Six Myths About Libertarianism

Posted by Lysander Spooner ^® , Sep 30,2003,19:11

The State is the only social institution which is able to extract its income and wealth by coercion; all others must obtain revenue either by selling a product or service to customers or by receiving voluntary gifts. And the State is the only institution which can use the revenue from this organized theft to presume to control and regulate people's lives and property. Hence, the institution of the State establishes a socially legitimatized and sanctified channel for bad people to do bad things, to commit regularized theft and to wield dictatorial power. Statism therefore encourages the bad, or at least the criminal elements of human nature. As Frank H. Knight trenchantly put it: "The probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probability that an extremely tender-hearted person would get the job of whipping master in a slave plantation."