Originally posted at nostate.com.
“The State, completely in its genesis, essentially and almost completely during the first stages of its existence, is a social institution, forced by a victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished, and securing itself against revolt from within and attacks from abroad. Teleologically, this dominion had no other purpose than the economic exploitation of the vanquished by the victors.”
– Franz Oppenheimer, The State, 1908 (emphasis mine)
“The positive testimony of history is that the State invariably had its origin in conquest and confiscation. No primitive State known to history originated in any other manner. On the negative side, it has been proved beyond peradventure that no primitive State could possibly have had any other origins. Moreover, the sole invariable characteristic of the State is the economic exploitation of one class by another. In this sense, every State known to history is a class State.”
– Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy, the State, 1935 (emphasis mine)
“In Western Europe, as in many other civilizations, the typical model of the origin of the State was not via a voluntary “social contract” but by the conquest of one tribe by another. The original liberty of the tribe or the peasantry thus falls victim to the conquerors. At first, the conquering tribe killed and looted the victims and rode on. But at some time the conquerors decided that it would be more profitable to settle down among the conquered peasantry and rule and loot them on a permanent and systematic basis. The periodic tribute exacted from the conquered subjects eventually came to be called “taxation.”"
– Murray Rothbard, For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, 1973
WE'RE AT WAR II by ^Destin8x @ deviantart.com
If we accept the thesis that the states arise and have arisen, not through the hocus-pocus of “social” “contracts”, but through conquest, and are perpetuated as systems of exploitation — especially, to use Nock’s terminology, “of one class by another” — does it not follow that we are at war?
Does it not follow that all people living under state domination and exploitation ought to rebel, right now?
Does it not follow that all of the state’s edicts, decrees, laws, proclamations and regulations which affront the sensibility of the individual, the tribe, the family, the neighborhood, ought rightly be ignored, denounced, ridiculed and overthrown?
Does it not follow that state agents are the enemy and deserving, perhaps qualifiedly in some cases, of the same response given to those who violate a peaceful person, a peaceful tribe, a peaceful family, a peaceful neighborhood?
And yet this does not happen. It does not happen despite the noble efforts of generations of philosophers, revolutionaries, scholars, activists and teachers.
The whole planet has been conquered. The whole planet has been being conquered, and held under conquest and exploitation for the benefit of the smallest, most despicable number, for a great many centuries.
They live. We sleep. And it is we who live the nightmares.
Fr33agents tech facilitator Mike Gogulski is a stateless ex-American living in Bratislava, Slovakia, who renounced his US citizenship in 2008. He blogs at 
Your thesis is correct, your conclusion is mistaken. I respect your position, which is consistent with my own, that classical liberalism is fatally flawed, based as it is on the twin fallacies that the consent of the governed was ever involved and the absurd notion that governments protect rights. As you say, the opposite is true.
I believe Rothbard, Nock, and Konkin have established a solid basis for the libertarian class theory. What L. Neil Smith calls “the productive class” is exploited by what he calls “the political class.” The evidence for this class structure and parasitic relationship seems overwhelming.
Your conclusion that people do not rebel is mistaken. The English rebelled and, in 1649, took a little time out of their busy schedule sacking Catholic monasteries to chop the head off of Charles I. There were actually two civil wars, and Charles I lost both of them, and for daring to start the second one, was convicted of treason and beheaded.
Now, the victory was somewhat short lived. Oliver Cromwell set himself up as Lord Protector, ransacked and brutalised Ireland, was a Puritanical tyrant, died, and left his son in charge. Parliament came back into its own, ran the son off, and put the monarchy back in.
The Americans had a revolution, and won it, and ran off the monarchy. This worked until 1787 when Hamilton and other monarchists got together and forced the ratification of the constitution. (Read up on how Rhode Island was treated if you don’t think “forced” is the right term.)
The Americans had a lot of rebelliousness under the Federalist rule of Washington and of John Adams. The Whiskey rebellion, sadly, wasn’t very well organised, and the rebels lost. Some were hanged. But the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions were adopted, Jefferson did get elected, and much of what was crappy about the federal government went away. “And for a time it was good.”
I could go on and on in this vein. And in my essay “USA: RIP” I do. You can google it up at ncc-1776 dot org as easily as me.
