the resisters insure each other against prosecution, that risk can become manageable.
- Organizing without a center. A movement with no central leadership is difficult to target for destruction. I envision many independent, local activist groups swapping ideas and coordinating efforts. And seriously—as libertarians, what other sort of organization suits us?