Force the Nature of the State – George Schumm, 4/27/1888

Republished from our predecessor publication Lucifer the Light Bearer

Human liberty consists in the unrestricted and harmonious development of the individual unto the point where the
equal liberty of other individuals begins, and justice consists in the equal, free, and untaxed usufruct of the natural
resources of earth and society in so far as the individual may require it for the complete development and exercise
of his being. Liberty and justice thus defined man first lost with the rise of the State. It is indeed claimed that civilization
traces its origin to the rise of the State, but it is a mistake if it is meant to imply that it was the State that originally
made civilization possible and fostered it. I cannot conceive of true civilization, of any real growth of humanitarianism,
without the most scrupulous regard for universal and equal liberty and justice. Civilization based on force and
slavery is no true civilization. Talk as much as one please of historical necessity, I cannot see therein any palliation
of State aggression and coercion. True civilization is not to be thought and spoken of where barbarous and brutal
force usurps the office of mutual reasoning and free contract. No, the State, as known to us, has neither called forth
nor fostered human civilization. The very opposite of this is the case. What measure of human civilization has been
achieved has been achieved in spite of the State. There are many persons who in all seriousness ascribe the
efflorescence of the natural sciences to the churches and monasteries. But this view is not less tenable than
that which credits the State with the fostering care and rise of human civilization. Neither view can abide the test
of history. State and Church have ever represented organized ignorance and aggression—in one word, organized
barbarism. The development of human civilization proceeded in spite of Church and State; the growth of a truer
view of the world, of a view more nearly in conformity with the nature of things, and of a higher order of life, took
place essentially outside of Church and State, acting on these institutions by virtue of the law of reciprocity in a
refining sense. We see this readily when we consider more closely the nature of the State.

According to the investigations of the most celebrated historians and philosophers, remarks a defender of Statism,
“it was always and everywhere an act of conquest through which the State was founded. Not an occupation of an
uninhabited country, no! a conquest and the subjection of a country already occupied as well as of its inhabitants
themselves—that is the origin of the State and of all property”—let us rather amend with Max Stirner, Fremdtum.
This is also the conclusion Herbert Spencer arrives at in his sociological investigations. Now, as in accordance
with the testimony of historians and philosophers, the State traces its origin to acts of violence and conquest,
so also has it maintained and perpetuated itself in history by force, conquest, and an utter disregard of all ethics.
I refer simply to history. To meet the demand for a raison d’être, the State has indeed attempted to fortify its
position by the claim of its advocates that its essential function consists in the defense of civil liberty and property.
But we all know only too well what that means. That State I should like to know that has ever made the least
approach towards conscientiously acquitting itself of this task. Look where you may, study all the countries of
the earth, peruse the pages of history, and transpose yourself mentally to all ages; and if you are capable of
reasoning in conformity with facts, you will agree with me that where the State took human liberty under its
protecting wings, it crushed it in nine cases out of ten beneath its iron heel—that where it gave property its
protection, it did so in order to confiscate it a hundredfold—and that justice could never yet rely on its initiative.
The State as the embodiment of barbarism is the denial of liberty, justice, and property. This will of course not
be admitted by the politicians of all stripes, by the State priests of every shade, but this is the conclusion of
close observation and conscientious and unbiased thought. Liberty, however, affirms liberty, justice and
property. Therefore it demands the abolition of the State.