Liberty And Anarchy

There is a significant difference between a relatively small amount of a thing and a total absence of it.  Two rocks might be far less than 200 rocks, but two is still larger than zero.  Five buildings might be far less than 500 buildings, but five is far greater than none.  Even the typical non-rationalist is entirely capable of understanding and explaining this, yet if the context is changed to politics--more specifically, an analysis of libertarianism--some of the same people might conflate few laws with no laws.

Libertarianism and anarchy, therefore, might be treated as ideological siblings despite the fact that a vast chasm sits between them.  The two are wholly irreconcilable.  Under anarchy, there is no legal structure or official governing authority in place; under pure libertarianism, there are no laws beyond those needed to protect whatever moral rights have the metaphysical status of legal rights.  A libertarian government is smaller the kind any conservative or liberal wants, but it is far from anarchy.

No secular or Biblical libertarian is an anarchist (not that anarchy is inherently negative [1]) since the two positions are mutually exclusive, but libertarianism might still receive some of the same fear that anarchy receives because it is closer to anarchy than any other political framework is.  That it is closer to anarchy does not mean the two share a great deal of similarities, of course.  Any form of government, even one of miniscule size, is completely distinct from the absence of any political body.

As for why the confusion of libertarianism for anarchy leads some to reject libertarianism, it is not only misunderstanding, but fear that drives this fallacious rejection.  Anarchy is almost always associated with selfishness and destruction by the average Westerner.  The notion that anarchy is inevitably destructive is untrue, but this does not stop many people from equating it with chaos, violence, and danger.  For this reason, all that some people have to hear to erroneously conclude that libertarianism is immoral is the claim that it is on the doorstep of anarchy.

Liberty to live without the shadow of unnecessary and unjust laws is not the liberty to engage in violent, malicious behaviors.  Liberty and anarchy are not automatically synonymous, even though they are closer to the same point on the political spectrum as far as the number of laws are concerned.  In light of the obvious distinction between having some laws and having no laws, anyone who mistakes libertarianism for anarchy lacks the intelligence necessary to appraise political ideas rationally.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/03/anarchy-and-its-outcomes.html