Monday, August 14, 2006

The state is defined as the legal monopoly of terroristic violence.

It is not enough for anarchists to define the state in terms of a monopoly of violence. The emphasis should be on who is and who isn't allowed to use violence, which is defined by laws. Laws create three castes: the state apparatus granted the legal use of violence (in many cases property owners), the masses, who may only use violence in certain curcumstances (once again, to protect private property in many case, or representatives of vassal states for example in the Mongol empire) and owtlaws, who often can be (if not overtly) encouraged or at least allowed to have viollence perpetrated on them.

The importance of laws shows up the impotence of government. A slave state is expensive, and a state-capitalist economy, while not automatically dependent on private property, is headed by and requires the support of borgeois and intellectuals who do. Hence, the prevalance of gun use in the United States and Columbia. In fact, a rational individual in some cases ought to support an absolute monopoly of violence, without government tacitally encouraging it.

The ultimate test of this is the BNP's promise to give every adult (responsible or overwise?) an SA-80 assault rifle "for home protection" and the triaining to use one.Og course, I doubt the police would be so forgiving for people carrying knives or other weapons. This is the government effectively dictating morality: what terror is and isn't acceptable.

This worship of the state and laws assumes that people have no morality of their own. However, there are many "morals", whether through evolution or upbringing, that human beings naturally have.
Most people could never murder another human being. Ever. But National Armies train people to do this all the time.

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