The Samsara Fallacy

Recently, in the Mises blog, and less recently in conversations about libertarianism with temporary and reluctant sympathizers, I've been exposed to what I've chosen to call the Samsara Fallacy. I'm sure there's a different name for it already in use, but since it complements the famous Nirvana Fallacy, I think its name should be complementary as well.

The Nirvana Fallacy (a.k.a. Perfection Fallacy) is the one where you criticize the best actual option or arrangement by contrasting it with a wholly abstract and impossible perfection. Perfect Competition, the model basis for every textbook example of so-called "Market Failure" is just the Nirvana Fallacy enshrined in academic tradition.

The Samsara Fallacy ("Real World" Fallacy?) is where you say something like, Well, yes, freedom sounds wonderful in theory ... or, OK, so real free trade sounds great and might work, but we're not there at the moment, and we still have these problems to deal with, therefore ....

Therefore what?

The "therefore" almost always turns out to be either (a) therefore we need to employ coercion to correct the situation, or (b) therefore we need to empower the State to employ coercion to correct the situation.

In other words, because murder and rape still exist, we must increase their use to compensate the current victims. Because there is still war, we need yet more war to move us away from warfare.

I'm not saying it's impossible to have a situation where a temporary increase in pain might serve to alleviate overall long-term pain. But I am saying it's fallacious to go from "Pain exists" to "therefore we need more of it." And yet this is what most such arguments amount to. We don't yet have a free market and therefore we should move further away from it rather than closer. Sometimes, I'd just settle for standing still.

To quote myself from an email exchange a few years ago:

And for me, the question "Isn't some form of State inevitable?" is like saying We will never get rid of rape and robbery, murder and torture, so what sense does it make to take a principled stance against these things? They will always be with us.

It's sad to me that such a basic thing as the principled opposition to coercion is considered to be extremist, unreasonable, unrealistic. Why do I have to believe in permanent peace to oppose war? How is it utopian to denounce force?

I share your confidence that force and fraud will always be with us, and I will always oppose them. But Statism is more than the prediction of "the subjection of the noninvasive individual to an external will." Statism is the claim that institutionalized proactive coercion is justified. Anarchism rejects that conclusion.

At least I'm consistent.