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Articles, papers and media on the issues
Recommended reading
The lack of justification for the State
The immorality of the State and force
Whether people are fundamentally good or evil
When the State collapses
State and war
State and justice, courts
State and taxation
State and democracy
State and poverty
The Drug War
State and gun control
State and health care
State and the banking cartel
State and education
State and immigration
State and the environment
State and science, art, libraries
State and insurance
State and commerce/unions
State and Land/Air
American Slavery and American Civil War
Against government and statist systems
The lack of justification for government
Do Pessimistic Assumptions about Human Behavior Justify Government? by Benjamin Powell and Christopher Coyne
"The existence of a central state shifts and magnifies the power
structure that is present in the initial state of nature. Rather than power
being dispersed among the populace, it is centralized in the hands of a
few. Once individuals possess this power, it is far from clear that they
will promote the interests of the ruled. In some cases they may, but in
others they may not. And, in the cases where they do not, they have
the power to impose great harm on others. Given this uncertainty, one
is unable to conclude, contrary to Buchanan and to Olson and McGuire,
that a central state is better than an institutionless state of nature."
Legitimacy of the State by Per Bylund
"However, if man is inherently evil, i.e. egotistical in a short-sighted, irrational and immoral way, how can he set up a neutral, so-called “proper,” government? It would be in his “irrational self-interest” to set up a government safeguarding his personal interests, oppressing others. Even though he might anticipate others would lay claim to his power and try to conquer his governmental structures, it can only be considered rational to cooperate with others in their common interests. But rationality has already been discarded as a non-human characteristic.
Since it is in everybody’s interest in the Hobbesian state of nature to form a personal government oppressing others for ones own well-being, any society would still degenerate into warfare and chaos. Thus, the Hobbesian theory of the formation of government in the state of nature leads only back to the chaotic state of nature."
If Men Were Angels: The Basic Analytics of the State versus Self-government by Robert Higgs
"Defending the continued existence of the state, despite having absolute certainty of a corresponding continuation of its intrinsic engagement in robbery, destruction, murder, and countless other crimes, requires that one imagine nonstate chaos, disorder, and death on a scale that nonstate actors seem incapable of causing. Nor, to my knowledge, does any historical example attest to such large-scale nonstate mayhem. With regard to large-scale death and destruction, no person, group, or private organization can even begin to compare to the state, which is easily the greatest instrument of destruction known to man. All nonstate threats to life, liberty, and property appear to be relatively petty, and therefore can be dealt with. Only states can pose truly massive threats, and sooner or later the horrors with which they menace mankind invariably come to pass.
The lesson of the precautionary principle is plain: because people are vile and corruptible, the state, which holds by far the greatest potential for harm and tends to be captured by the worst of the worst, is much too risky for anyone to justify its continuation. To tolerate it is not simply to play with fire, but to chance the total destruction of the human race."
The lack of justification for government
Free Exchange and Ethical Decisions by Sorin Cucerai
"In general terms, once a market environment becomes available,
human aggressors must rely on it in order to outsmart their victims.
They are not intelligent themselves; they simply “borrow” reason and
language from the market. On the other hand, combining reason and
language with autarchic exchanges is a more expensive way to get
and to keep what you want than is free exchange. Market predators
pay too much for the goods they want. Traits like honesty and good
faith develop because, within a market environment, they help individuals with such traits to pay less for the goods they desire than the
individuals without them.
This is why market predation is not and cannot be a universal
behavior. It is also why institutionalized aggression—in the form of
governments, for instance—is too costly, and therefore less stable,
than markets. Political history offers enough proofs."
Snowflakes and the Second Law by Jim Davies
"Government preaches that it is urgently needed to preserve law and order; the plain fact is that the more law, the less order; the result is the inverse of the promise. None of this is happenstance. "Order," in encounters between humans, is what happens when each party delivers on an agreement they have made. That's what a market is; an arena where contracts are formed and carried out. When a third party intervenes to contort the terms of the agreement or entirely prevent them being honored, that orderly arrangement is necessarily, by the intervention itself distorted or destroyed."
Do We Need a Government? by David Friedman
"Market failure is a reason why free markets sometimes fail. But it is also a reason why the alternatives to free markets, the political mechanisms proposed for correcting those failures, fail. In order for government intervention to improve on the market outcome, it is not enough that there is something government could do that would give a better outcome. There must also be a reason to expect government to do it. Putting the point in the language of economics, the incentives of the relevant political actors have to be such that it is in their interest to act in ways that result in the improved outcome."
ON LOCKE'S ARGUMENT FOR GOVERNMENT By David B. Suits
"We should notice first of all that Locke mentions a standard, as though there ought to be but one. But a single, or even a unified, system of laws may not be necessary. Indeed, where there is a variety of judges, there might also be a selection of laws (or legal systems). Even some political societies offer a choice not only regarding the person who is to be the judge, but also regarding the laws by whicb the judgment is to be made. To try a case before a judge or before a jury (and a judge), for example, may be an option in some political communities."
Do we ever really get out of Anarchy? by Alfred G. Cuzan
"In other words, there is no "third party" to make and enforce judgments among the individual members who make up the third party itself. The rulers still remain in a state of anarchy vis-à-vis each other. They settle disputes among themselves, without regard for a Government (an entity outside themselves). Anarchy still exists. Only whereas without government it was market or natural anarchy, it is now a political anarchy, an anarchy inside power."
