Solneman
(Kurt H. Zube)

The concept most people have of the State is as unclear and vague as their concept of God. For the majority today the State is, indeed, nothing other than the expression of God in material form.

In the past all church dogmas and claims were accepted without complaint as being self-evident. Likewise, no doubt was permitted concerning the divine right of kings and emperors. Similarly, the State, for the majority today, represents something of such necessity, even holiness, that criticism is directed only against the form of the State, not against its essence - that is, not against the institution itself.

When analyzing the naive as well as blind trust in the State, which is considered the epitome of omnipotence, justice and good will, and when listening to the continuously repeated cry of the many: "The government should do something! The government should help! This should be prohibited!" - one notes that modern mass-man expects a great deal more from the State than even from a loving God. His trust in the State is far more extensive than his confidence in God.

This is based on the following quite simple fact: those who speak of the State do not, usually, think of what the State actually is (of which they have, moreover, only a hazy notion). Neither do they think of the historical reality of the State. From its growth one could conclude its origin from Satan rather than from God. Instead, they always think only of what the State should be, according to the mostly very subjective wishes of those concerned. There are numerous more or less contradictory ideologies concerning the State, i.e. mental images of what the person concerned desires as an ideal social order, a sort of desired heavenly state. These are mostly rather foggy notions and usually do not take into consideration what the State actually can be and can do. A parliamentarian [Frédéric Bastiat] once commented on this problem: "Everybody wants to live at the expense of the State, and nobody thinks of the fact that the State lives at the expense of everyone."

The State is a typical example of an institution which developed its ideological character out of its religiously-based origins. This is shown by the reliance of absolute monarchs on the "divine right of kings" and, likewise, by the claims of popes to supremacy over monarchs. The same applies to democracies with their claim to governmental power "deriving from the people," once "people," "nation" and "fatherland" succeeded the monarchs and the other feudal lords, who all claimed divine "rights." These new concepts thus became gods and idols, demanding many millions of human sacrifices - infinitely more than the greatest idolatry of the barbarians, which only demanded an individual human occasionally. The "sovereignty" and "holiness" of the "people" (whoever doubts them is a traitor to his fatherland!) is nowadays far more uncontested than the holiness of religion once was. Today, "in the service of the people," property, blood and life are continuously demanded as sacrifices, while only occasionally is such a demand still made in the name of religion. The "people" are here equated with the State, by means of a horse dealer's trick performed by those who act as the executives of this abstraction. In this, the State claims "holiness" (inviolability) for itself. What, then, is the State really?

"The State is the guardian of the order established by God. The worldly task of a man is to preserve it" - was still the comment of the supreme court judge Fabian von Schlabrendorff, as late as 1972.

Tolstoy once said: "The most gruesome and dangerous superstition is the fatherland, the State."

Even the Father of the Church, Augustine, described the State as a gang of robbers, and although the Roman Catholic Church has often made pacts with the State, it has never submitted to it.

It is well known that Nietzsche called the State the most cold-blooded of all monsters, but it is only little known that the former president of the United States, Herbert Hoover, in a speech made in 1956, declared it to be the most dangerous threat to mankind, not only in countries with a totalitarian State but also in countries with a formal democracy!

"A herd of blond beasts of prey," said Nietzsche, "a race of conquerors and lords, trained for war and with superior organizational ability, lays its terrible claws on a population that may be far superior in numbers but is yet formless and indecisive. This is the beginning of the 'State' on earth."

"The State, as distinct from the tribe," said Lester Ward, "begins with the conquest of one race by another one."  

"Everywhere," says Franz Oppenheimer, "a war-like barbaric tribe breaks through the borders of a less martial people, settles as its aristocracy and establishes its State."

"Forces," says Ratzenhofer, "founded the State."

"The State," says Gumplowicz, "is the result of conquest, the establishment of the victors as the dominating class over the defeated."

"The State," says Sumner, "is the result of force and is maintained by force."

This is the judgment of sociologists and historians.

As a member of the German Parliament, Richard von Weizsaecker, remarked on this in Die Zeit (The Times) of October 27, 1972: "The State is not the only order and by no means total order. It is no consecrated super-ego and does not possess the power of final appeal. However, in all preliminary matters in this world, it has the task to serve man as a supportive power and to make self-realization and freedom, especially the freedom of the weak, possible."

One can and must agree with his first two sentences. Freedom, however, can be nothing other than equal freedom for all (as we have already seen in the previous chapter). One cannot speak of freedom when the freedom of one man is larger than the freedom of others, at their expense and against their will. A condition of equal freedom for all is the only alternative to aggressive force. In order to achieve and maintain this condition, only a purely defensive organization is needed, one that only outlaws any aggressive force and strictly abstains from it. Such an organization does not need any supreme ruler, who would be a contradiction and antithesis to this.

Richard von Weizsaecker failed to recognize that the State does not at all wish to be a servant but rather a master. It claims for itself a privilege of aggressive force (which he calls "monopoly of force") for the realization of all the ideologies and oppressive, as well as patronizing intentions, cherished by those manipulating the levers of the machinery of the State, or rather, of those who give them instructions. Usually they do not know what they are really doing - for their ideological blindness deprives them of a clear perspective.

Through its laws the State legitimizes numerous aggressive and violent acts. In other words, these acts overstep the borders of equal freedom for all and are applied against the will of those concerned. Its aggression - carried out for its own advantage and the advantage of particular groups, against other groups and also against all individuals - is called the "rule of law." At the same time the State describes mere defence against such violent acts (i.e. the defence of the equal freedom of all) as "violence" and prosecutes it, supported by its monopoly of force.

The State never confines itself exclusively to the role of a servant of individuals, to the defence of the equal freedom of all. It does this only as a sideline in special cases which follow directly from the principle of the equal freedom of all (e.g. murder, manslaughter, bodily injury, rape, robbery, theft, extortion) and this, so to speak, only as a cover. For primarily, it establishes and maintains itself in a position of usurped over-lordship - through enlarging the liberties of some at the expense of the freedom of others and against their will and by limiting everybody's freedom for its own advantage.

Since von Weizsaecker recognized quite correctly that the State is not the only form of social order, he should have informed himself about other forms, e.g. in the works of John Henry Mackay, who explains in Der Freiheitsucher (The Freedomseeker), Berlin, 1920:

"What is the State? - A number of people declare a piece of the earth's surface - a certain area - including all that exists above and beneath to be their property and give it the name of a State.

"The inhabitants of this area are called 'nation' or 'people' and it surrounds them with its borders, making a 'fatherland.'

"All people living within these borders, i.e. the citizens or subjects, are subordinated to whatever laws are, for the time being, applied in this State. Whoever does not respect these laws voluntarily, is compelled to do so through the use of force. Accordingly, the State is based on force.

