As both Locke and Jefferson pointed out, a government that forsakes its role of defender and becomes itself an invader of rights may be properly overthrown by its citizens (p. 5.2:20). We may join with these great liberal thinkers in recognizing the right of ultimate revolution, while agreeing with them that it should not be invoked "for light and transient causes" (Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence) or before attempts at peaceful reform have been tried and have failed. Also, revolution cannot be justified unless there is a reasonable probability that it will replace the existing state with a better system—a condition which does not apply in today's philosophical climate.

The anarcho-capitalist argument, however, is not primarily directed toward such revolutionary situations. Rather, a system of multiple "competing" providers of justice is envisioned, not as a temporary measure in response to tyranny, but as a supposedly stable social ideal. Accordingly, we must ask: in non-revolutionary circumstances, when individual rights are effectively upheld by a single provider of justice (i. e., a limited government), is there any justification for introducing a second or third such provider? If we believe, as has been argued in this course, that there is a rational standard for justice, and hence that there exist objective right answers in questions of justice, than our answer is clearly no. The anarcho-capitalist position must therefore be rejected in favor of our previous limited-government concept.