State

Concept

Tentative Definition

A state is an association of individuals that claims a certain amount of sovereignty over the property those collective individuals occupy. In this way we see a shared private property estate operated as a corporation or organization or enterprise is very similar. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State)

Georgist Conception of the State

According to Albert J. Nock, a Georgist, the state

- "did not originate in the common understanding and agreement of society; it originated in conquest and confiscation. Its intention, far from contemplating "freedom and security," contemplated nothing of the kind. It contemplated primarily the continuous economic exploitation of one class by another, and it concerned itself with only so much freedom and security as was consistent with this primary intention.... Its primary function or exercise was... by way of innumerable and most onerous positive interventions, all of which were for the purpose of maintaining the stratification of society into an owning and exploiting class, and a propertyless dependent class."

The positive testimony of history is that the State invariably had its origin in conquest and confiscation.... Moreover, the sole invariable characteristic of the State is the economic exploitation of one class by another. In this sense, every State known to history is a class-State." (http://mutualist.org/id58.html)

The Book

* Harold Barclay: The State. London: Freedom Press, 2003. ISBN 1904491006

"The state is neither an inevitable, nor natural, phenomenon, but the creation of despots. Its history is a history of power, wealth and tyranny. The immortality of the state is the greatest myth of our society. Anthropologist Harold Barclay explains how a powerful elite has hijacked control of society. Through control of agriculture, warfare, trade, labor and other resources the state has seized complete power. Do we really need the state or should we organize society ourselves?"