Summarized by cleangov
What the State Is Not:
The State is not a social service organization. The State is not necessary for achieving the goals of mankind. The State is not some collective “we” which acts in our best interests at all times.
The State is an organization within a particular geographical area which is attempting to be a monopoly on the use of force to achieve its ends. It is the only group in a particular area that does not get its money through soliciting voluntary contributions or by selling desired goods and services. It gets its funds through the threat of force and actual force if needed, by confiscating it from people who do earn money through production and service to others, from people who are peaceably offering those goods and services for voluntary purchase by others.
The State then goes on to regulate and dictate the actions of the people who live in that area.
What the State Is:
People come into the world with nothing. Their mission is to learn the laws of nature and then learn how to use those laws and their own self-created energy to create and produce things of value to others, things which can be exchanged voluntarily with other people who have likewise produced things of value which one needs.
By doing this one finds that the living standards of people who produce things increase tremendously. This is the “natural” path for mankind to follow, using his energy and what he knows to participate in the production and exchange of things of value to others.
By taking natural resources and exerting energy a person can thereby make natural resources his own property, which can then be exchanged for the property of similarly produced items from other people.
If people in an area do this, they can skip the kill-or-be-killed pirate-centered method of surviving by stealing what has been produced by others. Instead one has harmony and peace and plenty, through production and exchange.
The German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer called the seizure of another’s goods or services by force “the political means” to wealth. It is the action of a parasite on the productive body of the people. It reduces the total wealth in an area. It also takes away some of the incentive the producers have to produce anything beyond the bare bones amount needed for survival.
The State is that method of organizing the above process of systematically taking from producers, and making it legal, organized and oh, so inescapable. It makes the parasitic action constant and continuous, with no interruptions, save the death of any one producer, who is promptly replaced.
States have always been born from conquest. Usually it’s when one group realized after winning out over another group that they could stay in the newly won territory and set themselves up as rulers, entitled to the steady flow of loot taken from the conquered people. In such a way the winners set themselves up as “kings” or “emperors” and, often with the blessings of the local religious leaders, make it look like they have the “divine” authority to rule over the lesser beings living there. It’s legal and proper and everybody should respect it and follow along. …
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