I. Evolution of the Government Racket
Once humans could generate more than needed to sustain themselves, it became worthwhile to exploit them. To understand the origins of government and interpersonal violence, we need to go all the way back to the state of nature, or perhaps even earlier to our biological origin. We have always sought to meet our needs by controlling the world around us, including other people. Most human relations have been cooperative and nonviolent, but the desire to control others by force evolved from the first temptation to steal to the modern governments we know today.
If government is defined as rule by force, we might have never experienced a state of nature without government. In some primitive hunter-gatherer groups, people had to accept that whoever was strongest was in charge. Perhaps it was in the best interest of the individual to go along with such a system because to challenge it could mean you would be on your own, or worse, injured or killed.
Because we are pack animals, we developed complex languages that allowed us to communicate and coordinate. Suddenly, the guy who could pick up the biggest rock wasn't necessarily in charge! It was the best hunter – the guy who could effectively lead a coordinated effort that required communication and cooperation. Then great hunters started calling themselves chiefs, and the first ongoing protection rackets that might resemble modern governments started to emerge.
Technology has played a primary role in determining social order because it determines what productive capacity can be exploited. Before language or tools, people could only gather relatively little in excess of their needs. With the invention of the tools needed for hunting, there was often excess food that freed up creative energies for other production, but also for other manipulation. With the development of agriculture, people could create far more food than they could consume and could support a whole variety of specialized labor, including the unique profession of the “government leech.”
With the rise of industry, the productive output of the individual increased dramatically, and so did society’s overall ability to support people who were completely unproductive, or even counterproductive. If governments took half the income of primitive peasants who could barely get enough food to feed themselves, they would all die or revolt against such massive theft. However, if governments take half the income of modern industrial workers whose salaries can feed ten families, then use some of it to convince them it’s for their own good, they might even vote for higher taxes. Or at worst, they’ll vote for the other politician who will steal just a little bit less from them on behalf of the same sponsors.
As we have become more productive per person, we have become better educated and more aware of governments. As a result, governments have used education and mass media to make us think that the racket is essential, or even beneficial, but the effects are in decline. We have come to demand more control over our own decisions, and to go about our lives without being robbed or assaulted.
The history of government has been defined by two arcs: the development of our capacity to tolerate theft, and our awareness that we deserve to live without being robbed. The first arc will continue to grow exponentially with technology, but the second arc will eventually outpace the first. This can be seen in the development of modern participatory democracies. Of all the various forms of government, this is the last one before achieving a truly free society.
The long view of history provides an inspiring story of the development of self-government. If we only look at the current period, we might see it as a struggle for democracy. Fighting for “equal participation” in the forced control of others prevents us from achieving the greater goal of a society that respects self-ownership. Democracy is a way to pretend that we are all equal slave-owners. The reality is always going to be far less than the champions of democracy promise, because it is based on a fundamentally immoral ideal. No one has the right to force a leader on anyone else and no mandate from the majority gives any leader the right to use force against anyone.
Democracy is the justification for most of what the super rich were going to do to everyone else anyway. If anything, it provides a very convenient cover for them to do whatever they want, because democracy allows them to say they are doing it according to the “will of the people.” This has given rise to the modern bureaucracies that make it seem like every aspect of our lives is affected by government, or more precisely, controlled by threats of violence. Yet the illusion of participation through voting keeps us coming back for more.
Because we are pragmatic creatures who cannot disagree with the existing social order if we cannot eat, we have more or less gone along with the progression of the racket. While productivity has increased and governments have grown, the demand for self-government is accelerating and the illusion of democracy won’t satisfy it. Major historical revolutions have made the racket more difficult, even unworkable at times, but only after the global paradigm shift to freedom will we shed the racket once and for all.
As society evolved, we retained our primal instincts. We are a communal species, not dependent on each other, but dependent on cooperation to maintain our standard of living and to enhance our chances of survival and reproduction. Because cooperation is superior to coercion, we have continuously developed better ways of organizing society to foster cooperation. The era of modern governments represents an important step in the process, but it is by no means the final one. The adoption of a new paradigm based on freedom will soon render all forms of organized exploitation laughably obsolete.
