By: Nathan Dothager

As it goes today, when our “society” is faced with any problems we usually all turn on the news and wonder what the government is doing to solve it. And, it seems that given the amount of taxes that are taken (stolen), that it is only reasonable that government take it upon itself to solve these problems. It has also been the case that government is usually all too happy to direct its power with the utmost ferocity no matter what the cost or regard to any law, binding of constitutional doctrines, amendments, or otherwise.

In the last decade alone, for example, we have seen State power wield it’s might in the case of 9/11, Katrina, Bank Bailouts, and the latest BP Gulf oil spill crisis with devastating effect on the personal freedom of it’s very citizens. Furthermore, we may also acknowledge the wholesale retreat of society to take it upon itself to solve these problems. Why is this?

When we look at the difference between social power and State power we observe that an increase in one of the powers is a corresponding decrease in the other. So, for example, when Hurricane Katrina destroyed the entire Gulf region, the overwhelming response to the crisis was a cry for government to rescue the people stranded, provide them housing, and rebuild the region –a clear example of State power. This is not to say that private individuals did not volunteer or donate money to the relief effort –a clear example of social power, albeit a diminished role. However, it was not social power that made any decisions in the relief effort, it made no systematic plans to house the victims, and it made only a small difference in the rebuilding of the region (even though the region is still reeling from the disaster). In some documented cases, it was State power that forbade the use of any social power to come to any fruition. Thus, we can say without much doubt which power reigns supreme and which power has the corresponding diminished role in our society.

The great Libertarian thinker/writer Albert Jay Nock was one the finest social critics of all time to observe the phenomena of corresponding powers between State and society. Nock concludes, “Every assumption of State power, whether by gift or seizure, leaves society with so much less power; there is never, nor can be, any strengthening of State power without a corresponding and roughly equivalent depletion of social power”.

State power is not only the dominant power in the area of crises; it has also cast a wide net onto what was once the hallmark of social power. Nock observed in the early twentieth century that the mobilization of social power use to care for the aged, the mentally ill, the city hospital, and unemployment. But, as Nock says, “Under Mr. Roosevelt, however, the State assumed these functions”. In terms of today, we can only say that State power goes so much further in its depletion of social power than in the time of Nock. The argument for the absorption of the social powers was as stale then as it is now – that society is not capable or willing to care for the sick, poor, or elderly so all these functions must be handled by the State.

If I were to make a single addition to Nock’s brilliant analysis of State power it would be to say that once it holds such a dominant share of power, it only allows social power when it simply has no choice in the matter. State power holds such a commanding role in our lives today that it essentially has indoctrinated us into believing it is superior to social power. We only need to examine the performance of State power to refute that mindset.

In the last decade alone, State power had been the dominant force behind the so-called solution to the problem –any problem. We may examine State power in response to 9/11 as an exercise in warmongering, murder, imperialism, and domestic terrorism. Not to mention the blowback from State intervention in foreign lands all over the globe was a major reason why 9/11 happened in the first place.

We may examine State power’s response to Hurricane Katrina as an exercise in bureaucratic thumb twiddling that left State power wondering which State Agency should be coordinating the relief effort. As a result, many citizens that were counting on government to rescue them, feed them, and shelter them died waiting.

We may examine State power’s response to the “financial meltdown” and subsequent bailout of the banking and automobile industries in 2008 as an exercise of unprecedented irresponsibility and waste that steals from taxpayers and gives to politically connected banks and corporations in face of a 94% un-approval rating. Not to mention it was State power that created the “financial meltdown” to begin with.

We have seen, in the case of the Gulf oil crisis, the overwhelming willingness of State power to declare “I’m in charge here! Stay back! We’re stopping the drilling. We have created a Compensation Czar and we will be handing out the payments for damages….no need for courts or due process”. In addition, we have seen the overwhelming backlash of citizens to blame the government for not doing more in respect to regulation and banning altogether! Most never think or will ever care to know about how government was giving incentives to drill offshore, taking royalties from the production of that oil, and essentially protecting the corporations financially by capping the amount of damages it had to pay in case of spills. Not to mention, it has been charged, the reason why oil companies have to drill in such risky places is due to the level of regulation on drilling on land.

If you are a person who believes that there is no way social power could have done any better you may make a fair case. But, I might add, if we are to say just as social power could not prevent a crisis or fully solve some of society’s problems, neither can State power. In fact, we see in every case that State power does no better and in most cases worse in performance than social power would do. When State power assumes the role of care giver, crisis responder, or protector it does so by way of force. In contrast, when social power assumes the role of care giver, crisis responder, or protector it is a culmination of volunteers, private businesses, and donators who complete their task and go home. Yet, generally speaking, it is commonplace for the mass of people to prefer State power. Again we may say that social power has been depleted so far that nobody believes it could ever do the things State power has assumed for far too long –a sort of Stockholm Syndrome of the collective.

It is hard to find a single instance where the State is not involved in all areas of the economy and civic life. It was State power that assumed the role of care taker for the aged and sick, it declared war on poverty and drugs, and it claims to create jobs and provide for the unemployed. State power claims to provide the consumer a level of protection from bad products or practices. It was State power that has absorbed the control over how or when a host of professions are to be conducted or licensed to protect the worker. It does all the above things and MANY more with an absolute unlimited supply of funding and scope of forceful power, yet every step of the way it does so in either total failure or by no better means than what social power could do with volunteers, donations, or private business.

Perhaps what we should understand is that it does not matter whether the State seizes power or whether it has been given that power. What matters most is that when that power has been transferred it does not and will not ever go back into the hands of social power. It is simply not the nature of the State to relinquish its power. Man has devised countless methods of controlling the State in an attempt to check it’s power with no success other than a refreshment of blood over the centuries. We have already seen the constitution, amendments, law, Supreme Court, check and balance, or other devices end in failure. Yet, people do not see it. Every empire since time immemorial has entered into the area we are treading and still we push on in an attempt to prop up or fix our problems while the State lingers on in the background waiting for its opportunity to bring us to an ultimate end. Is it so hard to imagine?

In 1935, Mr. Nock’s words haunt us when he said, “What we and our more nearly immediate descendants shall see is a steady progress in collectivism running off into a military despotism of a severe type. Closer centralization; a steadily growing bureaucracy; State power and faith in State power increasing, social power and faith in social power diminishing; the State absorbing a continually larger proportion of the national income; production languishing, the State in consequence taking over one “essential industry” after another, managing them with ever increasing corruption, inefficiency and prodigality, and finally resorting to a system of forced labor”.

Even more frightening is that Nock’s conclusion as to what can be done is, “simply nothing”.

What we will see over time is a fulfilling of Nock’s words. What will happen is an inter-eating of State power; it will fall apart from within and, by no choice of its own, collapse under its own weight. We have already seen such expansion of State power and a retraction in some cases, by no choice of its own, due to pitfalls in funding. And, even when governments print money out of thin air or borrow, it only goes to stall the inevitability of collapse. Everything that is going on in our present world is unsustainable. When State power runs out of gimmicks to prop up its current liabilities, its outstanding promises, its “necessary” functions, and its monopoly of force, it dies from within. No amount of protests, government lobbying, or voting will prove useful in bringing about the collapse faster.

What is important is to build up a society that recognizes the importance of social power and of human cooperation after the State has collapsed under its own weight. The best hope we have of overthrowing our true enemy is to first recognize it as our enemy. This is the mission we should be concerned of. This should be the mission of those concerned with peace, prosperity, liberty, and happiness.