"The State is not the only form of human association. There are others which can be summed up under the name 'society.'

"Now, what is 'society?'

"As its name already expresses, it is an 'association,' the union of a smaller or larger number of people for a certain purpose - basically nothing other than a club. Where two people come together, even if simply for a conversation, they form a society. The forms of these societies and associations are as different as their purposes can be.

"But what is the difference between State and society?

"It is this: that the latter is a free association while the former is not.

"A society includes those people who want to belong to it and who are accepted by it - wherever they come from. A State confines all people living within a certain area, even when they do not want to belong to it. It 'accepts them' even against their will. Indeed, it encloses all those people but it is not a society of 'all' the people.

"In the State a minority is always opposed to a majority: a society remains associated only as long as it wants to stay together.

"If in a society an individual or some members are opposed to it, both the individual and this minority are free - free at any time - to leave it, i.e. to discontinue their membership while staying wherever they live. The State, however, only allows withdrawal when its 'subjects' do not remain where they are, when they leave its area. They are left with only one choice, that of settling in another State and thus of submitting to another majority.

"By leaving, the individual dissolves the society for himself: the State, however, dissolves the individual in itself. When in a society the minority submits to the will of the majority they do so voluntarily: in the State they do so under compulsion because no other possibility is left open to them.

"The State is an association of some people against others. State and society are therefore not similar and equal but completely different concepts which exclude each other. To confound them means to confound and confuse the basis of human social life altogether. They are natural enemies and, consequently, they fight each other constantly. The victory of one means the fall of the other and vice versa.

"The State is the ultimate victor when it has so much absorbed society in itself that it becomes one with it or society one with the State, i.e. when the State has become the society of 'all.' Society is the victor when it ousts the State and takes its place. However, once the State is absorbed into society, it ceases to be a State and becomes a society like any other society.

"Thus Society is a free association - it knows only free and equal members. The State, however, is a forced association - it knows only dominators and dominated, unfree and unequal - subjects.

"The State stands above the individual. It is his master. The Society stands beneath the individual. It is his servant.

"The essence of the State is thus compulsion; the essence of society is freedom.

"To repeat once more: The one is a compulsory association, the other a free one."

These statements by Mackay, which are only brief extracts from much more comprehensive statements, leave little to be desired in clarity. There are, however, minds which, because their ideas are confused - e.g. with regard to the contrary concepts of aggressive and defensive force - or because their notions are manipulated by State education and environment - are unable to understand even the simplest truths, when these do not fit in with their accustomed ways of thinking.

"It is impossible to do without force" is one of the objections. Of course, as already explained above, force is often unavoidable in defence against an aggressor, to repel his aggressive force. But does this mean that force applied by an aggressive power is "necessary"? Who would dare to confess openly a belief in this, the law of the big fist? We have already explained above the objective standard for differentiating between aggression and defence. The "State" in which the rule of law prevails, does indeed restrict the State's aggressive power to certain forms. But it by no means removes its aggressiveness. This follows from the fact that it replaces genuine rights, stemming from free agreements, with frequently changing ones, which rest partly on unprovable ideological assertions and partly on the dictates of an alleged majority. But even when there is an actual majority, whenever its actions overstep the boundary of the equal freedom for all (against the will of those concerned) then this clearly remains a case of aggressive force, merely hiding behind the name of "rights." A truly lawful State ("Rechtsstaat") can only exist by establishing as the basic law the equal freedom of all, with all its consequences as the result of an agreement. However, this would then no longer be a State in the conventional sense, but a free society.

What is actually meant by the so-called "lawful State" ("Rechtsstaat") is only realizable by non-domination. Those today imprisoned in the territorial cages of their various States can so far only dream of this.

The slogan "reasons of State" makes definitely clear that in a final analysis, even the law of the big fist is openly proclaimed whenever the interests of the State (i.e. what is considered such by the ruling "servants of the State") are in conflict with its own lawful order.

Apart from that, the only claim upon "State territory" and the subjection of all those living in this area under the usurped "sovereignty of the law" (which speaks openly of "subjects") is, without a doubt, a monopoly claim against the outside as well as against the inside. Any monopoly, however, which is maintained against the will of those concerned is an aggressive infringement of the equal freedom of all.

The State is a strange entity, relying on the ideology of "people," "fatherland," "nation" and "community," and deriving its absolute claim to domination from these abstractions - behind which stand very specific State functionaries. This entity then attempts to make the individual believe that all this only happens for his own good, protection and advancement.

But by now not all people any longer believe in such phrases. They form their own judgment from their own observations, according to their own experience and based on their own thinking. As Lincoln once said: "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time."

THE MAIN FUNCTION OF THE STATE : SUPPRESSION AND EXPLOITATION (^)

As history teaches, States attained their present-day borders almost without exception through rapacious conquest, that is, by aggressive force. Otherwise, they were established by means of revolutionary force, which so far, without exception, through aggressive means, has created conditions based on the rule of some over others and on unequal freedom for individuals and groups. Where States, in exceptional cases, were established by means of contracts, these were mostly dictated and compulsory. (Genuine contracts must, of course, be based on the free consent of both parties). Even in those rare cases in which a new State arose as a result of a free contract between two old States or between a State and representatives chosen and recognized by the old State for the new State, it was always a new State power which was created, with unequal freedom, with new privileges and monopolies, with rulers and subjects. For the essence of a State lies in aggressive force, externally as well as internally.

Probably only a few are aware that all States, the more or less democratic as well as the totalitarian, are organized according to the gangster principle (protection racket). They offer 'protection' for 'fees' that are one-sidedly set and forcefully collected, regardless of whether those concerned wish this 'protection' or not. Moreover, much more than this 'protection' is forced upon the victims.

Of the more than 250,000 million DM in taxes, for example, which were collected in 1976 in the German Federal Republic, more than 140,000 million DM - i.e. more than 56% - were paid as salary to the approximately 2.8 million public servants and employees in the public sector - all out of the pockets of those who did not receive their income from the State but had to work hard for it themselves in order to finance the civil servants of the State, in their often considerable pomp.

Besides, tax receipts amount only to approximately 80% of the total income of the State, which was estimated to be approximately 303,000 million DM for 1976. The greatest part of the remainder must also be paid by the citizens - under compulsion.

In addition, the State goes into debt at the expense of all citizens: debts on which interest must be paid and which must be amortized in the future by the citizens. In 1976 this amounted to 20,500 million DM due in interest alone.

By means of these debts the German Federal Republic reached a daily expenditure of 1000 million DM in the year 1976, for the total expenses of the Federation, the States and the municipalities amounted to over 360,000 million DM!

