policy Theory of the State
Philosophical foundations of political authority
format_quote Quotes
"With a democratic government anyone in principle can become a member of the ruling class or even the supreme power. The distinction between the rulers and the ruled as well as the class consciousness of the ruled become blurred. The illusion even arises that the distinction no longer exists: that with a public government no one is ruled by anyone, but everyone instead rules himself."
menu_book Democracy: The God That Failed
View Full Quote"Medieval Iceland, medieval Ireland, the Law Merchant of stateless commercial networks, and many other historical examples demonstrate that legal and judicial order does not require the state. These polycentric legal systems provided security and conflict resolution through purely private and voluntary mechanisms."
menu_book The Myth of National Defense: Essays on the Theory and History of Security Production
View Full Quote"There can be no socialism without a state, and as long as there is a state there is socialism. The state, then, is the very institution that puts socialism into action; and as socialism rests on aggressive violence directed against innocent victims, aggressive violence is the nature of any state."
menu_book A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism: Economics, Politics, and Ethics
View Full Quote"Without the erroneous public perception and judgment of the state as just and necessary and without the public's voluntary cooperation, even the seemingly most powerful government would implode and its powers evaporate. Thus liberated, we would regain our right to self-defense and be able to turn to freed and unregulated insurance agencies for efficient professional assistance in all matters of protection and conflict resolution."
menu_book The Private Production of Defense
View Full Quote"The state spends much time and effort persuading the public that it is not really what it is and that the consequences of its actions are positive rather than negative."
menu_book A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism: Economics, Politics, and Ethics
View Full Quote"The first reason why men serve willingly is that they are born serfs and are reared as such. From this there follows another result, namely that people easily become cowardly and submissive under tyrants. For the people, being numbed and having been made sleepy, are little by little lulled into insensibility, and accustomed to the idea of serving."
menu_book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
View Full Quote"For the present I should like merely to understand how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who has no other power than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him."
menu_book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
View Full Quote"Social power is the power over nature, the living standards achieved by men in mutual exchange. State power is the coercive and parasitic seizure of this production: a draining of the fruits of society for the benefit of nonproductive, actually antiproductive, rulers."
menu_book Anatomy of the State
View Full Quote"If the bulk of the public were really convinced of the illegitimacy of the State, if it were convinced that the State is nothing more nor less than a bandit gang writ large, then the State would soon collapse to take on no more status or breadth of existence than another Mafia gang."
menu_book The Ethics of Liberty
View Full Quote"The State has never been created by a social contract; it has always been born in conquest and exploitation."
menu_book Anatomy of the State
View Full Quote"The State is that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area; in particular, it is the only organization in society that obtains its revenue not by voluntary contribution or payment for services rendered but by coercion."
menu_book Anatomy of the State
View Full Quote"The State has no moral or scientific justification; it is the pure product of the emergence of violence in human societies."
menu_book Libéralisme
View Full Quoteauto_stories Books
Anatomy of the State
Concise treatise analyzing the nature and origins of the state, arguing that the state is fundamentally an organization based on aggression rather ...
Read MoreDiscourse on Voluntary Servitude
Written around 1549 by the young French magistrate Étienne de La Boétie and first published posthumously in 1576, this founding text of libertarian...
Read MoreLibéralisme
A systematic and uncompromising defence of classical liberalism, arguing that all social questions resolve into one fundamental choice between a li...
Read MoreThe Myth of National Defense: Essays on the Theory and History of Security Production
An anthology of essays edited by [Hans-Hermann Hoppe](/library/authors/hoppe-hans-hermann/) challenging the conventional argument that defense is a...
Read More