Martin Rewrites: Anatomy of the State

What Government Is Not

Most people consider government to be a social service, a tool to ensure security for the population and regulation of business and economy. Most say it should be used to achieve the goals of humanity. And most would say it is an absolutely necessary.

In democracies, people self-identify as being part of the government, even if they don't hold office, or work for a government agency. The common refrain is "we are the government," an idea that confuses "society" with "government."

Using the word "we" allows people to ignore the reality of political life. If "we are are the government," then anything the government does, "we" do. If government goes into debt to fund social services, then "we" go into debt because "we owed it to ourselves." Drafting soldiers becomes acceptable, because the individual soldier is really just a part of the "we" group, and no rights have been violated. When government throws peaceful protesters in jail, the protesters are essentially throwing themselves in jail, and no brutality could be said to have occurred. Using this logic, anyone killed by their own government weren't murdered; they actually "committed suicide."

Obviously, this is preposterous, and makes it clear that "we" are NOT the government, and the government is NOT "us."

It must also be made clear that government can't represent "us," because a true representative always follows orders and can only represent one person's opinion at a time. Additionally, a representative could be fired at any time. Government could never fulfill these requirements.

Since "we" are not the government, what is government?

Government is a group of people who use force and violence in order to maintain authority over other people. Government is a group of people who claim the sole right to use the threat of violence, arrest and jailing to extract income from another group of people and the only group of people who claim the right to regulate the actions of an individual person or groups of people within their borders.

Disclaimer: This is my attempt at simplifying the book "Anatomy of the State," written by Murray N. Rothbard. This is not a plagiarized writing; it is my interpretation, and is paraphrased from the writing. For the full text, please click here: Anatomy of the State.