People have always derived a sense of identity from affiliation with groups. We compare ourselves to lesser groups to boost our sense of self-esteem. This inherent feature of the human psyche has been widely exploited to manipulate societies into tolerating oppression. Even if we accept the creation of strong group identities as a service, governments have used monopoly privileges to charge far more than their services are worth. In the case of modern governments, the price of strong national identities has been widespread war, theft, and manipulation.
The original grouping we all seek affiliation with is family. There is a natural, healthy instinct to see those who gave us life as superior to anyone who didn’t. Unfortunately, this is easily perverted into a fear of outsiders, or people who are different from those we identify with as family. When a family or a tribe is threatened, this instinct can be very helpful, even essential to survival. When there is no threat, fear of outsiders can block cooperation.
Many governments directly exploit this tendency by trying to get people to think of their country as a family and the political leaders as parents. This not only allows a government to take on a more controlling role in general, but especially when it comes to relationships between countries. Patriotism perverts natural group identities into national identities. This term is often defined as “love of one’s country,” but when that country is defined by lines drawn on a map by politicians, wars, and circumstances of history, that love is for a false sense of group identity created and supported explicitly to strengthen the psychological grip of governments over their victims.
Patriotism is an artificial, bordered “love” designed to create a distinct lack of love for those on the other side of the borders. There is nothing wrong with loving yourself, or those similar to you – those who share your values or intrinsic traits you value in yourself – but to assign love based on the borders of a violent racket is an inherently dangerous idea. The most insecure and vulnerable people are most likely to be the most enthusiastic patriots, and thus governments always have an interest in keeping us afraid of outsiders, disconnected from the rest of the world, and stunted in emotional maturity.
Insecurity and a tendency to seek identity as part of a group can lead people to do dangerous and irrational things. Patriotism has been used to justify the most horrific crimes in history because people more strongly identified as members of a group than as morally strong individuals. Patriotism inherently means lowering ourselves to be members of a group like primitive pack animals. This leads to the diversion of responsibility essential to government, and to the unthinking obedience that deludes people into believing that saying “I was just following orders” will excuse immoral behavior.
Governments rely on a sense of patriotism in their victims to get them to go along with policies not in their best interest. They need us to believe we are sacrificing for the common good when we are really aiding our victimizers. They need us to go along as part of the herd. They need us to accept the proclaimed selflessness of politicians acting only out of “love” for the artificial collective. They need to ensure that not too many of us victims are emotionally healthy thinkers who demand self-government and are secure in our identities as free, beautiful, independent people. Patriotism is proof that a patriot isn’t free.
The great government lie is that it exists for the good of its victims. To obscure the truth, governments go to great lengths with propaganda intended to change the way we think and thus how we act. Propaganda spreads misinformation that can affect our decisions, deflect blame from governments, encourage infighting, promote dislike of outsiders, and create a sense of patriotism, or identification with the country or even the government itself. The greatest measure of what governments are capable of with propaganda is how much they have convinced us to identify with them so that anyone who challenges their power is seen as an enemy of the people. Fortunately, the same technology that makes propaganda possible today has finally caught up in terms of empowering us to question government, and we may have already passed the high point of the effectiveness of propaganda.
In the early days of government, propaganda was simple and crude. Perhaps the first example was a big caveman with a spear grunting angrily at a neighboring tribe, goading his people into attacking. "Bad guys! Over there! Be a patriot! Go get 'em!" As communications technology has advanced, so has the complexity of society, so has the complexity of the racket, and so has the power of propaganda. At first, if only to coordinate subdivisions, communication technology was essential to government growth. With mass public communication, the effects of propaganda became much stronger. It also made it worthwhile for governments to invest very heavily in the development of propaganda techniques. Governments use propaganda to create support for a wide array of policies that any free-thinking society would never tolerate.
The development of mass communications technology enabled governments to assemble massive armies of poor men, not only to fight and die in rich men’s wars, but to do it enthusiastically. Not only could they convince people to support massive welfare programs, but they could make them enthusiastic taxpayers who expect and tolerate enormous waste, fraud, and abuse. Not only could they take over broad segments of the economy by seizing private property, they could get people to believe that without governments, society couldn’t function! The propaganda techniques are so sophisticated, governments have convinced people to attack anyone who points out the uncomfortable truth.