Reflections on the Minimal State by John Hasnas
"Most political philosophers take it for granted that the state is morally justified. Among those who entertain the possibility that it may not be, the focus of debate is on whether the state is truly necessary or whether the market can safely supply the basic rule-making, adjudicative, and enforcement services that human beings need. I have ventured no opinion on this subject in this article, but I have argued that proving that the market cannot supply these essential services does not prove that a state must, and hence does not provide a moral justification for what is conventionally called the minimal state."
Internal Inconsistencies in Arguments for Government: Nozick, Rand, and Hospers by David Osterfeld
"The arguments for government of three of the better-known minarchists have been examined from the standpoint of their internal consistency. All three are found to be premised on principles which, when consistently applied, prove to conflict with the concept of a state, minimal or otherwise. It has been said that the only consistent political positions are those of anarchism and totalitarianism. While this may or may not be true, the three contemporary minarchist arguments for the state examined here have indeed proved themselves to be inconsistent."
Can Judges Save Us From Statism? by J.H. Huebert
"Though well-intentioned, the book is fatally flawed. Mr. Barnett's arguments that a monopoly government can be legitimate are unpersuasive; his arguments that the federal government should limit its own power are futile; and his arguments that the federal government should impose libertarianism on the states are dangerous."
We Need the State… Otherwise, Something Bad Might Happen! by Gene Callahan
"Philbrick also warns of "the notion that terrorists are learning to exploit the opportunities offered by the sea." In 2001, he mentions, it was suspected "that a ship containing a large chemical bomb was on its way to London." Nothing happened and no such ship was tracked down, so here we have a case where there was not enough government involvement, and something bad might have happened. Again, I assume we aren't supposed to recall that when something really, really bad did happen, it involved the extensively regulated airline industry."
Nonexcludability and Government Financing of Public Goods by Karl T. Fielding
"In answer to the first argument I agree that a free-rider incentive exists owing to imperfect exclusion. But it is not necessarily true that the free-rider incentive is the only incentive that is present. There may be other incentives that motivate people to act. Focusing narrowly on only one incentive does nothing to further intelligent discussion of public goods provision. For example, there may be incentives for individuals to act in accordance with good will, (...) civic pride, or any number of other reasons for individuals to contribute their full share toward the private provision of public goods. And. one's contributing need not necessarily rest on the assumption that similar demonstrations of "conscientiousness" will be forthcoming from others. It is far from being necessarily true that anyone will be concerned with such externalities. If a person is not concerned with these externalities, he will contribute whether or not others benefit gratuitously from his actions."
The Impossibility of the State? by Leonard Brewster
"Consider Hobbes’s bargain. Acting in our own interests, we are supposedly doomed to a life “solitary, nasty, brutish, and short.” To avoid this, Hobbes claims, we contract among ourselves to establish a sovereign who forces us into cooperation and, thus, happiness, even as this compels us often to act in a way contrary to our individual interests.
But what incentive does the sovereign have for doing any such thing? His interests may occasionally coincide with those of a large number of his subjects, but this will be mere chance. The general interest may be defined as identical with that of the sovereign, but that is mere tautology."
The Facts Of Reality: Logic And History In Objectivist Debates About Government by Nicholas Dykes
" Rand's arguments in support of a government monopoly on retaliatory force are not very persuasive. She wrote: "The use of physical force--even its retaliatory use--cannot be left at the discretion of individual citizens" (1963c, 108) and asserted that if it were, society "would degenerate into mob rule, lynch law, and an endless series of bloody private feuds and vendettas." She went on: "men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules. This is the task of government? its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government" (109). However, as Sechrest (1999, 91) and Block (2000, 150-55) have pointed out, Rand offered no evidence for her 'mob rule' assertions--which are contradicted by the extensive historical and anthropological evidence referred to throughout this paper. There have certainly been many instances of mobs running amok, but these have invariably taken place within states and have almost invariably been occasioned by the actions of the states themselves.
Sechrest (1999, 96) also notes that Rand's anti-anarchism arguments contain a strong element of self-contradiction. Rand posited that victims of robberies would go berserk if there was no government, but that the same people would have a "finely-tuned sense of justice" if there were. As I have pointed out elsewhere (Dykes 1998b, part 3), there is a great deal of inconsistency between Rand's 'benevolent universe' premise and her view of how people-- the most significant part of that universe--would behave in a stateless society."
Mrs. Logic and the Law: A Critique of Ayn Rand's View of Government by Nicholas Dykes
"Rand argued for a state monopoly on the use of force.4 Yet
the establishment of a state monopoly automatically involves
an initiation of force, something which Rand asserted
must be barred from civilized society: a state monopoly is
by its nature restrictive and coercive. Further, a state monopoly
is absolute, it permits no competition. Elsewhere,
however, Rand maintained that the right to liberty is inalienable,
i.e. absolute: “inalienable means that which we may
not take away, suspend, infringe, restrict or violate.”
But an inalienable right to liberty would imply that citizens
were free to set up their own systems of rights protection.
Evidently then, if a state monopoly is established, the state
immediately comes into conflict with the inalienable rights
it is supposed to protect."
Robert James Bidinotto and ?The Contradiction in Anarchism? by Nicholas Dykes
"Second, Bidinotto suggests that the social system
of Ancient Iceland was not viable because
it succumbed to invasion.19 This is historically
false, but it is interesting to consider the
proposition as if it were true. Viz: a horde of
foreign thugs whom you are not strong
enough to resist destroys your free way of life
and imposes an alien system of government
on you— and you are to blame, for not being
strong enough? On this argument, plainly, the
Hungarians and Czechoslovakians were in the
wrong when Soviet tanks crushed their uprisings
in 1956 and 1968, and the Kuwaitis
equally so when Iraq’s huge army swept into
their little country in 1990. Bidinotto’s remarks
clearly imply that might makes right."
