ABSTRACT
One need not be an anarchist to recognise that society and state are not synonyms, but the position generally known as anarchism follows from some ways of parsing that distinction. The idea of a feasible system of alternative providers of rights protection is ultimately what will divide minimal-state libertarians from the anarchists. The anarchist argument is that although society is a good thing, coercion is a bad thing, and states as we know them essentially involve coercion. We have seen that both minimal-state libertarians and anarchist libertarians view the state as a political entity which essentially involves coercion, coercion is seen as detrimental to human freedom, and freedom is to receive the highest priority among political values when developing a theory. Tibor Machan's arguments for the justification of state authority anticipate the aforementioned anarchist criticism, so they predominantly involve criticism of anarchist theories. The anarchists suggest hypothetical scenarios of how non-monopolistic and non-coercively financed legal systems would operate.