Governments and their representatives lie to us directly, but the lies are so much more effective when someone else is delivering them. Governments have always materially supported propagandists who tilt the general conversation in their favor. Religion has long played a supporting role in oppression, as governments will promote religions that advocate obedience to government. Through sponsorship (and in some places takeover) of education, governments can strongly favor those who reinforce their narrative. Governments and their sponsors give credibility to their propaganda by supporting think tanks. They control mass media by corporate licensing, censorship, monopoly management of infrastructure, and limited access.
Staged conversations between preselected talking heads are a common tactic of propagandists because the best propaganda is the kind the targets don’t recognize. Experts who supposedly represent all sides of a debate have a lopsided conversation which draws people in with sensationalism and the credibility of personalities. The audience gets to decide who they agree with “independently.” A third option is not considered or is presumed irrelevant. Dissent is not acknowledged. And while the people think they are free because they are vigorously debating one socially-divisive issue or another, they are not considering the validity of the presumptions of the propaganda: government is good, government is here to protect us, we couldn’t possibly survive without government.
While propaganda has had a great multiplier effect on the effectiveness of the racket, (explaining its widespread use) its effectiveness is on the decline. While publication technologies once empowered governments disproportionately, we now have such an abundance of information at our fingertips that it is much more difficult to lie to us. As long as there are governments, there will be propaganda. As long as propaganda is effective, governments will always be possible. But because we are capable of questioning propaganda like never before, it will eventually be irrelevant.
In many ways, the arc of government has followed the arc of technology, but their relationship is much more complicated. Governments are often empowered by technology in ways the public is not, sometimes secretly. Technology has allowed governments to be far more destructive than they would be without it. In many ways, technology is now empowering us to challenge government power. As long as we are susceptible to the racket, available technology will determine the nature of the oppression, but eventually technology will empower the general population to demand self-government and render the psychological roots of statism irrelevant.
The prevailing state of technology is the primary determinant of the productive capacity of the average member of society. Excess productivity makes government possible. The development of agriculture suggested a racket centered around various forms of tenant farming. The development of industry created a much more regimented and coordinated economy that suggested taxing income. Developments in printing and enforcement of currency regulations made possible the underpinning of nearly all modern governments: monopoly creation of money. Technology has also driven the arc of our ability to destroy ourselves to the point where complete annihilation seems feasible. If we can get past statism now, we will have averted the possibility of the destructive arc of government overtaking the peaceful and empowering arc of technological development.
Technological development leads to wealth development. By increasing the capacity of the average laborer, technology raises the standard of living (despite government always taking larger portions of our output). When people barely had the ability to feed their families and pay off their landlords, they didn’t have time to organize protests. With the development of a wealthier society overall, the level of individual empowerment has increased along with access to information. This has been the primary driver of the increased demand for self-government.
Despite the rapidly-developing internet, some politicians think they can still get away with the old deceptions. Sometimes, politicians will say one thing, then say the opposite thing in another town the next day, only to find video of the two statements edited together online the day after. When so many of us have nearly the entire wealth of human knowledge at our fingertips, it’s very difficult to lie effectively.
When a victim of bullying stays silent, the bully is emboldened. Like any bully, governments want their victims to stay quiet. They try to keep victims isolated and prevent them from banding together. The internet has created a conversation in which we can share our stories of victimization and see that we are not alone. The worst government atrocities are now viral videos. The new conversation does not favor governments.
Understanding government as institutionalized violence allows us to see its psychological roots. People turn to violence and are tempted into conflict by insecurity and fear. Technology is empowering us to be much more aware of mental health. One might argue that mental health is historically low because of current governments, but even if that is true, lower rates of interpersonal violence would suggest a much more empowered society. In the long run, technology will empower connectedness, harmony, and cooperation much more than governments.
Because governments depend on an enforcement class to do violence against people who are acting peacefully, the ability to limit and control information that gets to the enforcement class is very important. The general abundance of communication technology makes that much more difficult. It is easy to convince a soldier to kill someone if he can be convinced his victim is somehow less than human. It is much more difficult if they can video chat online. Technology is making it more difficult for governments to isolate people.
Before the internet, governments could control cutting edge communication technology effectively. Many desperate governments limit access to the internet or apply targeted censorship, but this marks the beginning of the end of the racket. As the internet continues to become more widely available, it will become much more difficult to deceive people. Able to connect like never before, we are already developing the relationships that will render government obsolete.