From the White-PillBox: Part 52
Another logically inconsistent position of statism: a free society is vulnerable to an invader that establishes a ruling class; the solution is having a ruling class.
This installment of the White Pill series offers another example of the internal contradictions of statism. As explained in essay 36, one of statism’s fundamental weaknesses (and thus a major White Pill) is how so many of its positions lead to logical inconsistencies.
In this essay we examine one of the justifications for the State: that it serves as protection against outside aggression. The statist worries about bad players in the world who want to take over the country and declare themselves the ruling class. These parties would exercise powers such as making laws, taxing and regulating.
The statist has a ready answer to this problem: have a domestic ruling class with the power to make laws, tax and regulate.
No wait, we don’t have a ruling class
This is the first of several responses that disconnects the statist from reality. He simply does not acknowledge that there is a ruling class in place already.
But there is.
Those in government hold political power. This power is the ability to impact the lives of others without their knowledge or permission.
It is clear these are people who possess a different set of permissible actions from others. They can exercise that power. As for the rest of us? We must sit and take it.
If we respond by defying them, we risk punishment, or worse.
Peculiarly, they are a small minority as compared to the rest of us. But they hold their power by legal authority backed up by force.
So make no mistake. In every meaningful way, they are a ruling class, plain and simple.
Okay, but we do get to choose our rulers
This naive notion has the sophistication of a middle school social studies class.
Choice implies consent. Yet there is no honest way one can claim that democracy entails true consent. And democracy as such is essentially an illusion, whose tenets have little connection to reality.
This means that the people actually do not choose the ruling class. At best they have a small influence over a microscopically small field of choices. And even then, over a fraction of those who actually occupy government positions 1.
So we do have a ruling class, that basically does what it wants
It would be difficult to identify any essential difference between a ruling class that exists now, versus a potential ruling class that would threaten to take over.
Neither can justify itself based on consent.
Neither can claim it makes things better, least of all the one in place.
In fact the only observable difference is that the ruling class that’s in place has been around a while. The one perceived as a threat, has not.
Which, in the end, is the basic reason the current ruling class is perceived as legitimate. It enjoys the inertia of tradition.
The statist avoids another reality
Conveniently, the statist also disregards the ways in which the domestic ruling class actually creates the conditions that make an outside ruling class a threat in the first place.
One example is by making them into enemies. By interfering with outside governments, their territories, security and cultures, the domestic ruling class foments hatred. That hatred almost inevitably has negative repercussions down the line.
There is also an obvious drawback to having a domestic ruling class. It necessarily concentrates power in a specific set of people (the highest-level politicians), and it likewise concentrates power in a specific territorial place (capitol cities).
These two factors are convenient and ready targets for those seeking to invade. They know exactly where the seat of power is located, and thus the perfect place to leverage a takeover. And they know exactly who needs to be displaced.
Notably, in a free society, there is no central group of authority figures. And there is no place at all in which power over others is concentrated. Any would-be invader faces the prospect of having to potentially dominate the entire land mass, and the entire population.
Conclusion
Once again, the statist contradicts himself. He fears a ruling class, and he doesn’t.
He claims that outside bullies will come here and run our lives. And his answer is to keep that power with the local bullies 2.
It is self-limiting when the statist concludes the problem has only one solution. And it is bizarre for him to suppose that one solution is to establish a permanent domestic ruling class. In fact this is the very worst solution. It formalizes and legitimizes precisely the thing we fear, and it does this intentionally. And in so doing, it precludes the evolution of alternative and innovative methods to deal with the problem.
The number of elected politicians pales in comparison to the number of unelected bureaucrats, administrators, law enforcement personnel, military, etc.
A separate but related discussion concerns how a stateless society would indeed defend itself from an outside attempt to establish a government. True, every historical anarchist (or somewhat anarchist) society was eventually overtaken by a State. But to conclude that anarchism necessarily cannot work misses several nuanced points. For example, it seems clear a stable anarchy requires a general appreciation and institutional framework for private property rights and dispute resolution. It most assuredly requires a general cultural sense that there is no legitimacy to any person or group having the right to non-consensually rule others. It also may require at least a decent ability to successfully defend against outside threats.