The immorality of government and force
Pursuing Justice in a Free Society : Part I The Power Principle by Randy E. Barnett
"Adherents to the Power Principle have devised a rather peculiar way of dealing with the problem of human corruption and advantage-taking. They advocate giving some human beings a monopoly on the use of force, thereby elevating some human beings to a higher moral and legal status than others.
What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist by N. Stephan Kinsella
"Likewise, to my claim that the state and its aggression is unjustified, it is disingenuous and/or confused to reply, "anarchy won’t work" or is "impractical" or "unlikely to ever occur." The view that the state is unjustified is a normative or ethical position. The fact that not enough people are willing to respect their neighbors’ rights to allow anarchy to emerge, i.e., the fact that enough people (erroneously) support the legitimacy of the state to permit it to exist, does not mean that the state, and its aggression, are justified."
But no one can be sure to whom to give this monopoly. And, assuming that the initial allocation is made correctly, the alleged solution creates an irresistible target of opportunity for anyone in society who wishes to exploit another, and who is clever or ruthless enough to devise a way of capturing the monopoly that has been created. The monopoly also poses grave temptations to the good to become less than good, in short, the alleged solution to the problem of corruption is itself a most potent corrupting influence. Finally, in this scheme those who possess the monopoly, as a practical matter, are presumed to employ it properly, thus enhancing the ability of some to use the monopoly to take advantage of others."
A Theory of the Theory of Public Goods by Randall G. Holcombe
"Within this model, the production of national defense is explained as an institution that enables the government to protect and enhance its own wealth. Following this reasoning, national defense is produced by government because it furthers the private interests of those who run the government, not because it is in the public interest for the government to produce public goods. The model in this paper has more of an economic foundation than the theory of public goods, because it explains the production of national defense as the result of the rational self-interested decisions of individuals, rather than as a product of a benevolent government that acts in the public interest."
An Economic Analysis of Power by Michael S. Rozeff
"Power is evil. Political power opposes Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Power’s very existence infringes the individual’s exercise of his right of self-ownership.
This article explains ways in which power comes to work its evil. One is that a ruler is never as careful with public money as with his own, which is true because the power to tax lowers the sovereign’s cost of making mistakes. The second is Lord Acton’s argument that power corrupts, which is true because power both induces a shift in the morality of the ruler and also lowers the cost of acting corruptly. The third explanation is that even when a powerful ruler tries to do what is good, he fails, because he has limited knowledge of the preferences and values of his subjects and less incentive to discover them than his subjects, even if he could."
The Political Economy of Fear by Robert Higgs
"The religious grounds for submission to the ruler-gods gradually transmogrified into notions of nationalism and popular duty, culminating eventually in the curious idea that under a democratic system of government, the people themselves are the government, and hence whatever it requires them to do, they are really doing for themselves—as Woodrow Wilson had the cheek to declare when he proclaimed military conscription backed by severe criminal sanctions in 1917, "it is in no sense a conscription of the unwilling: it is, rather, selection from a nation which has volunteered in mass" (qtd. in Palmer 1931, 216–17)."
Persuasion vs. Force by Mark Skousen
"The triumph of persuasion over force is the sign of a civilized society."
The Government Hoax by Marc Stevens
""Government" is a group of men and women providing the service of protecting "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" at the barrel of a gun. We have no choice in accepting and paying for their wonderful services. Their services are so valuable we’re compelled to accept and pay for them. And non-political libertarians and voluntaryists are the extremists?"
The Structure of Anarchist Society by Per Bylund
"The abandonment of such oppressive conduct is the solution for mankind to break the evil circle of force. It includes the abandonment of all force-based structures of contemporary society in order to break the chains of man. This is anarchism: breaking the man-made chains that hold our faces down in the mud; breaking down the castles of our oppressors; freeing our fellow men to the life they have earned and will build for themselves through hard work and fellowships; defeating the political class to establish the force-free society where men will live peacefully beside men--where force is only a last resort and a means of defense."
Who Are the Realists? by Roy Halliday
"[Market anarchy] is fundamentally an anticrime philosophy. The primary reason we oppose the state is that the state is a criminal organization. It is precisely because we are aware of man's moral weakness that we want to make the powerful machinery of the state unavailable to evil men.
(...)
Individual-rights-based anarchism, rather than being opposed to all law, maintains that there are objective, eternal, and universally valid principles of law. Anarchists use the natural law to judge the legitimacy of the various man-made laws. It is the statist, not the anarchist, who denies natural law and imposes an artificial, temporal, inconsistent, and often arbitrary set of "laws" on society. Any system of so-called "law" that opposes voluntary associations is opposed to the real laws of society."
How to make people more responsible by Harry Browne
"[Government] power is aimed at you, not at the people you want to control.
Politicians exploit the existence of irresponsible people to justify rigid controls on your life. Because some people won't plan for their old age, you must be forced into Social Security. Because some people will do strange things if they look at dirty pictures on the Internet, your access to the Internet must be restricted. "
Why Government Must Be Abolished/a> by Brad Edmonds
"For traditional, forcible government to accomplish anything, it first must tax. This requires stealing, at gunpoint, money (property) from everyone under its rule – even the people who don’t want done what the government is going to do. This is theft. There is no more fitting term for it. Government gets away with this, first because it has more guns than any individual it’s taxing; and second because the population has usually been convinced, lately through years of government schooling, that such stealing is necessary for civilization."
