Strike the Root
by John Markley

09/05/05

If the state performs its functions well, that is proof that we need the state. If the state performs its functions poorly, the resulting misery is, we are told, also proof that the state is needed. ... I do not think this is produced by willful intellectual dishonesty; it seems to be a pattern of thought that people easily slip into without realizing it. This may help explain why a single example of an unpleasant area with no state (which are usually themselves not anarchies of long standing, but are instead the wreckage left by failed and especially malicious states, e.g. Somalia) is often seen as an adequate refutation of anarchy, but no amount of incompetence and failure, no number of injustices and atrocities can ever shake people's trust in the state. How could they, when so many people have, without even realizing it, turned statism into a position that can never be touched by any evidence?

http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/markley/markley1.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp