Hegemony is Hegemony is Hegemony

One of the first Facebook friends I lost occurred because I equated taxation to slavery.  It was unthinkable to him that I would, in any form, draw similarities between "society enabling" taxation and demoralizing chattel slavery.  After all, the local tax assessor doesn't knock on my door, whip in hand, waiting for me to pay my municipal taxes so maybe I should just stop talking in hyperbole.

Rothbard restored my resolve in equating slavery and taxation.  In chapter 2 of Man, Economy, and State, Rothbard covers interpersonal interactions.  There are two ways in which we can interact with one another, either by mutually beneficial voluntary trade or through threats of violence i.e. hegemony.  What's remarkable about the analysis is how he formalizes hegemony using praxeology.  Axiomatically, one person loses and another gains under a system of hegemony.  If both were to profit from the transaction, an ulterior motive to comply would not be needed and we'd be back to voluntary trade.  The ulterior motive under hegemony is to avoid the pain of the violence threatened.  A person faced with a threat of violence has to determine what is higher on his value scale: the suffering that would result if the threat were carried out or carrying out the demands of the aggressor.  In this way both parties "profit" but only because one party imposed a threat.

The state imposes a threat on every citizen to comply with its rules.  This includes paying taxes, not smoking indoors, not taking drugs, not speeding, not using insider information, and not buying products from any country the state doesn't like (to name a few).  To disobey does not imply a crime, it does not imply that any aggression has taken place; it simply means that you have not listened to the threat closely enough, and you should be prepared to suffer the consequence.  In the case of taxation, the state has not shown itself to be legitimate owners over all things in a given territory, it just says so under threat of force.  This is hegemony; this is how some people lose and others gain.  The state does not persuade you to pay for its torture, its drone attacks, its invasions; it simply demands you do so or else.  Every minute spent paying off these demands is to prevent violence from the state, it is not for an end that you yourself seek (generally speaking), the end is to avoid your kidnapping, imprisonment, or death.  You do not work to satisfy your desires, to accomplish your goals; it is to accomplish the goals of the state.  Because your only choice is to work for the state or to be punished by the state, you are the state's slave.

Slavery is not per se violent just like the state is not per se violent.  It is possible to imagine a slave owner or state that never used violence, although the latter is very difficult to imagine.  However, both must, by definition, use threats of violence.  If they did not then a slave owner would be an employer and the state would be a business, no hegemonic rule would exist if threats of violence were not used.  Chattel slavery described the cases where violence was carried out to alter behavior.  This is similar to the violence used today to prevent people from taking drugs (google Jose Guerena).  In most white collar cases of tax evasion or insider trading no violence actually takes place but fines are collected and people are imprisoned.  What about "white collar" style slavery?  I'm guessing it occurred, perhaps often, that some slaves were never whipped or harmed.  Some might have gone along doing just what they're told, much like we do with the state.  Plus, slaves were expensive, and they were an important asset to the plantation.  It's likely that some farmers didn't wish to harm their investment the same way people don't harm their horses, cattle, or sheep dogs (border collies) today.  The state puts far less emphasis on human life than the plantation owner, this is evident by the tens of millions killed by their own state in the 20th century.  However, if the beating of slaves was as ubiquitous as we've been lead to believe then it's likely that the proud black workers were not so easily conjoled into accepting their slave owner as their great benefactor.  They would likely have resisted more than the modern, putty-brained american who can't imagine life off the plantation.  If Kunta-Kinte were a 21st century american he would have requested to be called Toby while bending down to lick his new owner's boot.  This is not to say anarchists should be more courageous (I'd say foolish) in standing up against the state, it's simply to point out that slaves didn't accept that they were legitimately owned and neither should we.  Slavery is wrong, not because violence is carried out, but because threats of violence are used against an innocent person to change his behavior, to extract from him the product of his labor.

I no longer consider taxation equal to slavery, but have conclude that taxation is in fact worse than slavery because the state attempts to seize for itself not only your labor but your will and your mind.  Under the state, children are subject to compulsory education (paid for by taxation) where the kids are told daily how the state protects them, and how it has protected their parents, grandparents, and without the state we'd be enslaved (by a different state of course, not necessarily a worse one).  It's clear that this brainwashing is incredibly effective as evident by my ex-friend and by most of the people I encounter who embrace the gun of the state.  Under state hegemony people actually begin to believe that their enslavement is the best possible outcome, that if they weren't slaves, a much worse fate would await them.  The state has successfully convinced them that in their heart of hearts that two and two really make up five.

It's truly sick, and I refuse to accept that humans can do no better than mass hegemony, mass farming of human potential, and the imprisoning of young minds.  Krishnamurti said, "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society" and so I will not apologize for equating taxation to slavery.  Hegemony is hegemony is hegemony regardless of its form.  It is not the way civil people act. Cooperation, compassion, trade, fortitude, hard work; these are compatible with a peaceful society.  Fraud, murder, aggression, hegemony, and callousness; these are compatible with barbarism, with the state.  These are in fact the modus operandi of the state apparatus, they must be defied if we seek peace and human flourishing.  