Historical Causality by Stefan Molyneux
" This is the simple truth of historical causality. Random factors do not affect all people simultaneously. The only force powerful enough to affect the whole of society – to choke, enslave and define the actions of the entire body politic – is the universal power of the State.
When the State is eliminated, and historians no longer have to be court toadies to the power that pays them, this simple truth can finally be made clear."
The Tragedy of Political Government by Carl Watner
" Most people are capable of high values and responsible behavior, but once they enter the seductive garden of politics, they no longer notice that its wonders cannot be reconciled with individual responsibility and their own personal moral values of honesty and hard work. It is not usually apparent that what they are doing or supporting is vicious and would not pass the test of ordinary decency. So long as the criminality is veiled by the political process, most people accept it because they do not see that it conflicts with their basic values. The main tragedy of political government is not only that the voters are the ones pointing the gun, but, most importantly, that the indecency of this act is concealed from them by the political process."
Limited Government - A Moral Issue? by Chet W. Anderson
" As long as politicians can bombard us with their platitudes about "doing good" - and never be challenged on the immoral means they use - the size and power of government will never be controlled. For there can be no decline in the calls upon government to "do something" about such things as poverty, the homeless, the aged, and the sick until the force and violence that must support such governmental actions are recognized - and morally condemned."
What Holds The System Together? by Harold Barclay
" In those cases where traditional techniques for social control have been removed suddenly, or greatly relaxed, two consequences are noteworthy. One is the extent to which voluntary mutual aid spontaneously appears and spreads - people begin helping each other. The other consequence is the opposite response - the one the 'law and order' supporters would predict. That is, there is rioting, looting and mayhem. But the reason for this reaction is not because there is no police to keep order."
Freedom or Government? by Harry Hoiles
" The choice is not between government and anarchy.
The choice is between government and freedom. Or more accurately expressed:
The choice is between dictatorship and freedom."
How The Power To Tax Destroys by Michael S. Rozeff
"When constrained to employ their personal resources, rulers have a disincentive to spend. The power to tax removes that disincentive, that is, provides them an incentive to fulfill their aims. Consequently, they are encouraged to such things as wars to end all wars, wars to further democracy, great leaps forward, wars on poverty and drugs and terror, genocides, disruptive programs, territorial expansions, subsidies and guarantees, lavish parties, entertainments, airplanes and limousines, volumes of regulations that kill off markets, etc."
Anatomy of the State by Murray Rothbard
" We are now in a position to answer more fully the question: what is the State? The State, in the words of Oppenheimer, is the "organization of the political means"; it is the systematization of the predatory process over a given territory. For crime, at best, is sporadic and uncertain; the parasitism is ephemeral, and the coercive, parasitic lifeline may be cut off at any time by the resistance of the victims. The State provides a legal, orderly, systematic channel for the predation of private property; it renders certain, secure, and relatively "peaceful" the lifeline of the parasitic caste in society."
Libertarian Class Theory by Rick Tompkins
"Whatever the details, the underlying theory is clear: the political class exploits the economic class through its control of the state.
If this is true, why does the economic class put up with it? By all measures, the overwhelming majority of every society is made up of "net losers" in the political shell game played by the politicians. Why sn't the economic class overthrown the exploiters?
I suggest the main reason this hasn't happened is because the political class recognizes its "class interest" in maintaining the size and power of the state, while the economic class does not recognize the depths of its exploitation. At the same time, the political class of every country uses some combination of four strategies to prevent the economic class from understanding where its true interests are."
Whether people are fundamentally good or evil
What the Bagel Man Saw by STEPHEN J. DUBNER and STEVEN D. LEVITT - The New York Times Magazine (June 6, 2004)
An article on the case study of Paul F., bagel seller in Washington.
"The story posed a moral question: could any man resist the temptation of evil if he knew his acts could not be witnessed? Glaucon seemed to think the answer was no. But Paul F. sides with Socrates -- for he knows that the answer, at least 89 percent of the time, is yes."
How Is a Canadian Art-Pop Singer Like a Bagel Salesman? by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
"Even more cleverly, Siberry posts the average payment rate for each song as you pull your payment option from the drop-down menu—another reminder that, Hey, you’re more than welcome to steal this music but here’s how other people have acted in the recent past. Methinks Ms. Siberry grasps the power of incentives quite well. This allows for at least a couple of interesting things to happen: people can decide what to pay after they hear the music, and see how much it’s worth to them (it looks like people generally pay the most per song under this option); and it takes the variable-pricing scheme that economists love and puts it in the hands of the consumer, not the seller."
When the State collapses
How Excessive Government Killed Ancient Rome by Bruce Bartlett
As the private wealth of the Empire was gradually confiscated or taxed away, driven away or hidden, economic growth slowed to a virtual standstill. Moreover, once the wealthy were no longer able to pay the state's bills, the burden inexorably fell onto the lower classes, so that average people suffered as well from the deteriorating economic conditions. In Rostovtzeff's words, "The heavier the pressure of the state on the upper classes, the more intolerable became the condition of the lower" (Rostovtzeff 1957: 430).
(...)
With the collapse of the money economy, the normal system of taxation also broke down. This forced the state to directly appropriate whatever resources it needed wherever they could be found. Food and cattle, for example, were requisitioned directly from farmers. Other producers were similarly liable for whatever the army might need. The result, of course, was chaos, dubbed "permanent terrorism" by Rostovtzeff (1957: 449). Eventually, the state was forced to compel individuals to continue working and producing.
