Our Enemy the State

Sympathizers with libertarianism are often unfamiliar with two very different strands within the tradition: what might be called the “radical” and the “conservative” libertarian. The better-known conservative libertarian (e.g. Milton Friedman) regards the State as a bumbling, generally inefficient instrument of society. As such, the conservative libertarian generally opposes State action and intervention; but his analysis is cool, relatively dispassionate and concentrates on the social inefficiency of governmental measures. Furthermore, every so often, the conservative libertarian cranks his data into his “cost-benefit” computer and grinds out the conclusion that, on this particular issue or another, the State should intervene. Areas of accomodation to government differ from one conservative libertarian to the next, but range from massive military spending, to voucher plans for government payments to education, to municipal parks.

The first thing one notices when turning from conservative to radical libertarian works is the different “feel,” or tone of the writing. The radical libertarian sets forth with an air of determined hostility to the entire State apparatus, to the government and all its works. Instead of a bumbling and inefficient tool of society, the radical sees the State itself, in its very nature, as coercive, exploitative, parasitical and hence profoundly anti-social. The State is, and always has been, the great single enemy of the human race, its liberty, happiness and progress.

Nowhere has the “radical libertarian” position been presented with more insight, clarity, brilliance and stylistic beauty than in the works of Albert Jay Nock, and in particular his little gem, Our Enemy The State. Long out of print, this work has now been reprinted in a beautifully bound paperback edition by the new Free Life publishers. Here is the book to turn to for a superbly written understanding of the radical libertarian viewpoint.

The most systematic of Nock’s works, Enemy, published in the 1930’s under the impact of the Hoover-Roosevelt New Deals focuses on apply-ing the radical libertarian ideology to American history. In the course of the work, Nock makes clear how and why the State is the enemy, how State Power has always been the crippler and poisoner of Social Power (Nock’s happy term for all the voluntary arrangements and interactions, economic, cultural and social, that individual people have created). All history then becomes a race and a contest between the felicitous creations of Social Power—the peace, prosperity and harmony fostered by voluntary arrangements—and the blight, destruction and impoverishment brought on by coercive State power, in taxing, controlling and regulating individuals and their voluntary inter-relations.

Nock, in short, saw clearly that the State is organized predation and looting, and therefore that the State apparatus and its minions constitute an organized criminal band of predators and looters. Furthermore, through their power of taxing, regulating and spending, the State and its rulers constitute an organized exploiting group or class, in effect a “ruling class”; while the rest of us ruled and exploited by the State constitute a class of the ruled. The great libertarian tradition of ruling class theory far antedated and is much sounder than the Marxian tradition; but it has unfortunately been virtually forgotten, so that the mere mention of such words as “ruling class,” “imperialism,” etc., seems to the reader or lis-tener to be Marxian and hence an indictment of Big Business per se. Read Our Enemy The State, and among other benefits, you will find what the very different, libertarian tradition of ruling class theory is all about. It is, for one thing, a ruling class that only comes about through its achievement of power in the State and never arises through business or voluntary activities on the free market.

Nock’s Our Enemy The State is, in short, a superb book—perhaps the most important single book for learning about the radical libertarian position. It is greatly enhanced in this edition by an introduction by Professor Walter Grinder, as well as a brilliant annotated bibliography by Grinder of libertarian writings that constitutes the best libertarian bibliography available anywhere. The bibliography alone is worth the price of admission.

Reviewed by Murray N. Rothbard / Political Philosophy (118 Pages, Indexed) / BFL Price $2.95