Note
David Taylor spells out very lucidly the reasons why we should overcome national-statism. In order to do so it is necessary not only to believe that there are alternatives to national statism but also to want to explore and test whether some alternatives work better in satisfying our needs. At that moment the road for Panarchy would be wide open.
The Nation-State is an inherently violent institution, born out of violence and surviving only by continued violence.
The inherent violence of National-Statism has finally led to the creation of massive nuclear arsenals and other weaponry with which the human race is now threatened with total extinction.
Throughout its devastating career National-Statism has been able to masquerade as the friend of humanity while slaughtering millions, but now it has been fully unmasked as humanity's most dangerous enemy, for it has shown that it is prepared to annihilate the entire human race in a last desperate defence of its territorial dominion.
This threat to the very survival of the human race demonstrates not only the evil, but the complete and utter impracticality of the institution of National-Statism. It is now abundantly clear that we do not need such Nation-States to protect us; rather, we need to be protected from them!
In the American Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson maintains that the only just powers of a government are derived from the consent of the governed.
Governments which use violent and coercive means to impose their dominion, i.e., all territorial Nation-States, are no better than criminal-terrorist organizations.
Indeed, they are much worse, because they monopolize the surface of the earth and there is no escape from their tyranny.
The main methods by which Nation-States finance their continued existence are the criminal activities of robbery (taxation) and counterfeiting (inflation).
Taxation without consent is nothing short of robbery, and inflation, which is the flooding of the economy with worthless paper-money, is nothing less than counterfeiting.
PANARCHY (pan-archy: many chiefs; multi-government) is a system of competing, co-existing governments which conduct their operations within the same geographical territories without making any claims to those territories, and whose only powers derive from the consent of those they govern, i.e., those who voluntarily agree to submit to a particular government.
These voluntary governments are constituted and operate on the basis of contractual personal law rather than the coercive territorial law of the Nation-State.
The PANARCHIST principle does not impose any particular political ideology or regime on anyone.
Rather, it proposes to complete the liberation of humanity by establishing and institutionalizing political freedom, so that everybody can live under the political regime of their choice. Only this final triumph of liberty can secure world peace and the future of the human race.
Everybody has different ideas on how they would like to be governed; some want governments that do a lot of things for them, others want governments that do very little. Since we will never get complete agreement on the subject, it would be best to let everybody have the government of their choice so they can be governed as they wish to be.
Choice of government, or PANARCHY, once implemented, would speed up the political enlightenment and progress of the human race immensely by allowing the most enthusiastic supporters of the different political theories to put their theories into practice among their voluntary followers.
The quickest learning is achieved by way of practical experience and demonstration, and it is certain that the success or failure of a particular political theory in practice would be extremely hard for anyone to ignore.
Before the idea of PANARCHY, or multi-government is dismissed as being too "impractical", let it be noted that only a few short years ago it was considered to be too "impractical" to allow freedom of religion to all the citizens of a State; but now it is realized by all sensible people that it is the only practical solution to the religious question.
It was finally seen to be impractical to convert everybody to the one faith either by peaceful persuasion or by force, so the disastrous and futile attempt was abandoned, and religious tolerance was extended to all.
We will eventually come to realize that the same applies in the political and economic spheres (if we are not firstly annihilated by territorial National-Statism).
It is eminently impractical to convert everyone to the same political and economic beliefs, not to mention the injustice of any attempt to impose such beliefs by force.
To try to impose one set of beliefs - whether these beliefs be religious, economic, or political - on everybody living within a particular national territory, by means of political coercion and violence, is essentially totalitarian and anti-human.
Perhaps it may be thought that the PANARCHIST idea is impractical because it has so few adherents and proponents at present. But this is true of every new idea in its beginning and can quickly change as more and more people are attracted to it.
New ideas are precisely what we need at the present crisis-point in human history. The Statist idea has proved to be a dangerous delusion and must now be destroyed before it destroys us. We must cast it aside as a relic of our primitive past, and replace it with the new ideals of human freedom which are essential to the progress and survival of the human race.
The only thing that PANARCHY requires from each one of us is that we respect the right of each other to have the government of our choice. Until this right comes to be recognized as a fundamental human right, war will be inevitable, and we may finally bring down upon ourselves the "war to end all wars" which will also end all of us.
The genius of the idea of PANARCHY is that when it is fully grasped by minorities and minority groups, they will have the power to realize it, because all societies are composed entirely of minorities and are even ruled by minorities.
We can have self-government immediately. All that we have to do is to give up any desire to impose our own systems and theories on everybody else.
Then we will have more friends than enemies. Indeed, who would want, or dare, to be our enemy?