Topic: Abolition of Statism
The Consequences of Statism on the Human Experience Why statism has hurt humanity and how to slay the beast.by Jose Roldan: the Abolitionist
(libertarian)
Friday, February 15, 2008
Throughout recorded history two scourges have crippled human progress and caused infinite suffering. As opposed to a natural disaster, like a plague or a drought, these two afflictions are man-made, a testament to man's propensity for self-destruction.
The two dynamics come from the same root, from a basic negative human emotion - Greed. They are Force and Fraud. Both seek power over others and material gain. The first through the threat of violence, the second through deception. The ultimate expression of each is Statism and Religion, though both have shared aspects of the other and ultimately both seek the same thing - to control and exploit the individual for the personal gain of a few.
While religion has used the threat of violence to great effect, such as the notorious Spanish Inquisition or today's modern militant Islam, its essential characteristic is Faith, summoning its followers to believe despite the lack of evidence or because of the lack thereof - to embrace the perpetually unknowable and impossibly unprovable as holy scripture. Faith and fraud are inseparable, for to believe something on blind faith exposes one to be abused by those parasites, con artists, high priests or evangelists quick to shear the trusting, unquestioning sheep.
While the State also uses faith and fraud to advance its own agenda of exploitation by convincing the people that they should not only not oppose exploitation, but want to be exploited; the essential characteristic of statism is force and the perpetual and imminent threat of its use.
Fear is the basic negative human emotion that both the statist and the mystic use to control the individual. Whether the threat of violence is explicit and real in the first, or the threat of eternal damnation is fabricated and imaginary in the next, the effect is the same - to paralyze freedom of human action through mind-numbing fear.
To understand the nature of the beast, we must define its essential characteristics and to this end we can identify statism and once having identified its essence, we can work to eliminate it. The definition of statism is as follows:
Statism: n. A system of government which uses force to gain unearned values.
This definition emphasizes the essence, as opposed to the common dictionary definition which is bound in concretes. For example: Statism may seek central control over the economy, among other things, but it always seeks control over the individual, treating him as chattel, property of the State.
To understand the moral and ethical implications of such a government on society, consider the definition of a criminal - one who uses force to gain an unearned value. So, whether we condemn the thug who whacks (use of force) an old woman over the head to steal her purse (the unearned value); or the government which threatens fines, confiscation of property, and prison (use of force) to force the paying of taxes (the unearned value); the only difference is one of scale.
Fundamentally there is no difference between the actions of a criminal or the actions of statist government, because the actions are essentially the same. Statist government is the ultimate manifestation of criminality, the gang mentality dressed in suits and ties with the apparent consent of the very people it victimizes and extorts.
Consider the effect on a neighborhood when the thugs take over and demand that all businesses pay them "protection money". Imagine if they extorted fifty percent of all the profits made. Imagine that you are the victim and you suddenly find that you can not pay for all those things you need to remain competitive, to grow your business, to care for your family, to provide medical care in the event of illness, to save for your future, even the cost of living and making ends meet becomes a burden.
Now: Magnify this effect over all of humankind over the course of the last several thousand years and you will begin to grasp the human cost to progress. By some estimates, by the time Jesus was born, we should have had settlements in the Alpha Centauri star system. Cancer and all diseases could have been cured. We could live to at least three-hundred, maybe death itself from old age could have been defeated...
Why do I postulate these outcomes with such certainty? Because when liberty is curtailed, specifically the human action of individuals is controlled and limited, then our options are diminished - just like the neighborhood infested with the mafia. And if we all could be free to realize our potential, to spend the fruits of our labor as we see fit to the betterment of ourselves, our families, our communities, then - there is no limit to what we can achieve.
We have borne the weight and penalty of the statist system for too long. The time has come to reveal the true nature of the beast for what it is - an impotent - because it derives its power from us, blood-thirsty, with no regard to human life or human suffering, self-serving, greedy, corrupt and utterly inhumane parasite on human existence.
Our lives, our blood and sweat have been squandered by the quest for more power amidst rivers of flowing crimson and piles of corpses and bones reaching to the skies. In the end, the State has perfected the craft of war to the detriment of all other human endeavor and all individuals.
Is it too late to slay the beast? Can you see it now, clearly - that monstrous apparition before you? Remove its power - the sanction of the victim. Give no more of yourself to the beast. Identify its essence - the use of force to gain unearned value - then abolish this action. Once, men believed that the slavery of one man over another would exist in perpetuity, then abolitionists argued, fought and showed the true nature of slavery.
