-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- frissell@panix.com (Duncan Frissell) writes:
The article suggested that unless people turn to the State for protection from "anarchy" the State will fade.
Here is my argument (recycled from a few years ago) as to why State power is fading:
Fading of government power must begin with popular refusal to gratuitously accept the favors of government. Since this looks unlikely, it appears to me that the trend to ever-more oppressive government will continue for a while yet. It will probably only end in catastrophic collapse.
I expect that State authority will continue to weaken over the next few years for the following reasons:
1) The ruled outnumber the rulers.
Big government is caused not by ``rulers'', but by the demand created by its beneficiaries. Kill the rulers, and the beneficiaries will erect new ones in their place. Kill the beneficiaries and the rulers will find themselves without a job. More useful than the rulers-ruled division is the division into those who gratuitously accept the benefits of government (usually without even realizing that this is why government gets so big), and those who scrupulously avoid gratuitous involvement with government. The latter are an infinitesimal fraction who are being overwhelmed by the former. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLm49n8Dhz44ugybJAQHnawP/UOT7s5ciyUSYwsBdrlsswLUeJNlI/s6n aEuH8pxdxRLmNTPYj378oxa3VpPx5vqbsCvLFtTgydVsbO9Jfu6kjkmJIn8BqOSt 5/c/9kMG0isvRDQNzKyfvKoRmzZ84zztDWsQMi0xXd+QeW0+KF4gv4Fh3wzhOrl4 SDVzfWTV6Kk= =Iscn -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----