A few moments of reflection on the nature of reality and human affairs ought to convince anyone about the exclusive correctness of libertarian precepts -- that a person's life and justly acquired property are rightfully theirs and not justly violable. Put differently, uninvited initiatory force against someone else's life or property is unjust and logically unjustifiable.
Then, it must be asked, why is human history the story of Statism in its various guises (demigods, psychopathic and ruthless dictators and warlords, popularly/democratically elected leaders, or some combination thereof)? Why have peoples and civilizations, old and new, tended towards vesting a section of their population with the monopoly over violence? Why is there a tendency towards coercion, especially of the collectivist variety, in the modern world, even when the pitfalls of Statism (lawlessness, widespread legalized violence and war) and the benefits of voluntary association (justice, peace and human flourishing) are logically and historically manifest?
The essential question becomes : why do people choose to coerce and limit, remove or completely destroy another's natural rights and liberties?
(It is assumed that 'coerce' means 'initiate uninvited force against someone's life or free use of their justly acquired property'.)
A cynical answer would be that most people are, in general, too stupid to think or reflect, either by nature or by willful ignorance, i.e. choosing not to reflect and know through sensual over-indulgence and by choosing to be anesthetized through over-consumption of media, since this provides relief from the cares, pains and burdens of life.
Another extremely cynical answer would be that most people are inherently sadistic and/or masochistic and value and enjoy the subjugation and coercion of others and/or themselves.
Since the above two approaches tautologically preclude any further discussion, by declaring that humans, in the main, are either foolish or crazy, they will not be further considered.
Before proceeding, it will be useful to take a short detour into epistemology.
On knowing and believing - a praxeological epistemology
The work of von Mises ('Human Action'), Hans-Herman Hoppe and others setup a firm epistemological foundation for libertarianism -- a field now widely known as 'praxeology'. Will Porter (Chapter 0, "Epistemology and Praxeology", in A Spontaneous Order by Chase Rachels) neatly summarizes and clarifies the main insights. The following three points highlight important distinctions of knowledge in Will Porter's essay:
- analytic and synthetic a priori proportions (definitions, axioms and mathematics and other propositions logically derived from axioms) are knowable
- analytic a posteriori propositions (i.e. meaning of words in language) are arguably knowable (though, technically, only commonly believed)
- synthetic a posteriori propositions (i.e. science, i.e. empirically (inductively) established, but falsifiable, statements about physical reality) are believable, with great certainty perhaps, but not knowable
Any proposition outside the realm of these may still be believably or knowably true or false -- and may still be believed to be true to any degree. An important implication of this is that a person may believe true propositions without reason, i.e without rational justification. (The other implication, that false propositions may be believed without reason, seems obvious and widely appreciated).
Three rationalizations for three different (though, not exclusive) scenarios of political coercion seem to stand out, esp. when considered in the context of modern voting societies, i.e. popular/democratic States, i.e. societies where most, if not all, people, have some, limited, power to legally coerce.
(i) A coerces B for B's own benefit (e.g. prohibitions against drug and alcohol consumption and engagement in other "vices"). More accurately, A believes that B ought to flip their current subjective valuation (for e.g., present enjoyment vs. long-term health, ostensibly).
(ii) A coerces B for the benefit of some other person or group (C, D, ...., etc.). The prime example here is taxation or redistribution across classes. A possible way this can be rationalized is if A engages in inter-personal utility comparison and believes that the utility gain for C, D, ...., et. al. offsets the utility lost for B, and, further, also believes that such win-loss outcomes that ostensibly increase net (i.e. social) utility are just. Another rationalization could be that A believes, without proof, that B (or, B's ancestors or other benefactors) previously benefitted from a coercive act committed on C, D, ..., etc. (or, their ancestors or potential benefactors), in which case A believes that they are acting as an agent of restitution or retribution (which, if done in a proportionate manner, may be just and justifiable).
(iii) A coerces B for A's own benefit or the benefit of a group of people that includes A (e.g., A, C, D, ...., etc.). Again, the prime example of this is taxation or redistribution across classes. The possible rationalizations of this act are also exactly the same as the ones in point (ii) above.
So, while much of political coercion may be rationalized using the arguments mentioned above, the premises underlying these rationalizations themselves are neither self-evident (i.e. axiomatic) nor are they logically derivable from the axioms of justice -- self-ownership, ownership of justly acquired property and the non-aggression principle (NAP). In other words, political coercion (and, it goes without saying, coercion of any form) is necessarily unjust -- i.e. it can never be justifiably just.
In summary, it turns out that political coercion is actually quite rationalizable given a certain set of premises, which, sadly, despite their falsehood, turn out to be widely believed. The question of why these premises turn out to be widely believed then becomes the interesting subject of future study.