squashed:

… What is wrong with statism? While I have my own answers to that question, I would like to hear yours first. But please don’t use any buzzwords like “freedom” or “American”. Give it some thought. And keep in mind that most of the problems with Statism are also problems with Corporatism.

Statism replaces individually voluntary human interaction with a monopoly institution’s impersonal death threat. Statism is anti-social, divisive, collectivist, and violent. And that’s not what life is about. Life is about self-actualization and mutual benefit, about the voluntary interaction among individual human beings that brought us the rise of civilization and the great continuing decline of misery. (Also, “corporatism” is a form/symptom of statism - it is not in opposition to statism.)

First, you must acknowledge what “the state”  actually is… We must first point out functional reality. George Washington put it: “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence; government is force.” There is one fundamental characteristic that distinguishes the government – the nation-state – from all other human organizations. That characteristic is the legitimized threat of death. Everything the government does is ultimately enforced by threat of death directed at everyone around you.

The basis for this is functional logic: for example, what is “the government?” It is primarily an idea. It’s an idea originally instilled in our human civilization ancient religious cults, that a majority of us in any given country share. “The government” is our projection of legitimacy onto institutional coercion.

eg. If I don’t want to pay for the war in Iraq or for pot dealers to be put in prison, I don’t have a choice. If I don’t pay taxes, and keep refusing, eventually policemen will come to my door with guns, arrest me, and put me in a cage. If I resist that, I will be threatened with lethal force, with death. The state is functionally a territorial monopoly on the ideologically legitimized violence, and ultimately the death threat. I’m not trying to be moralizing – this does not itself necessarily mean you should oppose state intervention. However, you should be able to identify what the state is - everything flows from first addressing functional reality.

Think intuitively: is proactive violence a typically efficient means of relating to other people in society?

Think logically: What personal incentives do government officials, politicians, and bureaucrats - those humans who control this monopoly - have? Are they able to calculate the subjective values of individual a priori? Are individual values aggregatable top-down by a monopoly on violence?

Think empirically: where does order come from? Does statism historically work better for human well-being than economic and personal freedom (in the definitional, nor moralizing, sense)? Do  governments with greater control over their citizens have better track records on human rights or worse?