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Introduction to Politics

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Politics is the study of the nature of government, and as such, must start with the definition of what government is:

A government is a conceptual description for a group of people who claim and possess the moral right to initiate the use of violence against others within a specific geographical area.

The first thing to understand is that the word “government” is a mere conceptual description, and so has no more existence in reality than “numbers” do. The word “government” has the same relationship to “people” as “forest” has to “trees.” Trees exist; a “forest” does not, except as a description within our minds. People exist - a “government” does not.

Thus there is no point trying to describe the actions or ethics of “governments” - we can only describe the actions and ethics of people.

For morality to mean anything, it must be universal, consistent and reversible. It cannot be considered ethical for me to propose that “Action X” is perfectly moral for me, but perfectly immoral for you - or that this action is perfectly moral today, but perfectly immoral tomorrow.

What is right for one must be right for all - and what is wrong for one must be wrong for all.

Stealing - forcing a transfer of property against the will of the owner - is wrong. Naturally, this definition perfectly applies to the practice of taxation, which is the initiation of violence against largely-disarmed citizens in order to take their money against their will. I certainly understand the democratic theory that, since people get to vote, the government does not take the money against their will, but the justification is nonsense. The fact that a slave gets to choose his master does not mean that he is not a slave. The fact that voters play a statistically-insignificant part in choosing who gets to rob them does not mean that they are not being robbed.

Some people also respond that the governments provide service, which have to be paid for. However, this is irrelevant. If I steal a $100 from you, then send you $10, I have not absolved myself of the crime of theft.

Some people also respond that certain services must be provided by the government, like roads or education or healthcare or old-age pensions. Again, this is utterly irrelevant. If I steal $100 from you, and then send $20 to my grandmother, or use it to pay for a road, this does not absolve me of the crime of theft.

There are people who also believe some services, such as education, will not be provided to everyone in the absence of the government. This is irrelevant. How education will be provided in the absence of the government has no bearing on the immorality of taxation. Saying that you will support a stateless society as soon as you can be convinced that everyone will get a great education is exactly the same as saying you will support the end of slavery once you know that every ex-slave will get a great job, or that you will only oppose the crime of theft if someone can prove to you that, after theft is abolished, every thief will have enough money.

The first question in politics - and ethics of course - is not what can be achieved through violence, but whether the use of violence is legitimate at all. If violence is legitimized by the ends it achieves, then no moral theories are possible, and society may as well continue its current war of “all against all,” as represented by the police, the military, the government and all the other special interests that prey on taxpayers.

The principles of anarchism - or voluntarism - are simple, direct, rational and clear-eyed. All human beings have the capacity to act in a corrupt and destructive manner - it is our very capacity for corruption and violence that requires the elimination of the centralized coercive power of the State. When you can force your victims to pay for both your income, and the violence which extracts their property, there is no limit to the expansion of violence. The government fosters and engenders widespread conflict - either openly, in warfare, or in the more subtle manner of lobbying and pressure groups. No group of men or women can conceivably wield the extraordinary coercive power of the state and not be corrupted - nor would any decent and honorable person be attracted to that kind of power. The existence of the State both corrupts society through the moral elevation of violence and gives the most corrupt people in society the greatest power.

Only one solution to the problem of violence has ever been found, which is the total elimination of centralized coercive power, so that no single group can profit from gaining control of State power. For example, in the absence of the State, war is never profitable, since without free labor in the form of conscription, and “free” funding in the form of taxation and deficit spending, there is no more profit in war than there is in openly burning down your own house.

The spontaneous self-organization of the free market is the most powerful mechanism for diluting the aggregation of centralized power that has ever been discovered. Monopolies are only possible when corporations - or unions - can leverage the centralized power of the State. The competition of economic self-interest is the only way to ensure that power will never be monopolized by any single group.

These rather unusual notions form the core of the discussions around politics and government that occur in the Freedomain Radio podcasts and throughout the forum. How the free market can provide services in the absence of the state is an interesting question - which can help us remember that the moral path is also the practical path - but it is not central to any moral analysis of government.

A rational moral analysis - in government as well as in life - is the key to long-term success and happiness.

I hope that you will give my podcasts a try, and open your mind to the possibility of a world without war, without involuntary poverty, without mandated ignorance - and a world in which violence - at its worst - is only occasionally accidental, not universally institutional.