Government and war
Stefan Molyneux podcasts - War and the Fantasy of Protection
"If governments exist to protect their citizens from other governments, then as a particular country becomes more secure, its military should shrink in size. So, for instance, after the fall of the Soviet Union, European and NATO military budgets should have been reduced. Furthermore, a country like Switzerland, buried deep in the middle of fractious Europe, should have a military budget far higher than that of America, which has oceans to either side and friendly neighbours to the north and south. Or Japan, for instance, should have been a peaceful country throughout its history, since it is largely immune from invasion. The same goes for England.
Clearly, even the most cursory examination of history shows that no correlation can be made between a country’s security and its military spending."
Stefan Molyneux podcasts - War part 1 and part 2
"It has been often said that war is the health of the State – but the argument could also be made that the reverse is more true: that the State is the health of war. In other words, that war – the greatest of all human evils – is impossible without the State.
(...)
In the anarcho-capitalist view, the State is a fundamental moral evil not only because it uses violence to achieve its ends, but also because it is the only social agency capable of making war economically advantageous to those with the power to declare it and profit from it. In other words, it is only through the governmental power of taxation that war can be subsidized to the point where it becomes profitable to certain sections of society. Destruction can only ever be profitable because the costs and risks of violence are shifted to the taxpayers, while the benefits accrue to the few who directly control or influence the State."
DOES DEMOCRACY PROMOTE PEACE? By James Ostrowski
"The statist system itself is based on utopian thinking. We are told that a strong
central government is necessary because, human nature being what it is, the public needs
to be protected from evil miscreants. We are then asked to assume that these same evil
miscreants will not do everything they can to gain control of the state apparatus. This is
contrary to all theory and experience and is thus utopian. Logic tells us that evil people
will gravitate to positions of state power so they can lie, cheat, steal, and murder with the
impunity granted by their legal monopoly.
(...) Statists assure us that irresponsible people will act responsibly. That is, state
officials, who are given power over us, and who therefore are not responsible to us, will
act responsibly. All logic and experience tell us this is false, and thus utopian."
"WAR IS THE HEALTH OF THE STATE": ITS MEANING By Wendy McElroy
"Unlike Government, society is not expression of the State, nor can it peacefully co-exist with the State because the two concepts are antagonistic. In an essay entitled "The State," Bourne observes, "Country [society] is a concept of peace, tolerance, of living and letting live. But State is essentially a concept of power, of competition; it signifies a group in its aggressive aspects. And we have the misfortune of being born not only into a country but into a State, and as we grow up we learn to mingle the two feelings into a hopeless confusion.""
Can America Bring Peace to the World? by Harry Browne
"There hasn't been a single American war in this century or the last in which the U.S. government actually achieved the results that were promised when it went to war."
The Private Production of Defense by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
"For one, if a state, the U.S., attacks another, for instance Iraq, this is not just an attack by a limited number of people, equipped with limited resources and located at a clearly identifiable place. Rather, it is an attack by all Americans and with all of their resources. Every American supposedly pays taxes to the U.S. government and is thus de facto, whether he wishes to be or not, implicated in every government aggression. Hence, while it is obviously false to claim that every American faces an equal risk of being attacked by Iraq, (low or nonexistent as such a risk is, it is certainly higher in New York City than in Wichita, Kansas, for instance) every American is rendered equal with respect to his own active, if not always voluntary, participation in each of his government’s aggressions."
Does Iraq Show That We Need a State? by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
"States are inherently aggressive. This holds for the U.S. government as well as that of Iraq. If one can externalize the costs of one's aggression onto others in the form of taxes imposed on one's citizenry, one will be more aggressive than if one had to pay the full cost of aggression personally."
When Individuals Beat Governments - Christmas 1914 by Robert L. Johnson
"During the Christmas truce of 1914, soldiers from both sides were able to shake off the BS their governments had filled them with and realized the guy they were trying to kill just the day before was more like himself than his own officers were. The grunts from the English and German armies gradually made their way out of their trenches and into the middle of no-man's land to greet “enemy” fellow soldiers who could have been their brothers. While they were singing Christmas songs together and playing soccer/football with each other, the officers were getting upset. How could they advance their military careers if their troops would not fight, kill, and die???"
Natural Ethics and the Origins of War by Michael Hough
"War is not an inevitable product of human nature, but rather a
consequence of the belief that ethical judgements must be
based on whim rather than on the objective requirements of
man’s nature. An effective strategy for peace must not depend
upon institutions (such as national or international political
authorities) designed to subdue man’s nature, to make him submissive
and selfless for “the good of humanity”: for such coercive
institutions already contain the germ of war. Statism is
obviously responsible for such devices as conscription and
trade and immigration barriers which contribute indirectly to
war; more fundamentally, however, powerful aggressive governments
rest upon the same coercive principle as does war —
and the twentieth century bears witness to the consequences.
Exponents of peace must employ philosophical means if they
are to realise their goal. Specifically, they must uphold the
ideal of rational egoism as an alternative to prevailing anti-life
ideologies which view man as the slave of “the good of society”
and the state."
Government and justice, courts
THE MYTH OF THE RULE OF LAW by John Hasnas
"If it has been known for 100 years that the law does not consist of a body of determinate rules, why is the belief that it does still so widespread? If four generations of jurisprudential scholars have shown that the rule of law is a myth, why does the concept still command such fervent commitment? The answer is implicit in the question itself, for the question recognizes that the rule of law is a myth and like all myths, it is designed to serve an emotive, rather than cognitive, function. The purpose of a myth is not to persuade one's reason, but to enlist one's emotions in support of an idea. And this is precisely the case for the myth of the rule of law; its purpose is to enlist the emotions of the public in support of society's political power structure."
