In his 1848 essay titled The State, eminent French political/economics philosopher and politician Frédéric Bastiat once wrote that, “The state is the great fiction by which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.” The State, as Bastiat rightly notes, is an imaginary thing. It is no person, it contains no place, it isn’t even a thing. It is an idea that exists solely within the minds of those who imagine that they are part of it and others are not, that they are part of the “French state,” or the “American state,” or the “Chinese state,” and others are of other states. And in the name of this great imagined being -without body, parts, passions, or location as it is everywhere and nowhere – men and women have raped, robbed, tortured, and slaughtered not just their own “people,” but other people in other states throughout all the world and been lauded as righteous, noble, and heroic for doing so.
The question though, is “Why?” Why do so many allow themselves to be dominated by this ideology that installs a small cadre of elites who live like parasites by extracting the prosperity of the people through extortion (taxation) and maintain their domination and power through obvious lies and overwhelming violence? This question especially applies to the Saints and Christians in general as we have the truths of the Gospel and are part of what Apostle Parley P. Pratt referred to as the greatest revolution in history, the establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth. We have the system and the program by which most of the world’s ills could be solved without violence or compulsion of any kind. Yet so many of us are still as loyal to our imagined states than we are to God’s Kingdom, if not more loyal to them and the Kingdom as most of us think little of robbing and killing in the name of the State but think that if religion asked the same that it would be nothing but corruption and evil. Why is this the case? The answer to this question, I think, is three-fold: First, the mental conditioning people are subject to by the State from childhood trains them into obedience; Second, people support the State because of the way it allows them to live at the perceived benefit of others; Third, the State allows people to avoid personal responsibility for the world.
Mental Conditioning
I have already written somewhat at length about the way that the State indoctrinates us as children into obeying it and adoring it through mass propaganda and especially through the public school system. For a further treatment of the subject that can appear here, I refer you to those previous articles. Here it will suffice me to give a simple explanation and save the at length treatment for the other issues under discussion.
From childhood, no matter what nation you are in, the great masses of the population are subjected to mass indoctrination through compulsory schooling. The concept of education is wonderful and necessary for the enlightenment and advancement of society. But it is no accident that the state first extorts wealth from the public to fund state-managed education, then compels the masses to send their children to schools through the threat of violence if they do not. This natural results in most people having to send their children to state-controlled schools where they are indoctrinated in the historic victories of the State, taught to glorify its leaders and heroes as saints and saviors, and conditioned to adore and love it and its symbols with a veneration that is essentially religious in nature. Under the guise of “instilling patriotism” people are taught subservience and obedience to the State from their earliest most physically and intellectually vulnerable years as a noble and social good. It is no surprise then that as adults that adoration for and obedience to those in power and the ideology of the State becomes reflexive and assumed as a universal truth, no matter how “Rightist” or “Leftist” the person is in their politics. The political elites have well learned the wisdom of Solomon, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6) This explains why so many are so loyal to the State as a form of government despite its predations upon them – they have been taught to believe that its crimes are virtues and their loyalty should always be to it since before they could read, write, or do simple math and indoctrination that has lasted that long and goes that deep into the psyche and mind of someone can be incredibly hard to shake off as it has been woven into every part of the person, into how they see the world and conceive of reality.
Living Off Others
Bastiat succinctly explains one of the reasons so many follow the ideology of the State in the previously quoted line, because they believe it will allow them “to live at the expense of everyone else.” Bastiat expands on this argument in his great work on the purpose, function, and perversion of the government titled The Law. There Bastiat talks about the sole purpose of government being to protect the rights and property of individuals and describes how that purpose is perverted to allow for legalized plunder carried out by the functions of the State. Bastiat sees explains one of the main causes for the mass support of legalized plunder as having to do with labor – working is hard and people want to do as little and live as easily as possible, therefore taking stuff from others through government action is easier than working:
Self-preservation and self-development are common aspirations among all people. …But there is also another tendency that is common among people. When they can, they wish to live and prosper at the expense of others. This is no rash accusation. Nor does it come from a gloomy and uncharitable spirit. The annals of history bear witness to the truth of it: the incessant wars, mass migrations, religious persecutions, universal slavery, dishonesty in commerce, and monopolies. This fatal desire has its origin in the very nature of man—in that primitive, universal, and insuppressible instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain.
…Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain—and since labor is pain in itself—it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it.
The Law, pgs. 5, 6
Bastiat makes a very simple claim to understand. If we want to survive in this world we have two choices – we can either work to create the things we want and need or we can simply take what we want or need from those who otherwise have it. And work is hard. It requires physical, mental, and emotional exertions that are exhausting of the mind, body, and/or spirit. If it seems easier to simply take what we want from others many people will do that because the effort required by theft is less than that required by labor. He provides examples of this throughout history, such as wars and slavery. He continues explaining that who does the robbing depends on the type of government you have. In an aristocracy or monarchy a very few rob the very many through the force and power of the law, but in a republic or democracy this changes because:
participation in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests
The Law pgs. 7-8
When democracy or republicanism allows the masses to more directly participate in the making of laws the result is not the elimination of plunder, but its expansion. This happens as people form political parties that seek to win allegiance from their constituents by promising them that if they elect the party members then said politicians will use the power of the State to rob others and to give some of that plunder to those who voted for them in the forms of government programs and services, if not outright through direct gifts of money. Politicians win elections by promising to rob and stay in power by delivering some portion of said plunder to his or her supporters. This leads to universal plunder and creates the ideological system that justifies such violence and robbery by law.
Thus law and justice are perverted for the sake of plunder and people believe that something must be just because that thing is legal. Therefore extortion and theft become legal when the law legalizes them as taxation and plunder becomes legal when the organs of the State are the disseminators of it to the public. That the part any single person gets is miniscule and that great social and economic destruction is wrought by this system is irrelevant. As long as people perceive it as a benefit, as long as they see some manifestation that they did not have to work for to get, it will not matter to them the unseen benefits lost by state plunder. This, as Bastiat wrote in another essay, is the problem of the seen vs. the unseen. As long as the masses can feel like what they do is just because it is law they will be contented to be servile to the State as long as they feel secure in their servility and they will feel secure as long as they get to part of the plunder. As Bastiat explains:
The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are “just” because law makes them so. Thus, in order to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only necessary for the law to decree and sanction it. Slavery, restrictions, and monopoly find defenders not only among those who profit from them but also among those who suffer from them.
This is the ultimate reason many are lured by the siren song of Socialism despite its history of complete failure to deliver on any of its promises and of producing nothing but slavery and starvation (see Dr. Richard Pipes’s concise Communism: A History for a great historical work on these facts.) Despite its every disaster people continue to support Socialism because it promises them “the great fiction” of unending plunder and therefore the ability to live off of Others with little to no individual labor if only they surrender to the rule of the State.
Avoiding Responsibility
After the end of World War II the victorious Allied nations of the United States, the Soviet Union, the Republic of France, and the United Kingdom began the process of bringing captured Nazi political figures to trial for their violations of international, civil, and natural law in what have come to be known as the the Nuremberg Trials. Though not without criticism, even as they were taking place, the Trials have become a landmark in world legal history. The leading prosecutor for the United States legal team was United States Supreme Court Judge Robert Houghwout Jackson. Jackson gave the opening address of the trial and explained upon what grounds those on trial would be charged with being a part of working to forward a criminal conspiracy to wage aggressive international wars and to violate the rights to life, liberty, and property of various peoples and nations. During this opening speech, Jackson gave a refutation of the Nazi defendant’s argument that they shouldn’t stand trial because they were following the legitimate legal orders of the government. His comments are instructive not just for their rejection of the Nazi argument but for the insight they give into how humans view the State:
The idea that a state, any more than a corporation, commits crimes, is a fiction. Crimes always are committed only by persons. While it is quite proper to employ the fiction of responsibility of a state or corporation for the purpose of imposing a collective liability, it is quite intolerable to let such a legalism become the basis of personal immunity.