Moreover, 33% of wages and incomes is coercively collected as so-called social security contributions for pensions, health and unemployment insurance. These, together with the above-mentioned 35 %, already amount to considerably more than half the gross national product. We thus already have a more than 50 % communistic State economy!

This type of economy differs from that of totalitarian communism less through the private "liberties" it still allows the individual (these are also paper rights rather than real and practicable ones, even though they are still considerable compared with the sphere of freedom for individuals under totalitarianism). It differs especially through the fact that its system of "rights" creates and maintains certain privileges, monopolies and oligopolies by which private groups and individuals are privileged, both legally and actually, in relation to others and put in a position where they can gain high unearned incomes, i.e. by exploiting the labour of other working citizens.

In this case, the "Rechtsstaat" (State in which the rule of law prevails), which always points out the alleged equality of all before the law, acts as an oppressor not only in its own interest but also in the interest of individuals and groups favoured by it.

States monopolize for themselves a certain piece of the earth's surface as well as the airspace above it and the coastal waters, and submit all those living within these limits to whatever "rightful order" has been dictated by a State. This order discriminates against aliens and submits citizens at best to the "legal" dictates of a majority that is always "represented" by a tiny minority - i.e. to domination by a small group. Behind the masks of the "common good," "protection" and "social welfare" is hidden not only the plundering of individuals in a direct way by the State, but an indirect plundering which is just as mischievous: for the State establishes certain institutions and maintains them - institutions which engage in the continuous plunder of the broad masses in favour of a small class of parasites.

The most dangerous means of exploitation is, firstly, the oligopoly of land ownership which is protected by the State. (The State in its state-socialist form and as sole proprietor of land does not eliminate this monopoly, but rather crowns it). Secondly, there is the money monopoly of the State. Any privilege and monopoly or oligopoly that does not have the voluntary consent of all, means a restriction of the equal freedom of all - for the privileged person or the monopolist has, like the ruler, an excess of freedom at the expense of the equal freedom of all.

Property, as is well known, means the right to deal with a thing as one pleases. The so-called social obligation of property expressed in the Constitution of the German Federal Republic (an imposed "duty! Its use shall serve at the same time the public welfare") is not only an ideological demand in itself but can be defined arbitrarily according to one's ideology regarding both concepts' "public" as well as "welfare."

Not every property constitutes at the same time a monopoly. One must especially distinguish between property in goods which can be multiplied (even if not without limit) and property which, like land and natural resources, is available only in limited quantities. One must especially differentiate between property in the product of one's labour (or in what was exchanged for the product of one's own work) and property in what nature offers free to all, without labour, such as land and natural resources. In this, the basic substance offered by nature must, again, be distinguished from property which is acquired by improving land and by the mining and processing of natural resources.

Land - which is in limited supply and is becoming continuously more valuable as population increases (and also varies greatly according to the quality of soil, resources and especially location) - is one of the so-called natural monopoly goods.

As a source of food and raw materials, and the site for any production, land is an indispensable foundation for the existence of every human being, not different from air. One need only imagine air - similar to land today-being the property of a relatively small minority. Then the great majority would be subject to tributes, e.g. in such a way that each man would have to walk about with a measuring device in front of his nose and would have to pay for his air consumption! This idea is no more absurd than the contemporary "right" of land ownership.

Its essence lies in the fact that the proprietor of land may not only use a parcel of land for his personal cultivation or habitation but may also exclude others from utilizing an area far greater than he himself needs. It allows him to impose tributes upon them which they must continuously pay. These appear not only openly in rent and lease contracts, but are hidden in the prices of all goods and amount, fundamentally, to nothing other than a modern kind of slavery. This means, especially, that a great percentage of values created by others may be placed in his own pocket because they increased the value of his real estate. This is the reality of the alleged "equal" rights and duties of citizens.

The straightforward exploitation of certain people by others has, however, inescapable further consequences whereby this exploitation is enormously increased.

One need only imagine two men, each cultivating an equally large and valuable piece of land and requiring all their strength to do this. Apart from some exceptions, their incomes and property will be largely the same. If, however, one of them possesses an additional large tract of land as "property," an area which he cannot cultivate by himself but which he can block against the equally justified claims of others, then, by means of this absurd "right," he may extract so much rent and lease income from the non-owner (for whom the use of this land is vitally necessary) that his income will now soon exceed that of the other owner. Thus he can fast accumulate a rapidly growing capital out of this extorted unearned income and may then so much increase his own productivity through its investment that he will soon by-pass the other or even destroy him through competition.

The larger the land areas are whose use is blocked off by the scandalous as well as absurd property "rights" in land, and the greater the natural resources are, the more one may raise the price of produce and minerals merely by preventing the utilization of this land. As a monopolist or an oligopolist, one may thus exact an unearned income which increases one's power more and more.

Since land is a possession which cannot be increased and always becomes increasingly rare in keeping with increased demand, present property "rights" in land - brought about and maintained by the State - allow a minority, among this an even smaller and especially favoured class, to pocket unearned income from their real estate, continuously, in the form of a so-called land rent, which represents one of the main sources of great differences in wealth. For what enriches some as an undeserved extra, must be taken from the product of the work of others. Thus some become richer and richer at the expense of those who, consequently, cannot get ahead.

The exclusion of most people from equal access to land, by means of the property of a few - this monopolizing of an indispensable foundation for life - leads to continuous exploitation affecting all prices. The consequences of this are recognized only by very few. It brings about enormous increases in value, due to the increased demand arising from the continuously growing number of people. This price increase is supported by a fraudulent currency policy, which has included an even greater demand for real estate. All this has led to a hundredfold increase and even more in the price of land. In Munich, for example, the increase from 1950 to 1970 was (on the average) 2,000%.

Simultaneously, due to increased land value, land rent increases proportionately. Moreover, this forms an essential part in the price of all products (N.B. of all products), not only of produce, and so must be paid by all consumers, and not by the tenants and leaseholders alone.

The exclusion of the great majority from free and equal access to land goes beyond this plundering and exploitation, since land is also one of the most important means of production. This leads directly to unemployment (which otherwise could not exist at all) as well as, through dependence upon land, to dependence upon other capital owners whose resources originally were almost entirely derived from land rent and from rent and lease incomes.

One should be clearly aware of the fact that the unequal distribution of wealth arose from land property and is still nourished by it even today, and that this has brought about what has been called capitalism.

