Time to Rethink the Idea of Nation State

Our world is by and large going left liberal and woke. These groups of people espouse ideas like gender equality or self gender identification, gender feminism, anti-racism, open immigration, multiculturalism etc. American social political groups like Black Lives Matters or ANTIFA (Anti Fascist) etc., represent such ideologies. Personally speaking, I see no problems with this type of left liberalism or wokeness as long as such ideas are not imposed by one group of people on others. But that is what exactly happens, all the time. One group of people hijacks the centralized power of the state and uses that state machinery to impose their ideas on others who don’t believe in those ideas. And herein lies the root of all our problems. 

Nation state’s centralized power structure allows one group of people to impose their ideas on everyone else, and that is the root cause of all our conflicts. State monopoly is the central problem. Originally the State was created by its makers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke etc., to provide a negative centralized force in society to stabilize it from supposed internal conflict between its members. State’s original functions were to protect the life, liberty and property of its citizens, and nothing else. During the English civil wars, the times in which Hobbes was writing his Leviathan, the atmosphere was such that it looked like human society was a war of wolf against wolf. The day to day reality is actually nothing like that. As authors like Matt Ridley and Robert Axelrodhave shown us, cooperation between ordinary members in human society is the norm throughout human history. Battles are a product of centralized power structure. The British Civil War itself was a result of centralized power structure in the hands of the king. This means Hobbes got it all wrong. The problem was a result of a centralized power structure. He tried to solve that same problem by erecting an even bigger centralized power structure in the form of the Nation State. He was influenced by the dire circumstances around him and created the monster Leviathan which just made matters worse with time. Historically all the efforts to tie down that state have failed e.g., constitutions everywhere today are just pieces of paper. The division of power between so-called competing government branches is just a myth because all government branches are, after all, government branches and not independent authorities which are actually competing with the centralized state and keeping it in check; all branches of government grab more power with every passing day. The original police state ensnared the whole society in the form of modern warfare welfare state. State was supposed to be kept separate of economy and society, science, Church/temple/mosque etc., religious institutions, social institutions like marriage etc., but today all these institutions of human society are in the clutches of the state officials. Neighborhoods, communities, and families no longer exist to provide refuge to individuals during their tough times. State systematically destroyed all these competing institutions and captured individuals to make them their slaves. We are the cash cow of the state during the time of intermittent peace and we are the beef cow during the periods of constant state wars. The political class robs and murders us daily in the name of serving us! 

Democracy makes these matters worse. It allows a majority to impose itself over the minority. And in most cases the winning political party is not even a majority e.g., in the last Loksabha election of India, the winning BJP party’s total vote share was only 37.4%. That means, more than 63% of people didn’t vote for BJP but they still came into power. So 37% of people are imposing their ideas/ wishes on the rest of the population of India via the centralized power of the state. As I said above, this is the root cause of all our problems. As Hans Hermann Hoppe and Frank Karsten have shown, democracy leads to social conflict, chaos, and poverty.   

We all have universal needs and when those needs are not met ill feelings of misery and pain are going to be the end result. When one group of individuals will impose their wishes/needs on others, chaos and conflict will ensue. Left liberals and woke people just need to be left alone like how we conservatives or libertarians want to be left alone. We all must have a chance to live our lives according to our own wishes/desires/preferences/needs, and this is only possible when we have political choices available to build and live in a society which fulfills our needs without coercing anyone else. If liberals and woke people want to live in a society where they can call each other person or ze instead of male/female or he/she or where they allow their kids to decide their gender or have common bathrooms in their colleges or hire a CEO just because he/she is a gay/lesbian or male/female etc., then so be it. They can build whatever kind of society they want for themselves, but they must not be allowed under any circumstances to impose their society on others. People must be free to choose to live in a society which better fits their needs. All these require decentralization of power in smaller independent political and social entities instead of today’s giant nation states. Breakdown of nation states is the need of the hour. Peaceful secession is the solution of our human problems. 

Today when every other person is trying to change their gender or how we are allowed to treat others and associate or disassociate with them, or what we can speak or not etc., I think we also urgently need to rethink the whole idea of the State. If we do that then all other changes will come automatically. The delusion and con game of the State has gone on for far too long. By now it is clear that the state, aka government, doesn’t exist or work for the public. It is a grand delusion created by state intellectuals so that they can continue their legal plunder and murder racket. All the talks of the state existing for our welfare is a ruse to hide its criminal nature. As Murray Rothbard said, the state is a gang of criminals, writ large. It is high time to recognize and accept this fact and do away with the state and its centralized power system. That centralized power is the root cause of our problems,  and removing that power and decentralizing it in smaller centers is our root solution. Any solution that doesn’t include this end goal will simply not work. 

The state must go.