Molinari Applies Economic Laws to the State and Concludes that the Market Can Replace the State Monopoly of Police

Molinari's most original contribution to political and economic thought is his thesis that the market can provide more cheaply and more efficiently the service of police protection of life, liberty and property. Hitherto, this had been considered to be the monopoly of the state, and it was Molinari's insight that the laws of political economy could and should be applied to the management of state functions. His attempt to apply economic laws to the state led him to conclude that the market could in fact replace the state monopoly of police as well as the provision of roads, lighting, garbage collection, sewerage and education. Molinari argues, in summary, that if the market was more efficient in providing people with shoes or bread then, for exactly the same reasons, it would be better to hand over the monopoly-state functions to the market. Thus the argument is tacitly made that "proprietary anarchism" is inherent in the logic of the free market and that consistency requires that one pursue the minimization of the state power to its logical conclusion, i.e., no government at all.

--David Hart, "Gustave de Molinari and the Anti-statist Liberal Tradition (excerpts)," in Anarchy and the Law: The Political Economy of Choice, ed. Edward P. Stringham (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2007), 386.