With the development of technology and industry, the power and capital strength of the landed proprietors, especially of the large ones, grew still further. Besides owning the land as a means of production, which they had cultivated by dependent people on low wages, they could now also invest the capital goods produced. Thus the productivity of land was extraordinarily multiplied, the number of agricultural workers was reduced, and more and more people were closed off from the land. Moreover, due to vast capital superiority, completely new forms and possibilities of exploitation were opened up. The closure of land by the proprietors drove the property-less agricultural proletariat into the towns, where they provided cheap labour for the manufacturers whose capital was originally and almost exclusively derived from the land rent paid to the great landed proprietors.

Without property in land, capitalism, as we know it, would never have developed.

Even today, when the production of capital goods has reached immense importance on its own, besides land as the natural means of production, an essential and steadily increasing part of the inequality of wealth is due to land rent which, in the industrialized states, is now increasingly derived from urban real estate.

Professor Franz Oppenheimer has lent a totally new aspect to the land question, which is so underestimated by city dwellers - even though they especially suffer from the fact that this most important means of production is connected not only with the production of all produce and minerals but also with the provision of dwellings and industrial buildings, so influencing every consumption and every production. If free access for everyone to the most indispensable of all means of production had not been cut off, capitalism could not have arisen or persisted.

This was already pointed out by Marx in the final chapter of the first volume of his Capital. (Admittedly, he did not draw the right conclusions). There he reports the story of a noble Englishman, named Peel, who took several thousand working class people and an enormous quantity of capital goods to Australia in order to exploit an immense land property according to all the rules of the art of capitalism. But the workers had scarcely landed when they disappeared, took land outside of Peel's property, and worked for themselves, while not one servant stayed behind to get water or make the bed for the poor lord. His whole capital was of no use to him.

"In the colonies, the wage-earner of today becomes an independent self- managing farmer or tradesman tomorrow. He disappears from the labour market, but not into the workhouse. Where every settler can turn a piece of land into his private property and capital possession, capitalism cannot arise." (Thus said Marx, in the above-mentioned passage).

Thus it is not the private possession of means of production as such - which in the above case was of no use at all to the landowner - but rather the blocking of free access for everyone to the means of production which leads the majority into dependence on the few privileged monopolists and oligopolists and makes them subject to tributes through rent, interest and monopoly profits.

Rousseau clearly pointed out: "The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, declared that this land was now his and found people simple enough to believe him, was the founder of the modern State" (A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality). For who is it that "legalizes" and protects the oligopoly of land and enables the shameless exploitation of the great majority by a small minority? It is the State, whose role as a representative of the interests of a minority against the vital interests of a majority becomes quite obvious here.

The original robbery of every man by the State, by means of the State's power, takes place even at his birth - with the exception of those who are granted a profitable privilege (landed property) at the expense of others. The individual is born helplessly into a so-called "rightful" order which has nothing in common with true rights (which would mean free agreements based on equal freedom for all) but, on the contrary, has established the privileged claim of a minority (based not on demonstrable genuine right) to an essential economic commodity and means of production. This, as a gift of nature, can equally be claimed for use by everybody, without exception. It will be elaborated in Chapter Seven how this claim, combined with assured equal access to land, can be realized for everyone. By these means, "public welfare" would be achieved, not in the fraudulent form practiced today, but in the only possible way. At the same time, the problem of land rent will be solved most appropriately.

Here one must first make clear that the State in no way guarantees true equality of rights for the individual. On the contrary, the worst abominations are cleverly hidden behind "equality before the law," and some people, by means of privileges, monopolies, and oligopolies, are actually reduced to paying tribute to others. They are subjected to "rightful" as well as actual domination not only by functionaries of the State but by especially privileged groups of citizens.

These functions of subjection and exploitation by the State are veiled by means of the nationalization of schooling and the other spheres of influence of the State - in order to maintain not only widespread ignorance of its real nature and true main function but also in order to implant a completely wrong image of them in all as yet uncritical minds. Concerning this, see Dr. Walther Borgius (Die Schule - Ein Frevel an der Jugend - The School - A Crime against Youth, Berlin, 1930).

Dr. Borgius states here (and also proves through a wealth of material): "The school is a cunning instrument of the State for the imposition of domination. It was established, or rather usurped, from similar structures provided by dangerous competitors, such as churches, cities and private associations, in order to accustom all members of the State to obedience from childhood, to suggest to them the necessity of the State, to paralyze every idea of emancipation in its beginnings, to lead the development of their thinking into well-ordered paths, and to drill them to be humble subjects who can be easily ruled."

This also explains why otherwise quite intelligent minds are simply blind to the most evident facts. Who of those, for instance, who of all their fatherland own only the soil in their flowerpots, know or have drawn the conclusion that even in the densely populated German Federal Republic approximately 4,000 square meters of land surface exist per head and that of these about 3,000 sq. m. are usable, while world-wide there are even 25,000 sq. m. per person, including even children and old people?

There are very few people who have the least notion that 1,500 sq. m. of land are already sufficient to provide the average food requirements of a person, and this with only eight weeks of labour distributed over a whole year! The remaining 44 weeks remain to cover the further needs of life.

Thus, if each family and each individual in the German Federal Republic had a completely equal claim to the use of land and its resources (which they could even extend world-wide, seeing that they would not have to limit themselves to the area of the German Federal Republic) everyone would have at his disposal far more land than would be sufficient, without having to disadvantage anybody thereby. The basic requirements for shelter and food (also clothing) would be covered, just as nature provides these needs for each free-living animal - and this in complete independence from any "employers," guardians, rulers or "welfare workers." In this way alone all forms of unemployment would become impossible and all idle babble about there being too few jobs and that these should, therefore, be "distributed," would be revealed as foolish.

There is never any lack of opportunity for work, since people's needs are unlimited and all human labour is never sufficient to satisfy them completely. All contemporary unemployment rests solidly on the fact that the persons concerned are prevented from working by aggressive force - and this, to a significant degree, indeed largely, by excluding them from equal use of the main means of production: land.

They are excluded by the State, which allegedly guarantees the equality and welfare of all - while it "legitimizes" for a minority, the gifts of nature by privileged claims which cannot be justified at all (since air cannot be "bought" either, in order to extract tribute from others). It does this by simply clothing its bare aggressive force in fraudulent "rights." One should note here that those States which do not legitimize land privileges for individuals and groups, but act as sole landowners representing alleged collective interest, are no less aggressive and violent towards the individual and all people.

The above-sketched effects of this original robbery led to more and more pronounced differences between the poor and the rich, to enormous difference in wealth, to new possibilities of exploitation (which are protected by the State in the same way as the ownership of land), to unemployment, economic crises and the misery and oppression of many people. All this then serves as a pretext for the State to act as a refuge, protector, and welfare institution for those who were thus disadvantaged, and to justify an abundance of further oppressive interventions into the equal freedom of all, via its alleged indispensability. But only the elimination of the original robbery, for which the State is responsible, would prevent the development of such conditions!