The Charter* recognizes that one who has committed criminal acts may not take refuge in superior orders nor in the doctrine that his crimes were acts of states. These twin principles working together have heretofore resulted in immunity for practically everyone concerned in the really great crimes against peace and mankind. Those in lower ranks were protected against liability by the orders of their superiors. The superiors were protected because their orders were called acts of state. Under the Charter, no defense based on either of these doctrines can be entertained. Modern civilization puts unlimited weapons of destruction in the hands of men. It cannot tolerate so vast an area of legal irresponsibility.
…None of these men before you acted in minor parts. Each of them was entrusted with broad discretion and exercised great power. Their responsibility is correspondingly great and may not be shifted to that fictional being, “the State”, which cannot be produced for trial, cannot testify, and cannot be sentenced.
The Charter also recognizes a vicarious liability, which responsibility is recognized by most modern systems of law, for acts committed by others in carrying out a common plan or conspiracy to which a defendant has become a party. I need not discuss the familiar principles of such liability. Every day in the courts of countries associated in this prosecution, men are convicted for acts that they did not personally commit, but for which they were held responsible because of membership in illegal combinations or plans or conspiracies.
* – This refers to the London Charter which provided the legal basis for the Trials.
In rejecting the Nazi arguments for why they were not guilty of crimes, Jackson reveals the assumptions and rationalizations people rely on to justify their loyalty to, in his words, “that fictional being called ‘the State'” – it allows them to abdicate the responsibility they have for the results of their choices. Jackson, argues that individuals are responsible for their acts and the outcomes of those acts, no matter who told them to do or not do something and what authority that person giving the orders may or may not officially held. The violence, terror, oppression, rights violations, and murders that the Nazis carried out were not valid just because they were legal. Even if the law is unjust you and I have the duty to act justly. If we do otherwise we cannot pretend that we are protected from the consequences of our evil designs simply because we have the pretense of law to protect us. Likewise, when a law is unjust we are not under the burden of obeying it until such a time that it is reversed as that would simply perpetuate its evils. Instead it is our legal, moral, and human responsibility to refuse to obey unjust. oppressive, and corrupt laws. But the State allows us to imagine otherwise and thereby justify our own apparent profit from the violence and plunder of the State.
Taxation is neither extortion nor theft because the State has issued laws that say it isn’t either of those things. Profiting from State plunder is not a criminal conspiracy growing wealthier off stolen and extorted wealth because the State has said it isn’t. Blowing up schools and murdering women and children, slaughtering millions of civilians isn’t a crime because the State has made war legal, but individual killing is murder. Taking part in the oppression of other people on any grounds, the violations of their rights for any reason, is acceptable because that is the law and it isn’t my fault. I’m not killing people. I’m not robbing people. I’m not extorting people’s wealth by threatening them with violence, imprisonment, or death if they refuse to meet my demands. I’m not bombing entire ancient civilizations into dust, slaughtering children, and perpetuating a new Holocaust. The Government is doing that, the State is responsible, not me. I just benefit from all the programs the State manages and I’m not responsible for what else it does with the power I give it through my money and obedience.
Fleeing from the repercussions of our actions isn’t the only thing that the State allows us to do. The State allows people to flee from the responsibility for themselves. I no longer need to rent or buy a home – the State can build me one. I no longer need a job to work and produce valuable goods and services for society – the State will give me a Universal Basic Income. I no longer need to be educated or need to educate myself or my children – the State will do it for me. I no longer need to raise my children – the State will do it for me. I no longer need to save my money and create a monetary and food reserve for a rainy day – the State will give me money and food. I don’t have to help those around me, giving of my time, talent, and wealth to help those in need – the State will do that for me. I no longer need to deal with thorny and challenging concepts such as race, gender, and sexuality – the State will tell me what to think about these things, what to do in regards to them, and what I can even say or not say about them. As long as I give it my obedience it will take care of all my needs. I can avoid individual responsibility for myself, my family, my community, and my life by giving by subservience to the State. It will bear the weight, the anxiety, the troubles, and the toil of all these things and all I will need to do is think very little and obey very much and I will always be right.
