Responding to Robert Wolff’s In Defense of Anarchism

Abstract

While I partly agree with earlier responses to Wolff’s anarchist proposal, I find them inadequate or counter-productive in one way or another. Partly in contrast and partly to supplement, I object to Wolff’s argument that individual autonomy is incompatible with state authority by arguing that this incompatibility is negated if individual autonomy is represented by internal moral and practical convictions for obeying state command. I fault Wolff’s avoidance of contractualism and his presentation of state as alien, and show that his definition of authority is actually a definition of power. I object to Wolff’s assumption that men are purely rational animals, and that rationality is the only component of human decisions, which is foundational to his proposal that men can exist without state or social organization. I argue that Wolff’s de jure attack on state ricochets into individual autonomy: if there is no state in the ideal sense, it is because there is no individual autonomy in the ideal sense.

Keywords: anarchism, state authority, individual autonomy, freedom, responsibility