Guns for Protection and Other Private-Sector Responses to Crime by Bruce Benson
"The discussion that follows supports the first contention-that private ownership of firearms (and other private-sector responses to increasing crime) may be a reaction likely to deter rising violence. In addition, it is contended that violent crime is on the rise, at least in part, because of government failure to support the "public interest." Instead, the bureaucratic crime-control system responds to pressure from politically powerful special-interest groups. Thus, the presentation agrees with the second contention noted above as well-that there is reason to be dissatisfied with government crime-control efforts. It will also be apparent that at least part of the problem of rising crime stems from increasing government involvement in crime control. In fact, private sector enforcement and deterrent efforts (such as increasing ownership of firearms) appear superior to attempts to change and/or expand public sector involvement."
Libertarian Anarchism by Daniel C. Burton
Is Government a Mistake? Exploring the Anarchist Option by Jan Narveson
"There is only one respectable argument for the state: that everyone (literally) would do better, on his own terms, than in its absence. This requirement is so strong that I suspect no argument for the state could ever meet it. As soon as we see that protective services are, as Bastiat recognized, services, then the plausibility of having these services provided by a monopoly, including an elected one, becomes very low indeed."
The Case For The Free Market Provision of Legal Services by David Berens
"It is clear that a reduction of competition is justified by this professional
ideology. The input of state intervention aids the entrenchment
of this by facilitating the continuance of monopoly control of
the provision of legal services. Thus the profession has accepted
the expansion of legal aid and law centres under their aegis. The
profession has solicited state protection and state enforced penalties
against unlicensed competitors.
What would rightly be called ‘restrictive practices’ when displayed
by trade unions suddenly becomes a ‘professional code of ethics’ in
the hands of the professions. The defenders of the system of professional
privilege never cease to talk of the alleged benefit for the
public, yet it is themselves who are manifestly the beneficiaries."
Why the Public Puts Up With Abusive Cops by Brad Edmonds
"First, as to government services always being bad, police have no incentive to succeed at preventing crime nor to avoid abusing peaceful citizens. This is because government itself has no incentive to solve any problem it sets out to solve, nor to treat citizens with anything but disdain. Thus, if one sets out to list police abuses and failures, one will never stop listing as long as there are government police."
Should We Love or Loathe the Mafia? by Robert P. Murphy
"Beyond this obvious flaw (i.e., that Sicily is not in anarchy and therefore is not a valid test of the desirability of a Rothbardian private protection industry) there is the deeper confusion of linking the odious behavior of mafiosi with private protection as such. Most readers of this website will be familiar with the standard arguments for legalization of “victimless” crimes, and in particular with the insight that the violence in the narcotics and prostitution industries are caused by government prohibitions, not by the products and services themselves.
In the very same way, the current black market for protection services is relatively violent, and run by relatively unsavory individuals. But if private protection were “legalized”—i.e., if the State abdicated its monopoly on law enforcement and opened the industry to legitimate competitors—then we should also expect the market to become more orderly, just as murderous thugs left the alcohol market after the repeal of Prohibition."
Government and taxation
Freedom from the Income Tax by Harry Browne
"What have the politicians done to earn that money?
Absolutely nothing.
What claim should they have on your earnings?
Absolutely none."
Stefan Molyneux podcast - Property Rights
Why Statists Always Get it Wrong by Per Bylund
"Even so, I wish to offer another analysis of Milsted's reasoning. His article is a good example of why statists always seem to get it wrong — and why they always fail to understand what we're talking about. The bottom line is that they fail to realize the costs of force due to their unwillingness to see the state for what it is. I will therefore use Milsted's own example to shed light on his fundamental mistake."
Government and democracy
Do We Need a Government? by David Friedman
"In order to figure out both what a politician is doing and whether he should be doing it, the voter must spend substantial amounts of time and effort studying the issues and the politician?s voting behavior. In doing so, he is producing a public good-better laws-for a very large public; he himself collects only a tiny fraction of any benefit. Seen from the other side, he is bearing a large cost for a trivial gain-an increase of perhaps one chance in a million in the probability that the right politician will get elected. Spearmen facing that logic run, firms pollute, and voters remain ignorant-rationally ignorant."
Attention Deficit Democracy by James Bovard
"Losing a certain percentage of the voters who understand issues or recall facts is now simply a "transaction cost" for a political campaign. The only lies that are unforgivable nowadays are those that repel more voters than they con. And regardless of how brazen a politician's howlers, the media rushes to repaint him as worthy of respect and deference."
Government and poverty
Stefan Molyneux podcasts - Poverty part 1 and part 2
Legal Child Abuse by Wendy McElroy
"History frowns upon the belief that government protects children's rights, and yet that is precisely the claim that undergirds child labor laws, now enforced in most parts of the world. Hardly anyone dares question their existence, much less the conventional history of child labor, no matter how many children and families continue to be victimized by government regulation of labor.
Consider child labor in nineteenth-century Britain--the wellspring from which modern child labor laws evolved. Immediately, hideous snapshots flash in the mind (...). These images are used to condemn the free market and the Industrial Revolution against whose evils a humanitarian government is said to have passed child labor laws. This analysis is badly mistaken."
