The Idea That The State Originated To

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.

As Dr. Sigmund Freud Has Observed, It Can Not Even Be Said That The State Has Ever Shown Any Disposition To Suppress Crime, But Only To Safeguard Its Own Monopoly Of Crime.

It Is Unfortunately None Too Well Understood That, Just As The State Has No Money Of Its Own, So It Has No Power Of Its Own. All The Power It Has Is What Society Gives It, Plus What It Confiscates From Time To Time On One Pretext Or Another, There Is No Other Source From Which State Power Can Be Drawn. Therefore Every Assumption Of State Power, Whether By Gift Or Seizure Leaves Society With So Much Less Power; There Is Never, Nor Can Be, Any Strengthening Of State Power Without A Corresponding And Roughly Equivalent Depletion Of Social Power.

The State Did Not Originate In Any Form Of Social Agreement, Or With Any Disinterested View Of Promoting Order And Justice. Far Otherwise. The State Originated In Conquest And Confiscation, As A Device For Maintaining The Stratification Of Society Permanently Into Two Classes-an Owning And Exploiting Class, Relatively Small, And A Propertyless Dependent Class. . . . No State Known To History Originated In Any Other Manner, Or For Any Other Purpose Than To Enable The Continuous Economic Exploitation Of One Class By Another.

Another Strange Notion Pervading Whole Peoples Is That The State Has Money Of Its Own; And Nowhere Is This Absurdity More Firmly Fixed Than In America. The State Has No Money. It Produces Nothing. It Existence Is Purely Parasitic, Maintained By Taxation; That Is To Say, By Forced Levies On The Production Of Others. 'government Money,' Of Which One Hears So Much Nowadays, Does Not Exist; There Is No Such Thing.