Gandhi led a rebellion. Spooner’s rebellion against the post office was defeated, but Freddy Smith’s was successful. Doug Jackson’s rebellion against the Federal Reserve (e-gold) failed and I think is being obliterated. Bernard von NotHaus’s rebellion (Liberty Dollar) is on trial, now. We’ll see if he does any better.
The truth is, people do rebel, time and again. George Orwell wrote about the rebellion of anarchists in Spain during the Spanish civil war. Homage to Catalonia is good reading and an interesting tale.
What has not happened since the eastern Europeans rebelled against their Soviet overlords in 1988-1991 is: people haven’t been suffering as terribly, worldwide. Prosperity produces very few rebellions.
People won’t overthrow a system to which they’ve become accustomed for light and transient reasons, especially if they think it is bringing prosperity. Sure, most of the prosperity since 1982 has been illusory, but some of it has been real. And despite a number of very weird situations in 1985, 1987, 1997, 2001, 2007, the system kept getting back to further nominal highs. “And for a time it was good.” Or seemed that way.
But it doesn’t seem that way now. And I don’t think we’re going to get off easy this time.
Let me put this monetary and economic crisis in perspective. The last time anything similar happened, in my opinion, was 1722. The depression that followed lasted until 1782. Sixty years. Stocks dropped 90% or more from their peak values and did not return to those prices for sixty years, except that 90% or more of listed stocks in London, Paris, and Amsterdam in 1722 had ceased to exist within ten years.
I believe we’re seeing that level of catastrophe. And I should mention that it wasn’t until 1765 that Patrick Henry stood up and said that Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and (amid cries of “treason”) George the Third would profit by their examples. Ten years later the shot heard ’round the world was fired at Lexington Green, the patriots retreated to Concord Bridge, and the slaughter began, in earnest 19 April 1775. Hundreds of redcoats were killed as they were driven in a rout back to Boston.
I’ve studied rebellion for a long, long time. In his “Introduction to Cliology” author Michael Flynn notes that there is a slave rebellion cycle in the USA which peaks every two generations or so. I believe it last peaked in the five years around 1965, and that its next peak is about now, the five years around 2010.
If that doesn’t work for you, figure 2055.
Well said!
Mike is right on. It’s time to prepare. Are you preparing? Go to an Appleseed, plant a garden, get in shape. Whatever it is, prepare. If you’re not a crack rifleman and don’t want to be, then at least be a cook. Pray we don’t have to fight, but prepare for the inexorable outcome.
Yes, very true, George. And if you don’t want to be a crack rifleman, consider rocket propelled grenadier.
Rocket-propelled grenades are hard to find… and harder to make.
That being said, it is doable. Nitric acid is the biggest issue. Though there’s some promise shown by combining a Birkeland-Eyde generator with an ozone generator to produce nitric anhydride.
I’ll be doing experiments to see how this works.
Though I do believe in (and endorse) preparedness I do not believe that going to war (at least not in the hot war sense) is much of a solution. Violence is the one thing the state is reasonably adept at. If we are to engage them then it should be on a ground of our choosing. Violence is not it.
And I am more optimistic about the future than Mike is. The most optimistic I have been since I was too young to know better. The simple fact of the matter is that every couple days I have someone say to me “Hey this statelessness thing you’ve been talking about is really intriguing. Where can I learn more?” I doubt that statists have people say to them “Hey this Statism thing is really…”
I want to add to Jim’s list, Iran is facing rebellion; Philippines has their rebels (NPA) in the south; Venezuela, Guatemala and Nicaragua are all in turmoil. One can look to the Suez Canal(?) to see pirates on the high sea.
The concerns I have in these “revolts” of the people, is that the individuals that are feeding them guns and supplies (resources) are just as corrupt as the people they are revolting against. And the masses, the people, in the countries suffer greatly….
If a natural disaster occurs, like the rains in the Philippines. What occurs then? The people who now have no home move in with their relatives, and now a family that had enough to feed their own, must also take care of family. And there are no jobs and there is no money and you have nothing to trade because you lost it all in the flood; and now the family that barely had enough to get by on, gets by on less.
Which propels perpetual poverty, even for those that own land. In the Philippines the people must buy their seed from Pioneer, for they are the only source of selling and buying seeds for planting (another critical resource.) And the people that try to grow food from “freely given” seed suffer with 50% or less production due to insects, worms, etc. So now they need some kind of pesticide or herbicide to fight them off, and where is that available – Pioneer (again another needed resource.)