It is thus fundamentally important to secure equal access to land and its use for everybody.

Even more fatal - and again for the benefit of a mere minority only - is the money monopoly usurped by the State.

Since an economy based on the division of labour cannot exist without a means of exchange - unless it is a command economy of rulers and subjects - this monopolization facilitates the continuous exaction of interest, which far exceeds the costs of production and administration of this means of exchange.

The interest or discount rate, arbitrarily set by the Central Bank, determines only the minimum rate which must be paid as interest by those holding loans. Since the Central Bank uses its monopoly, among other things, to place money not directly at the disposal of working men, but exclusively with banks (thus allowing an oligopoly), the discount rate is paid only by such banks, which in turn and on the average, charge at least double and often more than three-fold this amount for interest. Moreover, each debtor is also debited with various fees.

Besides, banking is so privileged by the State and so bound about by regulations that banks are entitled to create money, existing only in accounting ledgers, in limited but considerable amounts. For this money they may also extract interest which far exceeds the production and administration costs of a free means of exchange.

What sums are involved can be measured by the following fact: when financing new homes, the generous helpers who provide the means of exchange (i.e. the house-building credit) as a rule receive more money in interest than all the construction costs combined.

The builder must, therefore, pay the price of two, or sometimes even three, houses in order to own one. The difference, the value of one or two other houses, is pocketed by these generous helpers, partly as unearned income, partly as an excessive reward for a service which was screened against any risk. Consequently, up to 80% of housing rent consists of interest and land rent.

It should also be evident that a rise in the interest rate raises the land rent at the same time: thus interest has a far wider effect than rent.

A further consequence is that the price of all products includes up to 50% for interest and land rent.

In order to understand this, one has to remember that, due to technological advances an always growing share falls to the investment for plant improvement and a smaller and smaller share to human labour.

In most areas of the economy today a capital investment of DM 150,000 - or more, corresponds to one work place. This means: first of all, before anyone who is dependently employed may receive a ware or a salary [the average earnings in the German Federal Republic amount to approximately 1,870 DM gross or 1,350 DM net a month, in 1975], the interest claim for the capital investment per work place must be satisfied. Otherwise, the employee can neither be employed nor earn anything.

This interest must be paid by the entrepreneur to the creditor lending the money if the work is done with outside capital. This costs him approximately 9% (in times of relatively low interest rates). Alternatively, if he provides the capital himself, he must debit the average interest rate in his books. Otherwise, he would be better off to lend his capital to others and to pocket an unearned income for himself.

Consequently, for each 1,350 DM which the entrepreneur pays out as wages or salary, more than 1,100 DM (13,500 DM interest divided by 12) has to be paid as the share of interest in the proceeds from production.

This relationship becomes less favourable for the employee by the fact that an average rate means, at best, that at any given time, 50% lies above and 50% below it. In the latter case, gross income may vary around 1,600 DM and net income around 1,100 DM. Actually, however, the income distribution curve runs in such a way that a greater number of incomes are below average and opposed by a quite small number of high incomes. Consequently, approximately two-thirds lie below the officially calculated average.

Moreover, apart from rent, the price of the product contains monopoly profit for the entrepreneur also (besides his working income). It results from the fact that employees today, as a rule, neither own the required capital nor are they credit-worthy enough to be able to manage without the entrepreneur.

Without this situation there would be no land rent and no interest, or at least not as high interest as today. Then the workers could pocket for themselves (seeing that in the price of the raw materials there are also corresponding shares of land rent, interest, and monopoly gains) at least approximately double the amount of today's actual average of 1,350 DM, or even without compulsory taxes and enforced social security deductions, far more than 3,000 DM per month.

It is evident that with such average incomes any governmental "social security policy" would be completely unnecessary.

One should realize that an employee gets paid only a small part of what he could have earned because, apart from interest, land rent and the monopoly profits of the entrepreneur, the State also takes a considerable share (22% for the minimum tax rate and 33% for the social security contributions - seeing that the entrepreneurs' share is part of the working salary) for taxes and social security contributions. From the tattered remainder, when it is consumed, again about half the amount goes to those pocketing interest and land rents (since a corresponding share of these is part of every price). Thus it becomes quite clear what an immense pillage has been effected by the money monopoly created and maintained by the State, besides that brought about by the land oligopoly. The maintenance of this situation is the main function of the State.

Because not only the entire production but also nearly all consumption is thus loaded with the proportion of interest in all prices - these tributes running into the thousands of millions, and all flowing as unearned income to a minority of privileged people - there follow, as with land rent - some far-reaching consequences which make the rich richer and the poor more dependent on them.

The small earners of interest are not at all aware that, on an average, they have to pay double what they receive in interest in all prices paid by them. This follows from the difference between the interest paid by banks to depositors and the interest they charge to their debtors, who pass this burden on to all prices.

As the recipients of interest and land rents are unable to consume their unearned income, their capital power and monopoly position is continually strengthened, while those owing tribute to them are never in a position to accumulate corresponding capital.

This legalized plunder - which harms employees without independent means, after these, small savers and then, especially, pensioners, who are particularly hard hit - is, nevertheless, still not the worst effect of the State's money monopoly. Its far worse consequence is that the interest economy thereby perpetuates itself and that at the same time the general standard of living is kept far below its possible level.

Since, for the use of its monopolized means of exchange, the State demands an interest rate which exceeds the cost of the production and administration of this currency, which amount only to a fraction of one per cent, the following effect occurs: when growing productivity creates so much real capital (the so-called means of production) that its growing supply begins to force the interest rate down, the offer of money (i.e. credit) is withdrawn for the time being, so stopping further production until the interest rate rises again. In the long run, it cannot fall below the discount rate of the Central Bank plus the common additional rate of the banks. Private creditors know this and act correspondingly. Thus, monopoly interest is an obstacle which effects and maintains that scarcity of capital by which interest is caused and "justified."

A small minority thus becomes rich and richer, at increasing speed, without having to move one finger, while the great majority (and among them not only those who have to pay interest themselves but all employees and consumers) never achieve much wealth, and the production of means of production as well as of consumer products is kept far below its possible level.

The trade unions, influenced by Marx' theory of surplus value, have recognized only a minor source of exploitation and not at all its main course. They see evil only in employers' profits. In this, they overlook how large a share of what otherwise would appear as reward for labour is eaten up by interest and rent (plus direct confiscation by the powers of the State). Instead of fighting not only against the excessive profits of employers but also against interest (thereby lowering prices, which would also mean increased incomes), they often raise the prices by claims that are justified in themselves but which, in part, can only be fulfilled at the expense of interest. For the employer is under strong pressure to pay interest for outside capital or to close down his firm. In the relatively rare case where he works exclusively with his own capital, he would be foolish if he made it available free of interest as long as the interest economy continues, for he could live without work and worry if he closed his firm and invested his capital in others for interest.

