Individualism only functions within a state context. Libertarians should not argue against the Existence of the state as a whole (while we can accept arguments about the scope or role of the state), but in any sort of situation where some unit of humans larger than a single household is interacting, a state is needed to protect individual rights. A contract of mutual property respect could exist between households, but who enforces that contract? How do we make sure these enforcers have an optimum level of accountability to make sure that they are enforcing contracts in a consistent and unbiased manner? Thus we get to the idea of the state, and a structure of legal enforcement.
The most reductionist view of the state is a neutral party with unlimited ability to enforce (voluntary) contracts between individuals or organizations. Now i have often seen libertarians argue that the social contract which we are born into is involuntarily, and that especially giving individuals a lack of "Exit" choice is what makes the system tantamount to slavery, and therein a more valid debate could be held, but in the realm of purely private matters, the state must exist to give some sort of force to a person making a contract, to give someone incentive to stay true to their word.
This threat should not have to come from the other party. In signing a contract with my employer, they should not be afraid that I will go knocking at their door with a shotgun in hand because they fired me in a manner which was in breach of contract. They should not fear my ability to enforce the contract by force, arbitrarily as an individual. They can fear a lawsuit, but that's a much less existential fear than a "street justice" form of contract enforcement. Similarly, we can't just let the market "deal" with contract-breakers by having nobody choose to do business with them, because this creates an environment where a lot of dead weight is created due to fears of entering an unenforceable contract. Individualism cannot function without contract law, contract law cannot function without enforcement, and for consistent, unbiased enforcement, you need a fixed state to provide a common framework for parties to operate in.
The thing of it is that we cannot guarantee our freedom to be individuals without the state. Therefore if you value individual liberty, you must acknowledge the need to create a state
(note that my views are couched in a kind of marxian utilitarianism, not classical liberalism, so you see some of why i truly believe we need states in my argument here, but these are not my views, instead a polemic stating why right-anarchists should not argue for the dissolution of the state)
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
