What is the State? Archives — News From London, Ontario, And Beyond

The State Owns You: The Problem with “National Service”

February 9, 2020 – Tyler Curtis …… All arguments in favor of mandatory service rest on the idea that an individual’s life belongs not to him- or herself, but to the state. Continue reading →

John Adams on the Purpose of Government

January 21, 2020 – Gary M. Galles …… At a time when we often forget that liberty is both America’s rationale and its greatness, Americans would profit from Adams’s wisdom. Continue reading →

A Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist on “The Essence of Tyranny”

January 7, 2020 – Gary M. Galles …… Seven decades ago, Felix Morley’s “The Power in the People” explored the central distinction between self-government and coercive government. Continue reading →

It’s Trump vs. the Deep State vs. the Rest of Us

November 20, 2019 – Ryan McMaken …… Even The New York Times now admits there is a deep state — and that it serves its own agenda while ignoring the elected civilian government. Continue reading →

Why the State Can’t Claim Our “Implied Consent”

October 28, 2019 – Andrew Kern …… The given explanations for “implied consent” to government rule would never pass muster if applied to any private-sector organization. Continue reading →

Advice for Presidential Candidates from Bastiat

October 6, 2019 – Lawrence W. Reed …… Imagine the difference it could make if even one of the candidates allowed the wisdom of only one or two of these snippets to truly sink in. Continue reading →

Why I Am an Anarcho-Capitalist

September 23, 2019 – Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. …… If you value principle, consistency, and justice, and oppose violence, parasitism, and monopoly, you cannot also be pro-government. Continue reading →

The Myth of Good Government

September 13, 2019 – Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. …… There is nothing the state can do, and which society needs done, that cannot be done far better by the market. Another point that is just as telling: no state empowered to do what is supposedly necessary will restrain itself to those things. Continue reading →

Nation and State Are Two Different Things

August 21, 2019 – Dusty Wunderlich …… On a recent mountain-climbing trip to Russia, it became very clear how nation and state are two very different ideas. Most everyone I encountered was proud of his nation. Few had much good to stay about their states. Continue reading →

The Siren Song of the State

August 4, 2019 – Robert Higgs …… We Americans shall never have real, lasting peace so long as we give our allegiance to a king — that is, in our case, to the whole conglomeration of institutionalized exploiters and murderers we know as the state. Continue reading →