Hoppe on the state as exploitation firm
In The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, Hans-Hermann Hoppe has this to say about the nature of the state and how it continues to exist:
While productive enterprises come into or go out of existence because of voluntary support or its absence, a ruling class never comes to power because there is a demand for it, nor does it abdicate when abdication is demonstrably demanded. One cannot say by any stretch of the imagination that homesteaders, producers, savers and contractors have demanded their expropriation. They must be coerced into accepting it, and this proves conclusively that the exploitation firm is not in demand at all. Nor can one say that a ruling class can be brought down by abstaining from transactions with it in the same way as one can bring down a productive enterprise. For the ruling class acquires its income through nonproductive and noncontractual transactions and thus is unaffected by boycotts. Rather, what makes the rise of an exploitation firm possible, and what alone can in turn bring it down is a specific state of public opinion or, in Marxist terminology, a specific state of class consciousness.
An exploiter creates victims, and victims are potential enemies. It is possible that this resistance can be lastingly broken down by force in the case of a group of men exploiting another group of roughly the same size. However, more than force is needed to expand exploitation over a population many times its own size. For this to happen, a firm must also have public support. A majority of the population must accept the exploitative actions as legitimate. This acceptance can range from active enthusiasm to passive resignation. But it must be acceptance in the sense that a majority must have given up the idea of actively or passively resisting any attempt to enforce nonproductive and noncontractual property acquisitions. The class consciousness must be low, undeveloped and fuzzy. Only as long as this state of affairs lasts is there still room for an exploitative firm to prosper even if no actual demand for it exists. Only if and insofar as the exploited and expropriated develop a clear idea of their own situation and are united with other members of their class through an ideological movement which gives expression to the idea of a classless society where all exploitation is abolished, can the power of the ruling class be broken. Only if, and insofar as, a majority of the exploited public becomes consciously integrated into such a movement and accordingly displays a common outrage over all nonproductive or noncontractual property acquisitions, shows a contempt for everyone who engages in such acts, and deliberately contributes nothing to help make them successful (not to mention actively trying to obstruct them), can its power be brought to crumble.
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May 2nd, 2010 - 07:05
I think where Hoppe goes wrong here is the argument that there is no demand for a government. The problem is that there is, in fact, such a demand, and it is greatly widespread. “There oughta be a law” is not just a saying, but a demand for coercive restriction and exploitation of other people – always for their own good, of course, and of course with their own wealth. Governments are thus quickly constituted again after the overthrow of the state because the vast majority of people demand it – the spectrum is heavily weighted towards the “active enthusiasm”, as it were. I think it’s important not to underestimate this demand, and it’s one of the reasons I’m a minarchist – if we ever achieved an absence of the state, it would quickly be reconstituted by well-meaning people and probably be worse than what was abolished.
May 2nd, 2010 - 08:42
Well, I think his wording is just imprecise. He’s not saying no one demands the state (he recognizes that many people certainly do demand it). Rather, he seems to be saying that to the extent to which people are exploited by the state there is no demand for it. In other words, if pro-state Bob willing to have up to 40% of his income taken in taxes and that’s how much the state takes (or less), then Bob is one of those who truly demands the state. But if the state decides to take 50% in taxes, then Bob becomes partly exploited (to the tune of those 10 percentage points of income). Someone who rejects taxation and state regulation altogether is exploited to an even greater degree.
May 2nd, 2010 - 09:02
And I don’t think the achievement of statelessness would be likely to lead to a new and worse state, and here’s why: the state can cease to exist through one of two mechanisms–rapid collapse through violent revolution or some kind of implosion, or gradually through something like an agorist revolution, which would be accompanied by a corresponding shift in public consciousness toward a rejection of statism. In the first case, a state might well re-emerge, but the chaotic nature of the prior collapse would ensure that the former state’s instruments of power (troops, cops, guns, tanks, etc.) would be widely distributed and held by a variety of individuals, productive firms, and, yes, some exploitative firms (gangs, proto-state orgs, etc.), so at the very least free society would have a good fighting chance, and any successful new state would be far less powerful than our current one. In the second case, public perception would necessarily be extremely anti-state, making it extremely unlikely that a new state could emerge.