Personally, I am one of the most self-sufficient people I know, I can, pickle, and freeze items I grow. I preserve seeds from one growing season for another. I have a large garden every year and grow my own herbs: for teas, spices and medicine, and have an orchard for fruits and nuts. Most for personal & family consumption. But I still buy various salts, sugar, flour, baking soda & powder, etc – basically known as staples.
They are needed resources, not easily available. Where are you going to get salt? I’m sure there are salt mines somewhere here, but I certainly don’t know where they are. Where are you going to get flour? I see no flour mills.
When I talk about creating a network of resources, I mean one to fill those needs. Yeah, maybe the internet is still in existence and maybe Craigs List will serve as a bartering center, but if salt is hundreds of miles away, and there is no delivery service, and there is no way to get gas because the gas man wants gold… what will we do then? I know that I CAN NOT store and save up everything I would need.
While I believe something will happen here, not sure when, and not sure what. I personally am working to find a way to survive, preferably with others who want to do the same… once again, maybe I’m on the wrong wavelink and out in left field… sigh.
Over on another page, someone asked me my plan. I believe we should identify key items – call them staples if you like. Identify people or areas of the country that can provide those staples. Determine, if the money supply collapses, how will we barter for items? Will I say I have X pounds of ocra (lol, I had a bumper crop this year) and I need X pounds of kosher salt? Do I just sit and wait? Or do we create a storehouse?
So, let’s say we create a storehouse where people post the items they have ready for market. Then we need a way to establish value, points, points per pound, I dont care, just something we agree on or maybe you set your own points. Some way to make trading easy. Once you sell your item, those points are then available for you to purchase something. No money changes, no taxes required.
Then we come to the next problem, how do we move product from one location to another? A relay of sorts? Perhaps? But some products require refrigeration..so we do what? Or do we say only non-perishable items can be sold on the network like ammo, salts, sugars, etc.
Personally, I believe we need to start with the network of supplies and method of bartering. Today, we still have a method of shipping, but that will be a key element quickly.
I believe the problems and the reasons why revolts usually result in decades of poverty, is because the entire system of supply and demand collapses. Critical items like medicine, salt, etc are lost to the wealthy and becomes ways to control the people. If we truly want to survive, I believe this maybe a good starting point…
Hey, if nothing else, I give you something to ponder on.
Cathy
I am not at war with anyone. I just want to go my own way, and I am doing that more and more each day. I am very optimistic for my future.
I think that planning for or promoting war is very counterproductive, and I choose not to waste a moment more of my life in the pursuit or promotion of something I actively oppose.
Project 2012 needs you! We promote the liberty message nationwide, and will provide resources, logistical support, and training for 150 or more youth candidates for local office in 2012. Every election year after, hundreds of young liberty candidates will take local office, then state office, and eventually national office.
Join us!
Watch the new video in high-def on YouTube → http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_adrf-qKwQ
Like it? Help make our Viral Video Experiment a success. Details here → http://www.yearofyouth.org/the-viral-video-experiment
Thank you for that video — I absolutely love it!! Thanks!! I love the spirit & vitality of our youth!!
Once people stop acquiescing their power to the ruling class by participating in the state, by activities such as voting, the state will no longer exists. Self-sufficiency and non- compliance is the order of the day. The personal income tax is the government’s largest source of revenue. This revenue is then used against the very people who paid the taxes. A good old fashion Tax-revolt would be a good start. I have been fighting the IRS (government) for over a decade. If a small percentage of the populace would do the same the bureaucracy would crumble. With out compliance the state will drown in it’s own bureaucratic wasteland.
Hey we’re down to about 20-30% of the people voting.. and how is that working out for us? The elites will always have their minions vote, it’s the american way. So by not voting, you assure that ACORN & others with a political agenda get to control the country. I’ve been voting 3rd line forever, and it is my vote & no one gets to fraudulently case it for me. So, I say don’t vote & let the elites control you.. As for me I vote, every time, but NEVER for incumbents & NEVER for party politicians. Your correct mine dont win, but it is one less vote for corruption….
Sorry, Randy, that isn’t so. Somewhere around 130 million Americans file taxes. About the same number vote. About 307.5 million Americans exist the government says. That means that most Americans neither file taxes nor vote. Yet the government persists.
How? It evidently borrows more than it raises in taxes. It seems to print money, too.
I agree with Kirsten in part. I don’t want war. But I think the government has long since declared war on the people, and that my preferences don’t figure into their actions.