ABSTRACT
Government and Law, in their very essence, consist of restrictions on freedom, and freedom is the greatest of political goods. This chapter examines the arguments of Anarchists against law and the State. Like most of the things that Anarchists say, there is much more to be urged in support of this view than most people would suppose at first sight. If Anarchists are right in maintaining that the existence of such an economic system as they desire would prevent the commission of crimes of this kind, the laws forbidding them would no longer come into operation, and would do no harm to liberty. Severity of punishment arose through vindictiveness and fear in an age when many criminals escaped justice altogether, and it was hoped that savage sentences would outweigh the chance of escape in the mind of the criminal. The chapter considers the power which the State derives from the criminal law.
