The State is a Weak Adversary
Anarchy’s primary obstacle – government – is weaker and more vulnerable than we think.
It is quite common - and accurate - to perceive the State as a formidable enemy. It can jail or kill us on a whim, with no consequences. Its taxes and regulations are all but impossible to avoid. Endless wars seem unstoppable, along with the destruction and costs they bring.
But a different perspective on the State reveals just how weak it is. The State suffers from four significant vulnerabilities: 1) its underlying principles, 2) its weak structure, 3) its disbursed power, and 4) the true source of its power.
1. The State’s underlying principles are weak
In a purely operational sense, the ultimate principle by which the State acts is coercive force – the principles of a bully.
Moreover, the principles supporting the legitimacy of the State are weakly justified morally, rationally and practically:
Morally: the justification of “consent of the governed” is vaguely described and, when examined, offers no evidence of consent. 1
Rationally: all arguments for a State’s right to govern utterly fail the test of rationality and logic. 2
Practically: the claims of positive practical results, that is, of human betterment, observably fail in practice, and instead produce destruction, instability and suffering. 3
By contrast, the principles of voluntary human interactions are strongly justified:
Morally: by definition, consent exists and is expected
Rationally: the rights of self-ownership and private property are derivable from reason and logic.
Practically: voluntary interactions result in mutually beneficial outcomes, prosperity and peaceful coexistence.
2. The State’s structure is weak
A private business is answerable to the market. Its incentive to prosper requires it please its customers. Its internal rules must be structured toward this end, or it risks going out of business.
The State has no need to respond to market incentives. Its customers are captive taxpayers who cannot “take their business elsewhere”. Therefore, internal government rules only need to serve the interests of State.
This leads to the structural bureaucracy that is typical of all levels of government.
Without market incentives to improve, bureaucracy grows. There are observable effects. With time, the State becomes more stagnant and lumbering. As outside conditions change, the State can only adapt poorly and slowly. Its budgets grow, even as its productivity decreases.
This is one of the State’s insurmountable weaknesses. It will always be a victim of its natural inefficiencies. In the long run, it cannot compete with the voluntary marketplace of ideas, technology and progress.
3. The State’s disbursed power makes it weak
Those who oppose the State point to government as the adversary. But government is an abstract term, not an entity on its own. It is a label for an institution that holds an accumulation of power.
That power is the sum of all power wielded by a mind-numbing array of individuals: politicians, officials and bureaucrats.
Government is not a thinking adversary. It cannot wield its collective power by intent. The power it does exert manifests in two ways:
The intentional but strictly limited exercise of power by each individual comprising the State.
The unintentional and unguided results of the collective exercises of power by those same individuals. This is comparable to a train wreck: frightening, but mindless.
This leads to an eye-opening perspective: the overall State cannot consciously protect its self-interest.
Any given member of the State cares deeply, but almost exclusively, about maintaining his limited, self-centered scope of power. He has no strong incentive to care about the State’s power as a whole, thus no incentive to form a strategy against threats to State power as a whole.
The State itself, on the other hand, has no conscious, thinking mind. It is incapable of pondering its ability to wield its enormous power; incapable of caring about it; incapable of forming strategies to maintain it. Being unable to “prize” that power, there is nothing “there” to recognize freedom as a threat to its existence. This is a fundamental and inescapable weakness of the State.
4. The source of State power is weak
All of the weaknesses mentioned so far are real; it would seem such weaknesses ought to be self-defeating. After all, in the world of normal human interactions…
A bully is psychologically weak
Non-consensual acts are understood as criminal, and socially aberrant
Irrational behavior is unsustainable
Business bureaucracies are inefficient and noncompetitive
It is only the source of State power that permits it to overcome its extraordinary weaknesses.
That source is, simply put, the power of a lie: the overwhelming majority believes the State is legitimate. Their sheer numbers provide the power that permits the State to exist.
But this fact itself reveals the classic weakness inherent in any lie: the deceiver’s power is at the mercy of the deceived.
We see many examples that show this observable pattern: a lie confers power to the deceiver only so long as the victim remains deceived.
The abusive spouse may, or may not use physical force. But he must necessarily use psychological intimidation. He must deceive the spouse into believing he is superior and in control; that she is flawed; that she can do no better. It is an unhealthy, frightful and dangerous environment. But once she is able to see through the lies, she is significantly empowered, while her abuser’s power dissipates in kind.
The cult leader relies purely on deception. He deceives his followers into believing he has special powers; that his is the path to happiness; that all others lead to misery. But as cult members overcome their indoctrination, his power over them vanishes.
The institution of slavery shows us how indoctrination can be culture-wide. Its key deception placed some humans formally below others, as property. But it relied on the majority of slaves believing the lie, and thereby becoming self-compliant. 4
Eventually the understanding spread that all men are equal, revealing the deception of slavery. As the deception disappeared, this millennia-long institution was drained of its power. And notably, in a remarkably short span of time.
Conclusion
The State’s power is possible only because of tradition: an assumed legitimacy based on nothing but historical inertia. The vast majority accepts the State’s legitimacy by default alone.
But, as most of us recall, our belief in Santa Claus was very powerful. That is, of course, until the belief ended.
The State is in ideological collapse because it is vulnerable in every meaningful way. From within: poor foundational principles, structural weakness, and highly disbursed power. And vulnerable from without: its support is rooted in a lie.
The State’s enormous collective power cannot prevent its own collapse…because that power resides fundamentally in the minds of the deceived.
The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey 1st Edition, by Michael Huemer
The Ethics of Liberty, by Murray N. Rothbard
The Human Action Podcast, "The State is too Dangerous to Tolerate", by Robert Higgs
https://mises.org/library/robert-higgs-state-too-dangerous-tolerate
"The oppressed...tacitly adjust themselves to oppression, and thereby become conditioned to it." Martin Luther King, STRIDE TOWARD FREEDOM (1958) Essay on oppression