Why we should abandon the State

Tuesday, July 28, 2015
By Paul Martin

By George Smith
GoldSeek.com
Tuesday, 28 July 2015

Revisionism, according to Harry Elmer Barnes, is bringing history into accord with the facts. Why would history and factual evidence be at odds? Because governments, per Orwell, falsify the past to keep the population subservient. If people really knew what governments had done they would want less of it than they have.

How much less is the question Lew Rockwell addresses in his book, Against the State: An Anarcho-Capitalist Manifesto, released in May, 2014. As the title makes clear, Rockwell argues for the complete elimination of the State.

Many people otherwise favoring unfettered freedom will qualify their position with an inevitable “but” — “but we need government to provide physical security and dispute resolution, the most critical services of all.”

Really?

If the free market is the “arena of voluntary interactions between individuals” that has proven so fruitful over the past 250 years, why does it need a coercive monopoly — the State — providing its most critical services? Monopolies, he reminds us, are characterized by higher prices and poorer service. Furthermore, the State, because it lacks the profit and loss test for allocating resources, “has no idea what to produce, in what quantities, in what location, using what methods.” Given the importance of physical security and dispute resolution why do we assign its provision to such a thoroughly flawed institution?

Morally, the state fails in every way we consider moral, Rockwell points out. Instead of acquiring revenue through voluntary trade it steals from us and calls it taxation; it not only steals it tells us it’s our duty to comply if we want a civilized society. If this sounds fishy we better get with it because this is the only way we can keep barbarians outside the gates and criminals from breaking into our homes. Instead of attempting to provide for the general public, the state greases the squeaky wheels that lobby for special favors in exchange for votes or campaign contributions.

To paraphrase Major General Smedley Butler, the State is a racket, the oldest and easily the most profitable, and surely the most vicious.

Yet we are indoctrinated to view the State from an early age as a positive force, thanks to its control of the educational system. We are encouraged “to consider the State’s predation morally acceptable, and the world of voluntary exchange morally suspect.”

But even if one agrees that the State is an unwanted invader in our lives, does it necessarily follow that it should be eliminated? Isn’t it instead a strong candidate for reform? Rockwell says reform is futile.

Governments have no interest in staying limited, when they can expand their power and wealth by instead increasing their scope.

The next time you find yourself insisting that we need to keep government limited, ask yourself why it never, ever stays that way. Might you be chasing a unicorn?

What about “the people”? Can’t they be trusted to keep government limited? The answer to that question is all around you.

The State’s wars

The Rest…HERE

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