The Drug War
Stefan Molyneux podcasts - The Drug Wars part 1 and part 2
What if all drugs were legal? (gasp!) by Harry Browne
"What if legalizing medical marijuana turned out to be the first step on a journey that ended in the outright repeal of every drug law? What would America be like?"
Peace: before the war on Drugs by James Donald
"In turn-of-the century America, opium, morphine, heroin, cocaine, and marijuana were subject to few restrictions. Popular tonics such as Vin Mariani and Coca-Cola and its competitors were laced with cocaine, and hundreds of medicines—Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup may have been the most famous— contained psychoactive drugs. Millions, perhaps tens of millions of Americans, took opiates and cocaine. David Courtwright estimates that during the 1890s as many as one-third of a million Americans were opiate addicts, but most of them were ordinary people who would today be described as occasional users."
Government and gun control
An Anarchist Case Against Gun Control by Joe Peacott
"The other people who benefit from gun control are the police. Without an armed populace they can freely stop, search, and harass peaceable people, invade their homes, order them from and search their vehicles, and confiscate their property without any fear of reprisal. In order to combat such state-sponsored terrorism, wholesale abolition or evasion of gun control laws and widespread ownership of guns is crucial."
Government and health care
Should Medicine be a Commodity? by David D. Friedman
"The question we should ask, and try to answer, is not what outcome would be ideal but what outcome we can expect from each of various alternative sets of institutions, and which, from that limited set of alternatives, we prefer. I have tried to do so. My conclusion is that there is no good reason to expect governmental involvement in the medical market, either the extensive involvement that now exists or the still more extensive involvement that many advocate, to produce desirable results."
Stefan Molyneux podcasts - Health Care part 1, part 2 and part 3
How Government Solved the Health Care Crisis by Roderick T. Long
"Eighty years ago, Americans were also told that their nation was facing a health care crisis. Then, however, the complaint was that medical costs were too low, and that health insurance was too accessible. But in that era, too, government stepped forward to solve the problem. And boy, did it solve it!"
Government and the banking cartel
License to Steal by Mark Davis
"The modern Corporate-State is controlled by a cartel of banks: the elite of the elite. Most people believe it is perfectly normal for the Federal Reserve and its “member” banks to be granted a license to steal. The central banking system is based on fraud and deception, plain and simple."
Government and education
The Weak Case for Public Schooling by David D. Friedman
"While government schooling, free and compulsory, is at present nearly universal in developed societies, the case for it is unconvincing. There are arguments for government provision of schooling, as there are arguments for government provision of any good or service, but the arguments in favor are weaker, and the arguments against stronger, than the corresponding arguments for other goods and services that we routinely leave to the private market."
Education for All by Harry Browne
"There already are close to a hundred privately funded scholarship programs for elementary and high school students — sending poor children to private schools. The Children's Scholarship Fund, the Houston Children's Educational Opportunity Foundation, Children First Utah, the Educational Choice Charitable Trust, and dozens more are making it possible for poor children today to get the kind of really good private-school educations that politicians provide for their own children."
THIS WEEK IN LIBERTY with Harry Browne video stream - 12/29/2005
Demystifying the State by Wendy McElroy
"Without a doubt, the most effective method by which the state creates a mystique is through control of education. The evolution of compulsory state-controlled schooling reads like a history of political maneuvering, in which the goal of teaching children literacy skills plays a minor role. Public education is by no means inept or disordered as it is made out to be. It is an ice- cold, superb machine designed to perform one very important job. The problem is not that public schools do not work well, but rather that they do. The first goal and primary function of schools is not to educate good people, but good citizens. It is the function which we normally label state indoctrination."
Anarchy Revisited: The Public Education Dilemma by Robert H. Chappell
"Public schooling has become a prodigious bureaucratic institution that operates as a rigorous maintenance system. Its function is to inculcate the masses with acceptable ideologies and to weed out dissenters whose recalcitrant behavior and spontaneity are viewed as dangerous to the democratic tenets of the United States. As compulsory attendance laws surfaced and were enacted, the educational monolith became ever more securely entrenched in American society. Public education has become a breakwater interrupting the dynamics of inquiry, dissent and innovation which are essential to democracy and to the human condition"
Government and immigration
There's No Such Thing as an 'Illegal Alien' by Marc Stevens
"There’s an incredible amount of energy expended on the subject of so-called "illegal aliens." These are men, women and children who allegedly are not in the "country" "legally." People who think they’re "citizens" believe physical force may be used against "illegal aliens" to cage them and send them back to their "country." This use of physical violence is called "deportation." One of the biggest complaints about these so-called "illegals" is how much they cost "citizens" and "taxpayers" in welfare and other "social programs." However, just as it’s a myth there’s a "country" or "nation" called the "United States," there’s no such thing as an "illegal alien.""
Government and the environment
Stefan Molyneux podcasts - Environmentalism part 1, part 2 and part 3
The Empty Seas: So long, and thanks for all the fish!
THIS WEEK IN LIBERTY with Harry Browne video stream - 1/19/2006
Government and science, art, libraries
State Science, State Truth by Wendy McElroy
"The history of science demonstrates that an intellectual revolution is usually necessary for a radically new doctrine to break through the "established" truth of an old one. The many--even when science was relatively understandable to the layperson--rarely back intellectual revolutions. The elite few have even more of an investment in maintaining the "status quo" from which they draw salaries and prestige. Government has a vested interest in reducing science to the role of hand-maiden. Hence, the Manhattan Project during WWII. Hence, NASA during the Cold War race against the Russians into space."