Of course, interest cannot be abolished from one day to the next (though the monopoly of the Central Bank can be!), or reduced to what corresponds to the effective cost of the production and administration of the means of exchange. For interest results not merely from the monopolistic surcharge of the Central Bank upon these costs but, as mentioned, also from the fact that through the obstructive nature of interest (effected again, by the Central Bank) available real capital has hitherto remained far beneath the amount that would have been possible and necessary. As long as the demand for real capital remains greater than the supply a surcharge (interest) will follow. This interest, though, will fall with free competition in the issue of means of exchange while the backlog of real capital is overcome.

Recently, Professor F. A. Hayek, monetary expert and 1974 Nobel Laureate, also proposed to destroy the money monopoly of governments and central banks since they misuse it under political pressure. It should be left to the free choice of the citizens what type of money they want to use and in what currency they want to carry out transactions (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20th of January 1976).

Moreover, it must be noted that because of the deduction of interest from what would have been working income, employees can never buy with their wages all the products they have manufactured, while entrepreneurs and recipients of interest and land rents usually make higher profits than they can ever consume even through luxury purchases. This necessarily leads to reduced consumer demand and to sales difficulties which reduce production even further than the obstacle of interest does in any case.

The law of profitability dictates that not what is actually needed is produced, but only those things which provide the required interest besides the land rent (i.e. what is "profitable"). Any production that would not produce the usual interest and land rent, besides the other costs, is thus prevented. A large amount of possible production thus does not take place.

Each additional percentage of interest raises the profit margin and prevents more potential production. Similarly, each percentage of decreased interest lowers the profit margin and enables correspondingly increased production, which otherwise would have been impossible because, due to the higher interest rate, it would not have been profitable. The industrial economist Schmalenbach said correctly that, if the interest rate were zero, it would be profitable to cultivate citrus fruits in greenhouses at the North Pole.

The Central Bank, moreover, through so-called "monetary policy," brings about alternately inflation and deflation. Then, by arbitrarily raising and lowering interest rates, it attempts to compensate for the mistakes made by these policies. How unsuccessful the central banks are in this is obvious when one considers worldwide inflation today. It is also manifest that the central banks are either incapable or unwilling to stabilize the value of currency - which could easily be achieved with a non-monopolistic means of exchange.

Naturally, inflation drives the interest rate still higher, since it makes it possible to pay off debts with depreciated money (a possibility very eagerly used by States themselves). At the same time, inflation robs savers of thousands of millions of Marks (especially the small savers who are unable to evade it by investment in real values). (Savers in the German Federal Republic have annually suffered losses of purchasing power amounting to 20 to 30 thousand million DM). At the same time, it plays into the hands of owners of large amounts of capital. For these receive, from the banks, the money of the small savers. They can invest it in lasting capital goods, while they can pay it back with depreciated money. Because of inflation it becomes still more difficult for small savers to attain any wealth worth talking about.

Then, when the Central bank once again changes over to a deflationary policy, numerous small and medium-sized firms go bankrupt and cease to be competitors for the large firms or are cheaply bought up by them.

In either case, a destruction of capital takes place for both small and moderate savers. Capital thus remains scarce, and the profit of the large owners of capital, as well as dependence upon them, is more secure than ever.

In full knowledge of these facts, almost all States are moving towards continuous inflation as they do not know or do not want to know any other means to achieving full employment - while full employment could be reached quite automatically by dropping all privileges and monopolies, especially those of the State as their originator and protector.

The absurdity of "unemployment" and the "creation of work" finds its final cause in the State alone. There is neither a lack of unfulfilled needs nor of people capable and willing to work to fulfill these needs. Instead, institutions created and defended by the State (especially the money monopoly and the land oligopoly) prevent those concerned from working and force them into an unworthy, dependent state of subjugation. People who "can" work are also in this subjugation as they are exposed to continuous robbery.

These conditions are not only in the interest of a privileged minority, about which Woodrow Wilson (who as President of the U.S. must have known) said: "The true lords of our government are the capitalists and industrialists of the United States, who are closely associated with each other." Fritz Berg, President of the Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (Federal Association of German Industry), expressed the same idea as follows: "We businessmen can further the negotiations of our government or let them fail."

Instead, and increasingly, special exploitation is due to "State servants" who have obtained for themselves an abundance of privileges over the "subjects of their legal sovereignty," especially as their numbers have approximately doubled during the last 25 years and are increasing by approximately 3% a year. Really productive work, or at least work indirectly furthering the productivity of the economy, is done only on a small scale by these State servants. On the other hand, numerous activities undertaken by them aim at actually hindering productivity and maintain that mechanism for oppression and exploitation which is the main purpose of the State.

Staff expenditures for public services amounted to only 6,000 million DM in 1950. By 1974 they had already reached 109,000 million DM, while by 1975 they rose to no less than 134,600 million DM and by 1976 they claimed more than 56% of all taxes.

They are remarkable "servants," too, insofar as the average income in the public service was more than 30% above the average income for the whole economy (that is above that of those for whose welfare these "servants" supposedly work). Besides this, there are other advantages for officials: e.g. automatic promotion, job security, pension schemes far superior to normal pensions, and numerous hidden fringe benefits.

Calculations using average figures always hide the fact that by so-called "structural changes" (up-grading of positions and the expansion of higher positions) the number of members in the upper levels was greatly increased, and out of all proportion. There are, relatively, more and more ministerial advisors and directors compared with fewer and fewer inspectors, secretaries, and office clerks. In salary negotiations, those with the smallest incomes (they are sometimes quite modest) are placed in the forefront in order to achieve percentage raises which proportionally increase the already excessive incomes - in particular branches of the public service and especially in its higher ranks. Parliamentary representatives sit pretty in this, as if in a self-service restaurant. Moreover, for a long time now, members of the public service among them have represented a secure majority.

Thus, under the fraudulent notion of "public welfare," every year tens of thousands of millions of DM are pocketed by people, especially those in top positions, who are mainly responsible for the exploitation by "capitalists" which occurs under the protection and direct command of the State. At the same time, and in much more direct form, they operate their own additional exploitation, too. With a monthly income of approximately 10,000 DM and increasingly without risk, and also with a corresponding pension, this class of parasites is quite capable of evoking envy even from most capitalists and, above all - with very few exceptions - from entrepreneurs.