Now, I say to you that slavery still exists, that of the State over the individual, and that we must abolish this slavery, for it is the only thing that stands between us and the blessings of unlimited liberty and unrestricted human progress and greatness. Alpha Centauri awaits.
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A good article overall, but I have a few quibbles with it...
I would define it as force and/or coercion.
As for your remarks about Faith, you should not confuse faith in people (i.e. a worldly church) with faith in divinity (or humanity). Faith is not just a tool for control, but also a powerful tool for good as well. After all, you are showing "faith" that individuals can much better solve their problems than governments. I whole heartedly concur, but you should realize that like everything else in this world their are many shades of grey between black and white.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-02-16 07:43:44
I would disagree that the problem with religion is faith. After all, one can have faith without being religious, and none of the negative consequences you associate with faith would apply in those cases.
Rather, the problem with organized religion is coercion and its doctrinal instructions to bow to the spiritual authority of another human being, with the underlying assumption that this human being (who varies from religion to religion) got his authority directly from God.
Also, bear in mind that much of the violent side of religion is due to the refusal of religious authorities to acknowledge the faith of certain of their "followers" as being genuine if their faith in some way undermines the positions of the leaders. This was the true cause of the Inquisition, and it is also a signature of the extremist Islamic movement.
Posted By: Ivan from Oregon
Date: 2008-02-16 08:26:25
There are many forms of slavery, but ultimately they are driven by economics. The kind of slavery we had here prior to 1850 was not economically sustainable and would have disappeared with or without the War for Southern Independence, which was not about slavery. This is quite obvious if you consider, say, the invention of the cotton gin, the cost of the capital (machine or human) to produce a certain amount of cotton was much less with the machine.
Slavery is with us today, and it's self-imposed. The borrower is slave to the lender. That's why Scripture teaches us "neither a borrower nor a lender be". It also teaches us to avoid "usury" (loaning money at interest), but that's a subject that is better discussed in a separate article.
Thus, our Government is slave to a few Bankers at the top of the chain. The Romans ultimately freed all their slaves. Why? They needed new debtors - all the ones they had were milked dry.
This article has so much illogical hyperbole in it that I'm suprised it's allowed to stay up. But please, let me make 3 points and then I'll shut up.
1. Definitions should not be personal opinions. Your "definition" of statism is not a definition at all, it isn't even a statement of what statism does. I might as well define "Libertarianism" as "naive dreams of people too stupid to understand wishing doesn't make things happen". When you start stating your opinion as fact, you are attacking the very underpinning of "reality".
2. The statement: "By some estimates, by the time Jesus was born, we should have had settlements in the Alpha Centauri star system. Cancer and all diseases could have been cured. We could live to at least three-hundred, maybe death itself from old age could have been defeated..." Either produce a relaible source for such a "estimate" or retract it from your article. The reality of the situation is that humanity has never produced anything of centralized use and value without strong government control and won't becuase of human nature. That's not to say that a liberty - oriented culture can't produce anything of value -- many inventions, technological and oratical, much art, science, etc. But no where in history can you show me where a centralized project -- curing cancer, space travel, etc -- was accomplished in a short amount of time by anything but a strong central government.
3. Your basic premise is, of course, flawed. You should rewrite it as such: Humans respect and fear only Force. The two aspects of this fear would be Awe and Might. Religion draws upon awe, and statism draws upon Might. As "war is a continuation of politics by other means", so statism is the continuation of the projection of centralized force downwards to a personalized level , applying an overall pressure so strong that (for Libertarian purposes) Liberty, and it's associated freedoms, can no uphold the proper societal forms.
There used to be an undercurrent of intellectual openess about this place, albeit there were a lot of libertarian authors. If this is the sort of offerings that are being put forth, though, there's not much reason to bother.
Coercion and force are basically the same, as coercion means the threat of force. While there are many definitions and interpretations of faith, in this context I define it as: A belief held without any proof or evidence. I personally may use the expression, "I have faith in myself to become a better writer", but that falls under a belief based on some available evidence. So, in the original meaning, I stand by the premise that to believe things without any evidence, especially irrational and non-sensical dogma, on faith is a root cause of much evil. As evidence, I present to you the present and the past history of the world...
Ultimately slavery is self-imposed, though death may be the only escape which is no escape at all. On a historical note: The "War for Southern Independence" would not have taken place were slavery abolished beforehand. The central issue of slavery made the southern states take the position that it was a case of state's rights. Though, constitutional scholars of the time argued that there was no provision in the Constitution for dissolving the union. An excellent book on the subject is: The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics by James Oakes.
