 If victory is indeed our given end, an end given to us by the requirements of justice, then we must strive to achieve that end as rapidly as we can. But this means that libertarians must not adopt gradualism as part of their goal. They must wish to achieve liberty as early and as rapidly as possible, otherwise they would be ratifying the continuation of injustice. They must be abolitionists. The objection often raised is that abolitionism is unrealistic, that liberty, or any other radical social goal, can be achieved only gradually. Whether or not this is true, and the existence of radical upheavals demonstrates that such is not always the case, this common charge gravely confuses the realm of principle with the realm of strategy. The realism of the goal can only be challenged by a critique of the goal itself, not in the problem of how to attain it. Then after we have decided on the goal, we face the entirely separate strategic question of how to attain that goal as rapidly as possible, how to build a movement to attain it etc. Thus William Lloyd Garrison was not being unrealistic when in the 1830s he raised the glorious standard of immediate emancipation of the slaves. His goal was the proper one, and his strategic realism came in the fact that he did not expect his goal to be quickly reached. Whereas Garrison himself distinguished, quote, Urge immediate abolition as earnestly as we may, it will alas be gradual abolition in the end. We have never said that slavery would be overthrown by a single blow, that it ought to be, we shall always contend. End quote. From a strictly strategic point of view, it is also true that if the adherents of the pure goal do not state that goal and hold it aloft, no one will do so, and the goal therefore will never be attained. Furthermore, since most people and most politicians will hold to the middle of whatever road may be offered them, the extremist, by constantly raising the ante, and by holding the pure or extreme goal aloft, will move the extremes further over, and will therefore pull the middle further over in his extreme direction. Hence raising the ante by pulling the middle further in his direction, will, in the ordinary pulling and hauling of the political process, accomplish more for that goal, even in the day-to-day short run, than any opportunistic surrender of the ultimate principle. In her brilliant study of the strategy and tactics of the garrison wing of the abolitionist movement, Eileen Creditor writes, quote, it follows from the abolitionist's conception of his role in society that the goal for which he agitated was not likely to be immediately realisable. This realisation must follow conversion of an enormous number of people, and the struggle must take place in the face of the hostility that inevitably met the agitator for an unpopular cause. The abolitionists knew as well as their later scholarly critics that immediate and unconditional emancipation could not occur for a long time. But unlike those critics, they were sure it would never come unless it were agitated for during the long period in which it was impracticable. To have dropped the demand for immediate emancipation, because it was unrealisable at the time, would have been to alter the nature of the change for which the abolitionists were agitating. That is, even those who would have gladly accepted gradual and conditional emancipation had to agitate for immediate and unconditional abolition of slavery, because that demand was required by their goal of demonstrating to white Americans that Negroes were their brothers. Once the nation had been converted on that point, conditions and plans might have been made. Their refusal to water down their visionary slogan was, in their eyes, eminently practical. Much more so than the course of the anti-slavery senators and congressmen who often wrote letters to abolitionist leaders justifying their adaptation of anti-slavery demands to what was attainable. If the primary and overriding goal of the libertarian movement must be the victory of liberty as rapidly as possible, then the primary task of that movement must be to employ the most efficacious means to arrive at that goal. To be efficacious, to achieve the goal of liberty as quickly as possible, it should be clear that the means must not contradict the ends. Or if they do, the ends are being obstructed instead of pursued as efficiently as possible. For the libertarian this means two things, that he must never deny or fail to uphold the ultimate goal of libertarian victory, and that he must never use or advocate the use of un-libertarian means of aggression against the persons or just property of others. Thus the libertarian must never, for the sake of alleged expediency, deny or conceal his ultimate objective of complete liberty, and he must never aggress against others in the search for a world of non-aggression. For example the Bolsheviks before the revolution financed themselves partially by armed robbery in the name of expropriating capitalists. Clearly any use of aggression against private property in order to finance the libertarian movement, in addition to being immoral by libertarian principles, would cut against those principles themselves and their ultimate attainment. At this point any radical movement for social change, including the libertarian movement, has to face an important realistic problem. In the real world, the goal for the libertarian the disappearance of the state and its aggressive coercion, unfortunately cannot be achieved overnight. Since that is the case, what should be the position of the libertarian toward transition demands, i.e. toward demands that would move toward liberty without yet reaching the ultimate goal? Wouldn't such demands undercut the ultimate goal of total liberty itself? In our view the proper solution to this problem is a centrist or movement building solution. Namely that it is legitimate and proper to advocate transition demands as waystations along the road to victory, provided that the ultimate goal of victory is always kept in mind and held aloft. In this way the ultimate goal is clear and not lost sight of, and the pressure is kept on so that transitional or partial victories will feed on themselves rather than appease or weaken the ultimate drive of the movement. Thus suppose that the libertarian movement adopts as a transitional demand and across the board 50% cut in taxation. This must be done in such a way as not to imply that a 51% cut would somehow be immoral or improper. In that way the 50% cut would simply be an initial demand rather than an ultimate goal in itself, which would only undercut the libertarian goal of total abolition of taxation. Similarly, if libertarians should ever call for reducing or abolishing taxes in some particular area, that call must never be accompanied by advocating the increase of taxation in some other area. Thus we might well conclude that the most tyrannical and destructive tax in the modern world is the income tax, and that therefore the first priority should be given to abolishing that form of tax. But the call for drastic reduction or abolition of the income tax must never be coupled with advocating a higher tax in some other area, e.g. a sales tax. With that indeed would be employing a means contradictory to the ultimate goal of tax abolition. Libertarians must in short hack away at the state wherever and whenever they can, rolling back or eliminating state activity in whatever area possible. As an example, during every recession Keynesian Liberals generally advocate an income tax cut to stimulate consumer demand. Conservatives on the other hand generally oppose such a tax cut as leading to higher government deficits. The libertarian in contrast should always and everywhere support a tax cut as a reduction in state robbery. Then when the budget is discussed the libertarian should also support a reduction in government expenditures to eliminate a deficit. The point is that the state must be opposed and whittled down in every respect and at every point in cutting taxes or in cutting government expenditures. To advocate raising taxes or to oppose cutting them in order to balance the budget is to oppose and undercut the libertarian goal. But while the ultimate goal of total liberty must always be upheld and the state must be whittled down at every point, it is still proper, legitimate and necessary for a libertarian movement to adopt priorities, to agitate against the state most particularly in those areas that are most important at any given time. Thus while the libertarian opposes both income and sales taxes it is both morally proper and strategically important to select say the income tax as the more destructive of the two and to agitate more against that particular tax. In short the libertarian movement like everyone else faces a scarcity of its own time, energy and funds and it must allocate these scarce resources to their most important uses at any given time. Which particular issue should receive priority depends on the specific conditions of time and place. 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