The Menace of the State

The election is upon us. We wonder whether we have to have war, tariffs, and deficit spending, regardless of whom we support. What are we to do? Faced with the intractable problems of misgovernment, we need to look deeper. Following the great Murray Rothbard, we should ask, do we need a State at all? Rothbard’s answer was a clear “No.” And not only do we not need a State; the State is a menace.

Following Franz Oppenheimer and Albert Jay Nock, Rothbard identified the State as a predatory organism...