No Coercion

Government is aggression, plain and simple. It is force, it is violence. I’ve recently had discussions with several different people who take issue with this assertion. They claim it’s absurd to suggest the wonderfully benevolent and representative government of the U.S. is based on violence. They often compare it to some place like Iran or North Korea. Sure, those states are more repressive and totalitarian than ours, but it’s only a difference in degree. There’s literally nothing to stop the U.S. government from becoming another North Korea (well, except maybe the as yet not totally disarmed American people, but that obstacle is getting more tenuous by the day). A totalitarian regime imposed by a “representative” or “democratic” government is no better than one imposed by a military dictator.

The fact is that even the smallest and most limited state is still an institution predicated on the initiation of force. Everything the state does, from taxation and forced monopolies to truancy laws and mandatory food labels, is made possible by the very real threat of violence. It’s odd that anyone would deny this because it’s wholly indisputable. If you do not pay your taxes, the government can steal the money right out of your paycheck. If that is not possible, they can come to your home and violently abduct you (usually called arresting). Should you resist the abduction, they will physically assault you. Should you resist strongly enough, they may kill you.

Or suppose you want to start a business providing the full spectrum of protective services that government police currently provide (with an important difference being that you would be paid by voluntary payments from customers instead of by forcibly taking others’ property). Well, the government would inform you that you were breaking the law and tell you to close up shop. If you instead chose to continue operation, engaging in voluntary, mutually beneficial interactions with your customers, the government would move against you with heavily armed enforcers (cops, troops, etc.).

What if you decided not to send your child to school (or jump through the state’s rules for homeschooling)? As soon as the state found out, its ’social workers’ would show up to give you your ultimatum. If you refuse to bow to their threats, you would be visited by the state’s enforcers and probably abducted (or your children would be abducted). Again, resist and more violence ensues.

Want to start a business making drugs to provide to sick people in consensual transactions? Boom, state violence.

Want to start an insurance company without adhering to state licensing and regulations? Boom, state violence.

The list of perfectly consensual, productive, and non-violent interactions you can engage in with others only to find yourself on the receiving end of state violence or threats of violence is virtually endless.

Rational, civilized people do not coerce people into doing what they want; they vote with their purchasing decisions or use peaceful, voluntary persuasion. The state is a primitive, violent institution that has become all the more dangerous in the modern world. It is not the facilitator of civilization as so many argue–it is the antithesis of civilization. And, with the vast array of weapons of mass destruction that only states have a motivation to develop, the state may yet spell the end of civilization altogether.

So, however you rationalize your defense of the state, even in its most limited form, please don’t try to insist that its actions and very existence are somehow not based on aggression.

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