Thus, through the abrogation of my responsibility for the results of my actions and through the abdication of my self through my servitude, all to the State, I am made free. The ultimate realization of this goal by the State is what George Orwell meant when he wrote “Freedom is Slavery,” in his renowned dystopia novel, 1984. Because liberty requires work from the individual, to provide for himself and his community while being responsible for his actions, his family, and his self, and because humans by their nature, i.e. in the Natural Man, would prefer to work and struggle as little as possible, liberty can feel often feel like a burden as much as it feels freeing. For many the fact the realization that they are responsible for their actions and the consequences of their actions is an existential horror all on its own. And the State offers an escape from all these things. It even tells them that by their surrender to it that they are actually fulfilling their responsibilities to God and society so that they look upon their servitude as an act of personal and social righteousness, which in turn allows them to self-righteously condemn those who yearn for true freedom as evil, stupid, and destructive. So not only do they willingly trade their freedom for slavery, they feel good about doing it.
The Answer to the Problem
So, if the State is the Great Fiction, was is the Great Non-fiction, what is the truth that puts an end to the lie of the State? There are two answers, a partial answer and a full answer.
The partial answer can be found in the ideals of Voluntaryism, which states that all human relationships should be strictly by mutual consent. This eliminates the State as the State is founded upon violence and force, compelling obedience from the unwilling and destroying those who step out of line in any way. In a society based upon the ideals of Voluntaryism communities become founded on mutual respect for the rights, liberties, freedoms, and responsibilities of the individual. Instead of founding organizations to escape liberty in servitude you found organizations to magnify the ability of individuals to use the freedoms they have to meet their responsibilities. The problem with this, the reaosn it is merely a partial answer, is because Voluntaryism doesn’t ultimately solve the human spiritual malaise that gave birth to the State – namely our desire to do as little as possible and to live as easily a life as possible with as little responsibility as possible all in order to avoid the spiritual, emotional, and physical pain that liberty and responsibility forces us to face and undergo at times. As Bastiat wisely recognizes, this desire is a common, natural desire among all humankind. Today we might argue that it is deeply rooted in our evolutionary biology which causes us to seek what is seemingly the easiest and most efficient path possible. In religious terms, Voluntaryism cannot control for or overcome the Natural Man.
King Benjamin explained in his incredible sermon in The Book of Mormon exactly what the Natural Man is and what it takes to defeat him:
For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.
Mosiah 3:19
The Natural Man can be summed up in three ways – fornicating, fighting, and feasting. He wants to survive and procreate as often as possible as easily as possible. Ideals of liberty, community, society, and humanity do not matter to him. He is lustful, brutal, and carnal. This is why the Natural Man is the Enemy of God, and has been from the very start of humanity. And no human philosophy or power can truly overcome him. Put him at bay, perhaps. But he is always there and when the chains of discipline and self-control degrade and break, as they inevitably do on even the strongest person, he has his day of power. Most will never even try and bind him as it is simply easier and more fun to give into him and the false promises of pleasure and debauchery.
The only way the Natural Man can be defeated is through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Through the power of His commandments and the ineffable transforming influence of His grace the very nature of the individual is transmuted from Natural Man into Child of God. As that great change takes place our desires change with it – who and what we are becomes something different, something more, something more divine. We become Saints, we become holy. We learn to love to work and serve, to bend our will to the Father and lift our fellowman. We learn to take responsibility for ourselves through conversion and continual repentance of our sins. We learn to strive for self-reliance even as we labor to see to the care of all. We shake off the dispositions that seduce us into servitude to the State and begin the training that will exalt us to Godhood. That means that as we preach the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and build the Kingdom of God on Earth we naturally, and inevitably, wither away the State by replacing its fiction with the truths of God. As with all lies, the most powerful way to counter it is by telling and living the truth, and there is no greater truth to be told than the word of He who is The Way and The Truth – even Jesus Christ and the fulness of His Gospel.