Art and State: The Case for Separation by Wendy McElroy
"The NEA is not a benefactor of "art" per se. It funds one person's expression at the expense of another--and not merely the taxpayer. Every artist who tries to make an honest living through merit is penalized thereby. After all, which art gets funded? Certainly, no popular vote gets taken."
The Relative Success of Private Funders And Government Funders in Funding Important Science by Arthur M. Diamond, Jr.
"Using either measure of article importance, the evidence suggests that private funders are more successful than the government at identifying important research. "
Alternatives to Public Libraries by J. Brian Phillips
"Proponents of government programs often contend that the services provided by government could not be furnished by the private sector. It is in the public interest, they argue, that the government compel individuals to support these programs with their tax dollars. Among the most sacred of these programs are public schools and public libraries, supposedly the bastions of democracy.
However, such arguments ignore the lessons of history, for America’s past is replete with examples of voluntary, cooperative associations which provided for the many needs of the citizenry. One of the most striking examples is the evolution of libraries in pre-Civil War America. Even today, alternatives to tax-sup-ported libraries exist."
Government and insurance
Insurance and the Government: Partners in America by Kurt Fuller
"Insurance companies are consistent proponents of tighter underwriting rules, stricter rating rules, and more specific definitions of coverage. These measures are advocated in the name of efficiency, but they result in very little room for innovation. The customer-responsive companies are not allowed to respond to the market because the rules do not allow it. Innovation still exists, but it is expensive to implement, and in constant danger of being regulated away."
Government and commerce/unions
Trade Unions: The Private Use of Coercive Power by W.H. Hutt
"The threat to strike-"the gun under the table" as Mises called it-like
all forms of warfare, can be used for good or noble purposes. Nevertheless,
even when the objective is defensible, we are forced to regard all private use
of coercive power (whether by boycott or strike) as an intolerable infringement
of human freedom. We should condemn the Mafia even if it could be shown
that the revenues of racketeering were being used to subsidize opera, cancer
research, or civil-rights movement. Similarly, the strike is a form of private
warfare. Victory is, as in all warfare, to the strong, not necessarily to the
righteous. Yet during the present century, apologists for the unions have adopted
"might is right!" as a moral principle."
Who Owns the Internet? by Tim Swanson
"The main issue is not a matter of bit discrimination, multiple tiers, or even denial-of-service; rather it is a fight over private property and who owns the cornucopia of wires, cables, fibers and network infrastructure spanning the continent. Unfortunately due in large part to State intervention throughout the past century, this is a somewhat vague and nebulous area with many seemingly gray regions.
The only reason AT&T (formerly SBC), BellSouth, Cox Communications, and other incumbents have the large user bases they currently do is because they were granted geographic monopolies for communications. They were legally insulated from outside competition for much of the past century. And, by and large, this protected status still continues unabated, shielded by the current FCC regulatory regime."
Markets, Not Unions, Gave us Leisure by Thomas DiLorenzo
"Union-backed legislation prohibiting child labor came after the decline in child labor had already begun. Moreover, child labor laws have always been protectionist and aimed at depriving young people of the opportunity to work. Since child labor sometimes competes with unionized labor, unions have long sought to use the power of the state to deprive young people of the right to work. In the Third World today, the alternative to "child labor" is all too often begging, prostitution, crime, or starvation. Unions absurdly proclaim to be taking the moral high road by advocating protectionist policies that inevitably lead to these consequences."
Forgotten Facts of American Labor History by Thomas Woods
"Labor historians and activists would doubtless be at a loss to explain why, at a time when unionism was numerically negligible (a whopping three percent of the American labor force was unionized by 1900) and federal regulation all but nonexistent, real wages in manufacturing climbed an incredible 50 percent in the United States from 1860-1890, and another 37 percent from 1890-1914, or why American workers were so much better off than their much more heavily unionized counterparts in Europe. Most of them seem to cope with these inconvenient facts by neglecting to mention them at all."
Government and land/air
Solving America's Spectrum Crisis by Adam D. Thierer
"The history of America's seven-decade experiment with government management of the airwaves reads like a never-ending series of Soviet-style five-year plans. The Federal Communications Commission has basically doled out spectrum on a licensed basis for specific uses and then dictated how license holders can use or sell that spectrum allocation. This has resulted in two very serious problems: inflexible use policies and artificial spectrum scarcity. The combined effect has been the creation of a serious spectrum crisis in America."
"Beyond the Wit of Man to Foresee": Voluntaryism and Land Use Controls by Carl Watner
"There are basically four ways that governments exercise power and control over "privately owned" land. Zoning is a subcategory of one of them. The four methods are: 1) the power of eminent domain (the power of the government to take title to private property by paying a compensation of its own determination); 2) regulation of land use via zoning and nuisance laws which are derived from the state's police power to protect the public; 3) taxation of land; and 4) government expenditures on infrastructure - such as its provision of water, sewerage, and highway systems. Although the last two modes of government operation are as pervasive (and pernicious) as the first two, they are not a matter of concern in this article."
American Slavery and American Civil War
The Abolitionist Adventure by Wendy McElroy
"Abolitionism was the radical wing of the American anti-slavery movement. It demanded the immediate cessation of slavery on the grounds that all men are self-owners. That is, every human being has a natural right to his own person and property, which no other moral or practical consideration outweighed. This emphasis, along with strong ties to Quakers, who denied the government moral authority over men, meant that abolitionism emerged as a libertarian movement.
Spun out against a backdrop of internal debate, social backlash, war, and political limitations, the history of abolitionism provides both inspiration and cautionary tales about the attempt to reform society in a fundamental manner."
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