Your article is on the verge of concluding that "organized" religion is the problem - and I agree. Without the organization (ecclesiastical hierarchy of control) religion would be "of the heart and head" - it would be very personal and individual. Walt's post is describing this ecclesiasticism, which is as dangerous to religion as a dictatorship is to liberty.
Perhaps religion and government are not inherently bad. If these are things that a free people want to experiment with then they should have that right. As you note, the problem arises when these institutions become controlled by corrupt people - and the individuals start letting someone else do their thinking for them.
Now I will again say a bit on the word "faith":
Blind belief is not restricted to religion. The blind belief exhibited by primary voters this year should be proof of that.
Let us not perpetuate Christian misunderstandings. "Faith" is not the same as "blind belief". This appears to be as much a cultural misunderstanding as a Christian misunderstanding.
"Faith" is the word the interpreters used for the Greek word "pistis". To me, pistis means "conviction of the truth of something", "deeply rooted foundation", "constancy" or "understanding". The apostle Paul said faith is the "evidence" of things not seen. The word "evidence" does not jive well with "blind belief". So why is it that many Christians of today seem to only have blind belief in, instead of "evidence" of, spiritual reality? The Christianity of today is the result of hundreds of years of governmental and ecclesiastical manipulation and corruption. It is not the same personal and individual religion "of the heart and head" that Jesus taught.
For Christians, the word "belief" should also be investigated - but I will not go there now ;-)
Please note that I am not necessarily against the concept of government as such, but believe in abolishing the element of it which I define as statism. Consider what type of government we would have if statism, as defined, were abolished. The use of force would still exist, as that is the essential characteristic of government, but it would no longer use force to gain the unearned. In other words the police would still exist to protect lives and the government would exist to defend property rights. Force as a force for good, not as a force as a consequence of greed. Get it? - José Roldan, aka Aguila1.
"The bluntest definition would be "belief in the importance of the power of the state over an individual".
The rest of the phrasing in my "better definition" came in pieces from advocates.org, the anti-liberatarian FAQ, and from discussions on Usenet groups. It is a definition of what it acheives, whereas yours is not even a definition at all.
Ayn Rand was a lunatic fringe thinker who was barely coherent and who is mostly followed by cult-like types who don't have the intellect to think for themselves. Lew Rockwell (HARDLY a bastion of statist thought) calls the whole movement she embodies a cult. (http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html). So , spare me justifying your "thoughts" with anything contaminated by her.
Of course, the most telling point is that -- in all of human history -- you cannot point to a single example of what to replace govenrment WITH. All you do is rail about "slavery" and having your "property taken". Before you start whining about how your liberty is taken from you, why don't you go spend some time doing charity in a third world nation.
Ironic that you would choose a name like logical premise, something Ayn Rand spoke much about and what you sorely lack. Your writing represents a mush of confused contradictory thinking. In the article I quoted you from you defined statism as a person, now you say it is a belief, that you took from bits and pieces from different anti-liberatarian(sp.) groups. Then you criticize one of the most logical and influential thinkers of the 20th century. Have you ever tried to understand her books? Have you read a book? Your comprehension levels are also low. Did you not understand the bit about abolishing an aspect of government and not government itself? The article was not about replacing government with anything, but making government act in a way that is ethically right. I spent seven years in a third world country, but I did not teach them to accept tyranny and take it like good peasants, as you seem to want us to do here at home.
Posted By: patrick henry
Date: 2008-02-29 11:40:13
What I dont get is this; Republicans are supposed to be for a REPUBLIC, Democrats are supposed to be for Democracy, and Libertarians are supposed to be for LIBERTY. Why would anyone in this great Republic of ours be against LIBERTY (anti-Libertarian sights)?
Really? Do you really fear LIBERTY, FREEDOM and RESPONSIBILITY so much as to wish to abdigate it to someone or something that doesnt deserve it?
Wasn't the American Revolution fought for LIBERTY? No direct taxation, no tyrranny? Did I miss something or is it just because I went to school before the Department of Information and Plenty (read Education) made me smart?
A good part of your article is based on your definition of "Statism" as "a system of government that uses force to gain unearned values". This is definition based on ideology of the definer. Statism merely signifies the state's involvement and really its existence in society. the word state itself is primarily defined as condition. Your definition applies to different forms of government but not to the word and concept itself. With that in mind, it is impossible to digest the rest of your article in any way.
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