Listening to the Dave Smith/Nick Fuentes debate on the state, it occurred to me that we really don’t understand what the state is, or rather, what it isn’t.
According to Murray Rothbard in “Anatomy of the State” the state is “that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area; in particular, it is the only organization in society that obtains its revenue not by voluntary contribution or payment for services rendered but by coercion.” I do not mean to refute this definition which I think is valuable, but rather discuss what people actually mean when they talk about the state.
First, a couple of points made in that debate (paraphrasing):
The state does not act, only individuals do
The state is a tool, which can be used for good or evil, but which is itself neutral
Taking control of the state allows individuals to impose their will on others
Note first that it is hard to square these ideas with Rothbard’s definition, particularly the second one. Even the first two seem to conflict with one another. Is the state an organization, a collection of individuals, each of which acts towards their own ends (which can be aligned with one another) or is the state a tool for the imposition of force? When someone speaks of taking control of the state, they do not mean they are taking control of such an organization, rather they mean to replace one organization with another one, made of different individuals. In a sense, when the government changes, say, during an election, under Rothbard’s definition, the state has been replaced in so much as a new organization comprised of new individual now assert a monopoly on force. It may have the same structure, may follow some of the same rules, but in what real sense is it actually the same state?
And this brings us to what the state as described above actually is. It is true that the state does not act, individuals act in the name of the state. But even more deeply, we find that the state as such does not actually exist. It exists only in the minds of those who believe in its precepts. Consider: what would happen if tomorrow everyone, including politicians and federal employees, spontaneously decided that the government had no moral authority and its edicts need not be obeyed. In that exact same moment, there would no longer be a state.
It wouldn’t even take something so extreme for the state to poof out of existence. What if only every enforcer of federal law decided those laws were of no consequence. I quote Michael Malice: “Every unconstitutional law is just a letter to Santa without men and women in badges willing to impose and enforce them.”
So what then is the state? The state is a mental artifact. It exists only in the mind. It is a function performed by actually existing individuals. This is not the condemnation it might first appear, however, as we benefit from many similar artifacts. Think of the corporation, or the marching band, or the army battalion. Each of these exists only in the minds of its members and those who observe them. The moment they decide this idea is a fiction, it vanishes from existence.
What kind of artifact then is the state? What is it that allows it to be wielded like a weapon to enforce the will of those who control it? As was hinted at above, it is the legitimization of the use of violence to punish disobedience. Whether invented through the divine right of kings or the social contract or the will of the people or Lysenkoism, it is the belief that some group has the right to impose their will on others.
The state is then not even a tool. It is not neutral. It does not exist. And taking over the state is simply the matter of convincing enough individuals with enough individual power that yours is the legitimate force. Wielding this force against others is immoral regardless of how many people you convince otherwise.
In light of this, the libertarian or anarchist view of the state is clear. There is no such legitimacy. The state, this justification of violence against those who do not submit, is a myth.
Post Script: Understanding the ephemeral nature of the state, the libertarian strategy of changing hearts and minds on an individual basis becomes much more reasonable. The idea of seizing the reigns of power through a mechanism they admit is not only illegitimate, but wholly imaginary more nonsensical. Indeed, the libertarian cause of action should and must consist entirely of helping others to understand this myth. For every person who stops believing in the state, the state becomes smaller and more limited in reality because it exists in fewer and fewer minds.