In his famous essay, “Do You Hate the State?”, Murray Rothbard posited a question for all self-proclaimed Libertarians: if you could press button to abolish the state, would you press it so hard and fast that your thumb blisters? The point behind Rothbard’s hypothetical question was to discern whether you despise the state and hold nothing but pure contempt for its existence, or if you view the actions of the state as a mild inconvenience. The Libertarian, seeing the state as the primary aggressor in society, should be the first and most vocal in the question of abolishing the state. Even so, not all Libertarians are so eager to see the state vanquished. Rothbard’s question is characteristically piercing. The distinction between these two types of Libertarians is reducible to a single question: do you hate the state?
Even though the Rothbard’s question itself is innocuous, far too many Libertarians think about the abolition of the state is these oversimplified terms, however. The state implodes, is shattered into a million pieces, and everyone lives happily ever after. Liberty, peace, and justice reign forevermore. While nobody really believes in the existence of a state-killing button, of course, there is still a strong tendency within Libertarian circles to adopt the mentality that the existence of such a button would produce. We press the button, obliterate the state, and that is all that needs to be done.
However, the fight against the state is significantly more complex than just intellectual combat with the state itself. In other words, even if such the state-killing button existed, it would not actually destroy the state once and for all. If we pressed the button, the state would be vaporized, but it would be rebuilt and reconstructed within a matter of hours. All of the state’s supporters, who gain from and wish to see the state’s existence continue, will create a new state out of whole-cloth. The public, who would still largely believe in the necessity of the state would support the measure as well, ensuring that a brand-new state will very quickly replaced the one that our button so unceremoniously destroyed. What is necessary to abolishing the state, banishing it once and for all, is not that the state in itself is defeated, but that its pillars and supports evaporate. For the state to fall, it must to be too weak to stand. It is only then that the state will fall away into the unhappy annals of history.
The state is not an independent entity in society. It necessarily rests on the consent of those that it governs. Some governments make this fact very explicit, such as Western democracies that proudly proclaim that they rest on the consent of the people. Commendable, perhaps, but ultimately superfluous. Even authoritarian and totalitarian governments rest on the consent of their citizens. There is a reason that the countries with the largest governments have the most extensive propaganda programs. The reason for government’s necessarily requiring consent is already known to Libertarians: because the state is a parasite. Everything that it has is stolen and all authority it claims is illegitimate. If people woke up one day and decided they no longer wanted to obey the government, the government would have no ability to stop them! The state would be quickly overthrown without any recourse against the rebellion. The state attaches itself to society, but ultimately requires the consent of society in order to maintain its veneer of authority.
This necessitates that the state, more than anything else, requires support to convince the general population that it is a benevolent force in society and is necessary for their survival. This support can, and throughout history has, manifest itself in many different forms. In more ancient times, there was often an alliance between religion and the state. The priests or prophets would proclaim that the state is divine, and those who ruled it descended from gods. Resultingly, disobedience to the state is tantamount to rebellion against the divine realm, and surely would result in punishment in the afterlife. This system worked well for many centuries, and even still held some sporadic appeal until recent years (Fascist Japan had a similar belief system).
In modern day, religion is no longer the primary driver of state support. The media class, education systems, academia, the arts, and entertainment are all now the instruments of choice to manufacture consent for the state and its crimes. Thus, if we wish to understand how we may erode and eradicate the state, it is these various pillars of support that we must understand and recognize. Strictly speaking, there is nothing within Libertarian philosophy that would denote that one must have an understanding of these allies of the state to understand the nature of the state, but this does not mean that these state-affiliated actors can be dismissed and ignored. Theory is important and necessary, but theory has little to say about praxis. Libertarianism requires an understanding of the Non-Aggression Principle and the illegitimacy of the state, but a realistic and strategically wise Libertarian must understand the machinations that the state devises to garner legitimacy to itself.
To take a single example of the method by which this support operates, we will examine the role of the media class. The role of the news media in deceiving the public into supporting the state cannot be overlooked. The media class, composed of large media-oriented corporations, have very little interest in keeping the public skeptical of the state’s motivations and intentions. This is because on the purely free market, traditionally speaking, the demand for news media products would be much lower than it is today. Most news reporting is done on the state actions and its agents. In their absence, there would be little of interest to report on. Thus, there is an inherent incentive for the media to ally themselves with the state for their own best interests. This alliance is not difficult to spot, and is no great secret. It is freely admitted in the United States today that journalists and newspaper companies purposefully lied and misrepresented facts in order to convince the public into supporting the Spanish-American War in 1898. However, this is not an isolated occurrence. The media, by and large, will fall in line to try and beat the drums for war anytime the state requires them to. They did so in Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The media is also willing to endlessly exaggerate the threat of potential enemies as well, which was shown in spades during the Cold War. Their motivation is no great secret either. It simply does not pay well to be a skeptic of state action, and generally pays much better if you are willing to be a deceptive sycophant and forsake truth and morals.
Given that the media will generally rally to the state’s banner, and will do their best to try and convince the public to do so as well, a Libertarian strategy for dismantling the state must take into account the role that the media plays in generating consent in the population. In other words, if the state is to be successfully abolished, the media must either change their ways or the public must come to realize the fact that the media is purposefully deceiving them for their own interests. Again, this necessity is not a derivation from Libertarian philosophy, but rather, a necessary conclusion from the Libertarian’s desire to abolish the state. If this is ever to happen, the news media’s role in systematically lying to the public must first be erased. If Libertarians were to avoid this fact and focus only on taking the fight to the state itself, they would find themselves making little if any progress. As long as the people trust the media class, and the media class are interested in maintaining support for the state, the Libertarian’s efforts will be fruitless.
We could extend a similar analysis to many of the other state-affiliated actors and systems in society. One of the primary functions of the education system is to generate citizens who are willing and ready to join with the state in the causes that it champions. The benefit that they derive from this is similar to the media; in the free society, the market for education would be much more limited than what exists today. The same is also true for the academics. If not for the state and its need for intellectuals to fill its ranks and provide an intellectual cover for its machinations, academia would be left with far fewer jobs and many more unemployed professors.
It is impossible to fight successfully against an enemy that you neither grasp nor understand. A battle plan based on incomplete or faulty knowledge will doubtless result in defeat. Similarly, if Libertarians try to take up intellectual arms against the state without seeing the strength the state has in its allies, Libertarians will ultimately fail in their efforts every time. The state needs support to exist, and its strength comes largely from those that have personal interest in seeing it upheld. A Libertarianism that recognizes this fact is a realistic and grounded Libertarianism; it comes to clear terms about the fight that it has and the enemy it challenges.
If Libertarians are to find any degree of victory in their struggle against the state, they must internalize that their enemy is not exclusively the state. The goal must not be to destroy the state through a weakening of the state itself, such as the case with Rothbard’s button, but to destroy every bastion of strength that gives the state life. The state has nothing on its own. Every bit of power, wealth, authority, and vitality that it has is given to it by others. As long as the state can maintain these arteries of support, no attack formed against it will prevail. A successful Libertarian strategy will not aim at the head of the leviathan, but at its base. Just as the tallest skyscraper will fall if the foundation is broken, the largest state will crumble once the people withdraw their consent.
