Vitaly Tizun’s Column
We are all familiar with the specifics of how the state functions. Its foundation is compulsory and indisputable power over its citizens. This particularly concerns the ability to regulate their activities, apply violence against them, and seize their funds through taxation.
Regardless of how the government system and political mechanisms are implemented, many people are always dissatisfied with the current state of affairs to some extent. And while in a market environment dissatisfaction is resolved simply by renegotiating agreements or switching from one service provider to another, it is not so simple with the state. A person cannot change one state for another as easily, since economic, cultural, linguistic, and other barriers will stand in their way. Because of this, such a change is completely pointless, as for the majority of the population of any state, these barriers are insurmountable, which makes states organizations that compete for people only to a very small degree. This fact confirms the monopoly position of states and all the resulting negative aspects.
An individual also lacks the ability to effectively influence the policy the state pursues toward them. In a market environment, they are able to resolve many issues privately, whereas in the political sphere, their own interests mean nothing; they are obliged to submit to the interests of others. And even if a politician whose plans coincide with their wishes wins an election, or if they themselves become a politician, this only provides the opportunity to support their interests at the expense of infringing upon the interests of other people.
As we can see, the institution of statehood and political methods of management, in contrast to voluntary and market relations, are designed such that the forced and compulsory submission of some people by others is simply inevitable. In fact, the activity of the state is equivalent to the activity of a rapist and a robber. Indeed, it emerged precisely as a nomadic robber who decided to settle in a certain territory and impose his power on the local population through violent methods, as told to us by the stationary bandit theory. The essence of the state fully corresponds to its origin.
What do we get from this? We get that any person who supports the institution of statehood and political methods of management is, in fact, a rapist and a robber themselves. For how else can one call someone who justifies the use of violence and robbery, who considers them natural phenomena? Of course, whether violence and robbery are bad or good phenomena is a purely ethical question, and none of the answers to it can be defined as an objective truth. However, we do not need that; we only need to clearly define who is a supporter of peaceful and voluntary relations, and who supports forced submission and robbery.
Naturally, in current conditions, most people are passive assistants to violence and robbery, since they perceive the state as a natural social institution. It is the revelation of this fact that will allow the positions of the currently existing system to be shaken. For it is one thing when people support violence and robbery without realizing it. However, few are capable of openly admitting themselves to be rapists and robbers; this is the lot of only a minority of people who see nothing wrong in such things, while for the rest, the very concepts of violence and robbery are primarily associated with something immoral.
Using all the above arguments, we can form a psychological strategy for promoting the ideas of freedom. The first stage is the revelation of the fact that the state is a criminal organization specializing in violence and robbery. Next, it is necessary to establish a link between the state and its supporters. Since the state is a rapist and a robber, the people who support it are accomplices in the crimes it commits. Few truly want to be criminals and are capable of declaring (at least to themselves) without any remorse that they are rapists and robbers. The facts mentioned above, since they reveal the link between the criminal state and the person who is at least its passive supporter, are capable of causing psychological discomfort and perhaps even a sense of shame for one’s own complicity in anyone who considers violence and robbery immoral. Thus, in any peace-loving and benevolent person, associations of “state – bandit” and “supporter of the state – also a bandit” should develop. After this, there can be no question of such a person supporting the state; it will be, at the very least, unattractive to them, and possibly even repulsive.
Ancap-chan’s Commentary
Rhetoric addressed more to emotions than to logic does not appeal to me, and I see little value in such argumentation, but value is subjective. I fully admit that some well-meaning statist might indeed be unsettled by these arguments. However, even while sharing the belief that the state is an evil, a statist will believe that the state is the lesser evil. The logic of statists is that without the state, we would get not a peaceful market order, but a rampage of banditry, and only unpleasant types in police caps somehow restrain this very rampage. Yes, they themselves are prone to banditry, but checks, balances, public control and other blah-blah-blah.
What seems far more important to me is the ability to demonstrate the functioning of peaceful market mechanisms in those areas that are weakly subject to state influence, or where the state fails to meet the obligations it has undertaken and for which substantial budgets are spent.
In general, I would soften the premises presented in the text. Not “every accomplice of the state is a bandit,” but “one who defends the right of the state to continue spending money knowingly inefficiently in a sphere where there is a working non-state alternative — that person is truly a conscious accomplice of bandits.”
