Some years ago, I found myself in a debate with the former editor-in-chief of one of Canada’s largest newspapers, who had since recycled himself to chair of a provincial Liberal party. In Canada, the term “liberal” occupies a space between “European liberals” (closer to classical liberalism) and “American liberals,” though it aligns more with the latter. I argued that the party should drop the label, as it no longer carried any liberal values. In response, the former editor accused me of narrowing the definition of liberalism to focus solely on anti-statism.

For him, it was necessary to disassociate liberalism from anti-statism which was nothing more than a reactive hatred of the State. In the years that followed and especially in the present election, I have found myself frequently encountering the same conversation. By expressing my scepticism towards whether the State should do X and Y (and whether it can do X and Y), I have been called an anti-statist multiple times as if it was synonymous to being anti-government. 

This equation between anti-statism and anti-government is a lack of understanding. The spirit of classical liberalism creates opposition to “statism” (étatisme in my native French) but not opposition to the State itself. Rather, anti-statism is an opposition to the sacralization of the State and its actors. 

Except for the sub-family of anarcho-capitalists, all members of the classical liberals recognize that some State must exist (either as a positive good or as inevitability). It is a reality we must contend with. The state is a Leviathan that, by its unchangeable nature, seeks to be predatory. Once in existence, it can be domesticated to focus on tasks that enable societal life: policing, courts, national defence, and balancing market failures (externalities, public goods, common resource problems). Some liberals would add certain income redistribution measures, but nothing more.

To prevent the state from reverting to its primary, predatory nature, classical liberals wish a political system where power-hungry individuals discipline one another. Democracy, by cycling through rulers and offering the possibility of eventually being in the minority, creates a further check on the predatory reflexes. These are the de jure constraints such as constitutions, divisions of powers, federalism, enumerated powers, and the like. These must be complemented by de facto mechanisms that impose discipline on politicians (the freedom to vote with one’s feet by moving from one State to another, the ability to move capital and wealth elsewhere) and reward those who engage in the domestication process. When such constraints exist — that is, when there are clear and effective rules of the game — we have tamed the Leviathan that is the State.

The challenge is that this exercise must be continuously repeated. For classical liberals, this is akin to the burden of Sisyphus, who had to endlessly roll a huge rock up a steep hill only to have it roll down again. The potential power of the Leviathan is too enticing, and power-hungry individuals will always seek innovative ways to capture it. The Leviathan may seem calm and controlled at one moment, but the potential for a sudden and destructive outcome exists due to the unpredictable and fundamentally dangerous nature of the forces involved. The potential for a slow and not immediately obvious erosion of the constraints on power also exists. This is why the exercise of restraining the Leviathan must be constantly repeated.

This classic liberal view of the state implies a tense relationship with it. On the one hand, domestication is viewed as necessary and often productive. But domestication assumes that it is impossible for a liberal to worship the state: statism. Statism is not only the ideology that sanctifies the state in its various forms (e.g., socialist, theocratic, authoritarian, totalitarian, fascist); it is also a potent tool to break the chains constraining Leviathan’s predation.

As early as 1927, Ludwig von Mises spoke of statism as the ideology that gives primacy to the state over the individual. At that time, he had only glimpsed the beginnings of 20th-century totalitarianism. The worst abuses of Bolshevism were still largely hidden or still ahead, and Italian fascism was in its infancy. He used the French term étatisme to describe this primacy that led the State to take an “active and permanent part in economic affairs.” 

But as totalitarianism gained ground and with the start of World War II, Mises realised that his definition was too technical — it missed why statists embraced their ideologies. Thus, starting with his (excellent) book Omnipotent Government, Mises began using the term “Statolatry” to describe the sacralization of the state and the power it wields over individuals. The priests of this religion, he says, are those who want power and say that there “should be a law concerning this matter,” meaning “armed men of the government should force people to do what they do not want to do, or not to do what they like.” The one who says that “the state is God” is the one who “deifies arms and prisons.” They who deify the State are, in Mises’ eyes, its priests.

In the process, by sacralizing the state, these priests sacralize themselves. They place themselves above all other individuals through their manipulation of the state. In charge of the cookie jar, they can gorge themselves and pass the bill to individuals. If those individuals criticise the priest-politician, it is seen as a critique of the State—a form of sedition. But once the state is sanctified, other priest-politicians seek control. To remain in power and fully reap its benefits, those in control must continue to erode both the de jure and de facto constraints they face. The fewer and weaker these constraints become, the longer and more lucrative their tenure in power will be.

If I exaggerate my language, this is only to clarify the difference between anti-statism as a hatred of the state and anti-statism as a thoughtful opposition to its sacralization (which leads down to the erosion of liberal democracies). I exaggerate only slightly. Statism is an ideology of acquiescence to the state’s attempts to free itself from the chains that keep it in check.

Simply put, anti-statism is part of the soul of liberalism. It is the rejection of the worship of power! In the present election, where all candidates have exhibited the need to be sacralized in one way or another, properly understood anti-statism is a necessary antidote to all illiberal, populist and authoritarian viruses.