THE STATE AS CARETAKER AND PATRON (^)

Public education today gives most people a completely false image of the State. The propaganda of special interest groups contributes to this false image. These groups use the State machinery for gaining advantage at the expense of others. "Wake up, fools of this State, you who are still forced to attend these schools!" said Fritz Rodewald, National President of the Association of Young Teachers and Educators in the German Trade Union for Education and Science.

In this depiction of the State, which makes it look harmless, its oppression and exploitation functions are never spoken of - although they are its main and historically provable functions. In this image, the State appears only in a benevolent light, as a protector or even as a helper. It is true that in the historical development of the State the functions of oppression and exploitation have often been intermingled, right from the beginning, with the protective and benevolent functions, though with a strong preponderance of exploitation and oppression.

Originally, usually as a result of war, the conquering State was forced upon the defeated. But gradually the conquering State also granted some rights to its subjects, partly to prevent them from revolting, partly to gain more willing helpers for new campaigns of conquest and plunder. Otherwise, individual in a dull and only half-felt awareness of their egos, associated voluntarily in semi-statist associations, to protect and secure themselves against invasion and looting by others. Then a warrior cast arose and gradually gained privileges proportionate to: a) the relief felt by peasants and artisans about being freed from the burden of military service and: b) the spread of the centralized organization of warfare.

As the States gained strength, it was principally in the interest of the central power not to let feudal lords become too strong. This led to a situation in which the broad masses were promised protection against individual arbitrary acts. Sometimes even positive services were offered in order to gain followers.

Today much fuss is made about the "social welfare" function of the State. However, a fundamental fact must be noted: the State is unproductive and can give only what it has previously taken. It even returns much less, for a huge bureaucracy lives on the takings, and it lives far better indeed than those "provided for." Apart from this, the following facts should also be considered.

The State as an instrument of social justice is an illusion, quite apart from the fact that "justice" is a very elastic, ideological concept. An agreement about its contents, is therefore, impossible. Either government re-distribution of income through taxes and subsidies is justified by the fact that those from whom their income is taken have acquired it by wrong-doing, or it is not just towards them. In the first case, it would be more correct to remove the causes which allowed those people to obtain their income in an unjustified manner (as was outlined before). It should never happen that such causes are created and maintained by the State which make an exploitation possible in the first place, and which are then partly compensated for by "social measures."

It is an illusion that the State forces the rich to support the poor with their excess wealth. Moreover, it is precisely the State that causes the growing gap between rich and poor, and this by means of its so-called "rightful order" which is, in reality, a coercive order. Prosperity in the industrial countries of the West is only very relative and is above all achieved by a higher degree of employment compared with the past, especially through the employment of women.

When comparing wages and salaries before World War II with the prices of that time, one notices that today's real incomes have not essentially changed: prices have increased approximately to the same extent as wages and salaries. Capital incomes, however, have increased much more, which is not surprising, seeing the increasing role of capital in production and that capital continually increases by itself in today's monopoly economy.

Whereas employees must pay their taxes in full since they are deducted directly from wages and salaries on pay day, for the self-employed the State has left numerous back doors open to save "taxes." In many cases they are quite openly granted exemptions under the pretence of promoting investment. This, in practice, favours only a minority of the privileged people, as most people do not possess any considerable capital which they could invest.

"Thus this minority accumulates more and more wealth at the expense of the great majority."

In the U.S. it was recently revealed that, for example, 112 persons with incomes in excess of $200,000 in 1970 paid no income tax at all for that year. The multi-millionaire Jean Paul Getty paid several thousands of dollars in income tax in spite of a yearly income of $100 million.

In particular, it is an illusion that the broad masses are granted anything by "social welfare" offered by the State, especially in medical and old age insurance. On the contrary: under the pretence of "social welfare," several times as much is taken from them as is finally given back to them. The contributor is deceived as to the actual total of his burden by naming half of the social security contributions the "employer's share," whereas it is actually nothing other than a part of his wage or salary which would be paid to him if he were not subjected to these compulsory contributions.

Let us consider the average gross earnings of employees which amounted, in 1975, to 1,860 DM a month, according to the Federal Bureau for Statistics. Of this, 33%, i.e. 620 DM a month, goes for insurance (18% for pensions, 12% for health insurance, and 3% for unemployment insurance). This is a payment by the person cornered into some kind of compulsory savings account for emergencies. But in these emergencies he gets back only a small part of what he contributed himself. By no means does he receive any gift.

Six-hundred-and-twenty DM a month, or 7,400 DM a year amounts (even without any interest) in 40 to 50 working years to 297,600 to 372,000 DM. With interest considered "normal" - which is enforced by the money monopoly as the lowest limit and, of course, with the far higher interest rates of today, the amount would double every 20 to 25 years. That means that after the first 20 to 25 years, there are already 297,600 to 372,000 DM available, instead of 148,000 to 186,000 DM. After a further 20 to 25 years, 595,200 to 744,000 DM have already accumulated after the payments of the first 20 to 25 years. The payments of the second 20 to 25 years and their doubling add another 297,600 to 372,000 DM.

This proves clearly enough what fraud nowadays is committed through the alleged social welfare measures of the State and what blatant exploitation of the compulsorily insured is hidden by it. These people are actually expropriated by an amount often surpassing one million DM under the mask of "social welfare." Whatever they get back in case of unemployment (for which, in the end, they also owe "thanks" to the State), sickness, and old age, is evidently only a small portion of those amounts, while considerable amounts remain for capital formation.

That this is not the case today, particularly with medical insurance, that, instead, contributions are increased again and again, is due to a huge bureaucracy that lives a parasitic life on thousands of millions of Marks and to the fact that this compulsory system seduces doctors as well as the insured to waste these immense funds. Respectable and responsible people are thus especially exploited by corrupt and unscrupulous ones.

This scandal is partly covered up by the slow and sometimes galloping inflation conducted by the State which, in combination with corresponding legislation, makes it impossible for private insurance companies to become effective competitors for the compulsory institutions. (Nevertheless, the private ones are marvelously efficient compared with the others, in spite of this handicap). For compulsory public insurance bodies can simply cover inflation losses by dipping into the treasury, that is to say, by a new plunder of those already expropriated by "social welfare."

The above-mentioned amounts were calculated using today's usual interest rate, with which the insurance companies also reckon when they invest their money. After the abolition of the State's money monopoly, interest will finally disappear, i.e. be reduced to the costs of issuing and administering money, plus an adequate risk premium to cover the credit risk.

Then we should also expect a simultaneous increase in working incomes to at least double the present amounts. Prices will fall at the same time by the amounts of interest and land rent they contain. Most important of all, productivity will increase considerably.

