If You Do Not Want The State

Considering Mankind's Indifference To Freedom, Their Easy Gullibility And Their Facile Response To Conditioning, One Might Very Plausibly Argue That Collectivism Is The Political Mode Best Suited To Their Disposition And Their Capacities. Under Its Regime, The Citizen, Like The Soldier, Is Relieved Of The Burden Of Initiative And Is Divested Of All Responsibility, Save For Doing As He Is Told.

Taking The State Wherever Found, Striking Into Its History At Any Point, One Sees No Way To Differentiate The Activities Of Its Founders, Administrators And Beneficiaries From Those Of A Professional-criminal Class.

The Competition Of Social Power With State Power Is Always Disadvantaged, Since The State Can Arrange The Terms Of Competition To Suit Itself, Even To The Point Of Outlawing Any Exercise Of Social Power Whatever In The Premises; In Other Words, Giving Itself A Monopoly.

Concerning Culture As A Process, One Would Say That It Means Learning A Great Many Things And Then Forgetting Them; And The Forgetting Is As Necessary As The Learning.

The State Did Not Originate In Any Form Of Social Agreement, Or With Any Disinterested View Of Promoting Order And Justice. Far Otherwise. The State Originated In Conquest And Confiscation, As A Device For Maintaining The Stratification Of Society Permanently Into Two Classes-an Owning And Exploiting Class, Relatively Small, And A Propertyless Dependent Class. . . . No State Known To History Originated In Any Other Manner, Or For Any Other Purpose Than To Enable The Continuous Economic Exploitation Of One Class By Another.