Your worst fears of business are already realized in the state

I don't make a habit of appealing to conspiracy theories, but it seems that public schools has some 'splainin' to do.  The logic of my fellow American and fellow earthling is lacking severely in the realm of political thought.  When you take a step back and view the world and its inhabitants for what they are you realize what a waste of time high school civics was.  Who needs a theory of legislating when the concept of the state is inconsistent with and a revolt against nature and humanitarianism?

Saying that we were brainwashed would discredit what I have to say, but I have not yet been able to come up with a better way to explain the absurd arguments for the state and against freedom.  For it seems to me that all the objections I hear opposing free markets are tens times more applicable to the state.  Here are a few examples.

1) "If roads were private we'd have corporations buying up all the roads and charging whatever they want"

So to avoid a monopoly of road ownership we need to establish from the onset a monopoly of road ownership given to the government.  This new monopoly has the power to extract funds from everyone, even those that rarely use the road or do not use the road at all.  This monopoly has the right to claim whatever land it wants to build new roads, and it gets to determine what the "fair" price of this land is.

With privatized roads perhaps a monopoly would arise, but competition would not be outlawed, eminent domain would not trample private property, and opting out of road use and thus road funding would be possible and legal.  Government is not liable for deaths that occur on their roads and they are less accountable in general because roads are bundled into a thousands of other government functions many of which (such as war) overshadow the inefficiencies of roads.  Is there any doubt that government roads are the worst possible solution?

2) "You want corporations to run the military?  You're an idiot"

Ad hominem attacks are all I ever get in this situation so this is the best I can do at representing the argument.  My same response about roads applies to this but it is even more important to have a private military than private roads.  Why?  Our military (or foreign presence in general), believe it or not, is responsible for a lot of bad stuff.  They assassinate, torture, murder, and provoke.  The first time I hear that my defense contractor is torturing people I cancel my subscription as I'm sure many others would.  We wouldn't have to wait 8 years to elect a new president who promises our war money back only to betray us when he takes office.  Such a military leader is liable for fraud and would be prosecuted.

The current military is funded by coercion, not consent.  Drafts add in the element of kidnapping by conscription.  Politicians are kept in power by the massive military industrial complex.  The synergy that exists with publicly funded military interests such as Blackwater, Ratheon, Halliburton, Boeing, etc. could not exist as they do today with private defense.  Defense companies that try to spend a trillion dollars in a year would find it impossible to find a customer base willing to agree to such a ridiculous scope of foreign entanglement.

I also hear that our defense is only as good as it is because people are forced to pay for it.  My response is (a) there's so much "defense" that we endanger ourselves by putting troops where they don't belong (b) there's far too much potential for abuse (see comments of torture above) and (c) a free society would be so prosperous that defense costs would be minimal expenditures and would most likely be handled by insurance companies.

3) "Without the FDA we'd be eating poisoned food"

No one says this, right?  Sigh, I'm afraid they do.  Chris Mathews said it about two weeks ago.  Guess what?  Businesses don't want to kill their customers!  It's bad for business!  I'm all for private regulation and of course competition in private regulation.  Why would we think a monopoly on regulation would be a good thing?  They can't go out of business, if they do a bad job they can say it's because they had insufficient funding and get more money... why would we expect this to be a good solution?

4)  "All that business cares about is the bottom line."

Lew Rockwell has said that "profits are an indication that services are being rendered on a voluntary basis".  "The Bottom Line" is how business calculates whether or not it is putting its resources to good use and serving people.  In this sense, all businesses should care about is it's bottom line; it provides a metric of how they benefit society.

How does this apply to government?  "All politicians care about is a vote".  While businesses daily have to fight for your vote, for your confidence, politicians only have to do it every 2, 4, or 6 years.  But more importantly than this is that politicians can be elected by benefiting the majority at the expense of the minority.  Businesses are putting their own resources on the line while politicians confiscate others' resources for the benefit of their constituents.  Businesses do not pander to the majority because profits are often found by serving a minor niche in society previously unfulfilled.  It is a far more efficient and ethical way of human interaction and cooperation.

5) "Business pollutes and destroys the environment"

Yes, some businesses pollute, but government is in charge of upholding private property rights.  The US government has, since the industrial revolution, found that it was in the public's interest to allow producers to pollute family farms and households.  For over a hundred years the individual has had little recourse when it comes to polluted land.  Businesses that pollute should be fined and these fines will make it prohibitively expensive to continue doing business.

The tragedy of the commons is not a problem of the free market it's the problem of collectivism.  Consider a basket of shared resources.  Human nature and scarcity being what they are, it is only natural to consume as much of these resources as possible because not doing so results in someone else consuming the scarce resources.  Only through property rights can resources be conserved, replinished, and rationed.  Today's modern and most disturbing examples of pollution and tragedy of the commons are found in our water ways.  Government does not allow ownership of the oceans, rivers, lakes etc. and so we have massive pollution and over fishing.  Buffalo were nearly wiped out because the US government opened the middle of the country to every cowboy (real ones, driving cattle) which used up the vegetation and left the land barren.  The buffalo were hunted for meat and this open country was in bad sorts.  The establishment of property rights in the plain states saved the buffalo and it can save our oceans, lakes, and rivers. 

I might continue this to another post.  Other topics would include money creation, courts, police, banking and the FDIC, healthcare, social security, parks, and I'm also open to suggestions.