For all Americans, the single biggest force that influences the conduct of our lives and the degree to which we’re able to sustain our existence is the State and the various levels of government each individual American is subject to.
Where I currently sit, I’m subject to city ordinances, county regulations, state laws and federal laws. Most Americans are under the jurisdiction of four layers of government, minimum, yet few actually ever bother to ponder the nature of government. Few will ever ask themselves: “What makes government unique?”
Such is an important question, however, as government is clearly unique among human institutions. What is it, exactly, that sets it apart?
The answer is simple: a monopoly upon the legal initiation of violence.
If I run up behind a woman walking down the sidewalk and snatch her purse away, I’ve committed a violent crime by assaulting her and taking her property. That same woman, however, will have at least one-third of her earnings stolen away from her each year by the government. They get to take it right out of her paycheck, no need to come and physically put hands on her. Unless, that is, she refuses to pay and evades taxes. Then, before too long, someone with a gun will come and physically apprehend her and put her into a cage.
Given that this legal monopoly on initiating violence is government’s sole defining characteristic, we must remember that it is also its very essence. The state is violence incarnate.
Every single law, no matter how benign and helpful-sounding, is underwritten by a promise of violence.
No law is legitimate if it requires a use of violence by the state that would be prohibited to an individual member of the citizenry. Every individual has the innate right to violently resist an attempted burglar, rapist, mugger or murderer, no badge and blue costume required. That theft, rape, assault and murder are outlawed for all is a necessity for any civilization.
However, the state being violence incarnate, it is free to enact other laws and those are enforced with the exact same methodology as laws against the aforementioned objectively evil actions. The state requires money to run on, and it collects that money by taxing – stealing – the property of individuals who produced wealth via their own labor; labor they performed with their bodies that they own outright. An individual who takes another’s property against their will has committed a crime by violating the victim’s right to property. The magical mantle of government, however, is meant to excuse the state in engaging in this obviously criminal activity.
The state goes on to enact many, many more self-serving laws, all enforced with violence and all of them in violation of every human’s right to self-ownership. The “War on Drugs” has been a 40+-year assault on individual self-ownership, the result of which is to find the United States with the highest number of prisoners per capita of any other nation on Earth.
Jim Crow, segregation and the denial of equal protection rights to gay couples are examples of government abuses that go back decades, abuses that all violated individuals’ rights to self-ownership. Gun control laws, business licensing laws, federal land ownership and management, immigration laws, business regulations and onerous environmental regulations are all examples of the state using its monopoly on violence to violate individuals’ right to self-ownership and property on massive scales.
But, government is also made up of individuals, and when we remember this fact, the state suddenly doesn’t seem like such an impenetrable monolith. It’s easy to understand an individual’s motivations within any workplace and then scale them up to the bureau, agency, administration or department they work for. Most of us want to excel and exceed at our jobs and grow our companies. For those who work in government, the equivalent is to find more things for themselves, or their bureau, agency, administration or department to do.
Of course, government can and does only do one thing, and that’s ruin things. And so, each time a government body’s scope of responsibility grows, individuals will find their rights being violated all the more. Growing a government agency naturally means it needs more money than it did during the last budget cycle, and so that will be further underwritten by yet more violence in the form of taxation/theft.
For eons, humans tried to use alchemy to turn lead into gold and failed because nothing within the practice of alchemy was capable of changing lead into a precious metal. For eons, humans have sought to create a free and peaceful society by continually adjusting the amount of institutionalized violence the government ruling said society wields. It is my contention that we are having the same problem that the alchemists had. Nothing within the practice of institutionalized violence is capable of turning a populace into a free and peaceful society.
I am not suggesting modern humans go without the “services” government today “provides.” Those services, if truly needed and beneficial, would be provided (more efficiently) by a private company in the absence of a government monopoly on said service. After all, the government itself didn’t invent any of the industries or services it regulates or provides today; it merely used its monopoly on violence to assert new authority over things like telegraph lines, radio frequency bands, herbal plants, airport security, internet access, etc. Private companies seeking to profit by offering the public something they didn’t know they needed is how we have come to enjoy the standard of living we have now, a standard that has been slowly but steadily diminished as government grows to regulate each new technology.
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