In a sense, both libertarians and communists share a vision that the state should “wither away,” though for different reasons and in different ways. Libertarians tend to follow John Stuart Mill in believing that we are sovereigns over ourselves. As a result, the state should only be given the bare minimum amount of power, and only the most limited restrictions on individual liberty are acceptable. Communists follow Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in believing that the state is illegitimate and oppressive because it protects private property rights (and inequality), and that the state should therefore be overthrown.
How might Christians who call themselves libertarians, or who sympathize with Marx’s effort to organize the “oppressed” classes in rebellion against their “oppressors,” respond to the scriptural injunction in Romans 13:1: “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted….”?