Most people live under the false impression that their contributions paid for old age insurance during their working lives do actually accumulate in a growing fund out of which their pensions are paid when they retire. This, however, is definitely not the case, since the entire reserve fund - if one can speak of one at all - comprises little more than the amount for three months' pensions. Everything else the person concerned has paid in during his lifetime is no longer there when his own pension claim falls due. It has been spent to cover the current pension claims of others that were due earlier. The doubtful "security" of his pension relies exclusively on the fact that the State hopes to be able, in the future also, to compel, by means of its power, the younger generations to cover these obligations which it has taken up at other people's expense. When the income from current contributions in this highly unreliable system (for which a private person would promptly be imprisoned if he practiced it) is no longer sufficient to cover the current obligations because of a fall in the population or in the number of those employed, then the State simply increases the contributions and taxes at the cost of those who then happen to be taxpayers and contributors. This is called by the State a "community based on solidarity." (A volunteer community is, of course, something quite different from this compulsory association). By means of it, the State itself (i.e. its "servants" and "parasites") lives very well indeed.

The "social welfare" of the State is thus only a link in the chain of frauds committed by the State. It is the same as the "care" of the State for the individual in general.

The tutelage of the individual under the State during his whole life, from birth to death, compels him, initially, to attend school. This - as already proven (by the above-mentioned Dr. Walther Borgius in Die Schule - ein Frevel an der Jugend - The School - A Crime against Youth, Berlin, 1930) and also by Dr. Gustav Grossman in Ferner Liefen - Also Ran, Munich, 1963, serves not the interest of the students, but primarily those of the State in raising obedient subjects. The ridiculously meager success of public education in relation to the time spent and the costs involved could be achieved much more effectively, with more rational teaching methods, in a quarter of the time or even less as has likewise been shown.

Afterwards, the thus prepared citizen enters - mostly after having been conscripted into military or substitute servitude - a working life that not only subjugates him as socially subordinate, even as a social slave (all under the pretext of "social welfare") that not only exposes him to plunder by the monopolies and privileges created and maintained by the State, but also to continuous robbery by the State itself, under many different guises.

Armament expenditures in the German Federal Public alone every year require 540 DM per head for a family of four. That is, it requires 2,160 DM. Related to the average net income of an employee, i.e. 1,350 DM, this means that the provider of a family of four has to work for more than one-and-a-half months every year just for armaments.

The total burden of all federal, State, and local government taxes (without the public debts which the State also charges to all citizens!) runs to no less than 4,100 DM per head, i.e. 16,400 DM for a family of four. They are higher than what remains for the family to live on.

It should be noted that this is only a calculation in averages. The above-mentioned tax burden is partly contained in a correspondingly higher gross income. Otherwise, it is distributed either on incomes under higher tax progression or on taxes on capital incomes and properties and on value-added and consumer goods taxes. The importance of the latter is usually underestimated. With the taxes on capital incomes and property it must be taken into account that this kind of income was already a burden on earned incomes because of the monopolistic economy. In the end, these taxes are thus also a burden on incomes from work.

In the minimum case, i.e. when someone has only an average income (that is, is in a low tax bracket), the medical, pension and unemployment insurance contributions alone (correctly calculated with the so-called employer's portion) take 33%, and income tax takes at least another 22% of the proper income, the gross income. Moreover, all expenses - apart from the taxes on consumption - are burdened with a value added tax - which averages 17 % according to official estimates. The minimum burden demanded by the State thus comprises approximately three quarters of the gross working income and becomes far larger in cases of higher tax progression.

Once again: every State, even in the so-called "free" Western countries, forces through these practices an essentially communist economy upon those in its sphere of power. (By the way, the People's Republic of China claims only 40% of incomes as a State levy).

One must also take into account that gross income represents only the remainder, i.e. approximately 50%, of one's earnings after interest and land rent (both caused by the intervention of the State) are deducted from the proper earnings of every individual. The State puts half the amount into the pockets of the privileged and the monopolists, and from the other half it takes, "for the welfare" of the State's slaves, approximately three quarters, so that finally only approximately one-eighth of the proper earnings remain. In other words, for ten- and-a-half months every year, modern man works as a slave of the State and society, and of the small class of people privileged by the State. From the earnings of the other one-and-a-half months, he must pay his own and his family's support for the whole year. Then the State gives him friendly encouragement to build up his property out of this meager remnant.

A selection of significant facts about the "sozialen Rechtsstaat" ("social lawful State") was gathered by Charlotte Rothweiler in her booklet Ein Sozialer Rechtsstaat (A Lawful Social State), Frankfurt/M., 1971. But one would have to write a thick volume to give even a reasonable survey of the partly rapacious, partly fraudulent and partly quite absurd practices of the real persons who hide as representatives and "servants" behind the notion of the State. The State could also be defined, in very mild terms, as an organization with the legal and mutual practice of pocket-picking.

Indeed, because of "democracy" the modern State is not just a government structure with the single purpose of exploitation (although, as explained, this remains its main purpose). "Democracy" might be considered as one of the first steps towards non-domination, but it is also a machine whose levers are manipulated by numerous contesting interests. What results from this was demonstrated by the irrefutable figures stated above.

It was also mentioned that it is obviously absurd to plunder the masses by means of an expensive apparatus which gives unfair advantage to those having unearned incomes and then tries to reimburse the exploited with a fraction of the booty by means of a still more expensive apparatus. The "paternalistic State" does not truly care for its "children" out of fatherly love, unless one understands by "children" those to whom it has given privileges and monopolies.

For example, in the "social housing policy" rents were initially reduced by interest subsidies from the State (taken in taxes especially from those people who were to benefit from government housing). Then a situation arose in which the rents of the "social" housing projects were considerably higher than those of the freely financed ones. The subsidies of the State were mainly benefiting those who received the excessive interest and supported the maintenance of these excessively high interest rates.

The same happens with the so-called "Wohngeld" (rent subsidy). Apart from the controlling and dispensing bureaucracy, primarily those benefited who receive these rent subsidies in order to ensure them their full profit from land rent and interest (i.e. the landlords to whom the tenants must immediately forward the rent subsidy).

It is difficult not to write a satire on this.

Within the State there are already smart pupils of the State's practice. Special interest groups, for example, realize their desires for higher subsidies, higher wages, or shorter working hours - regardless of those concerned. In this, even small groups may blackmail society by paralyzing vital services - the mail, the railway, airlines or key industries. In England, at one and the same time, the employees of the power stations demanded a 37% increase in wages, the garbage collectors 43%, Ford workers 50%, and agricultural workers 60%, regardless of the fact that the price increases thus caused must be borne by workers in weaker positions, pensioners, many self-employed people and numerous savers.

Pressure groups have assured for themselves influence upon legislation through lobbies, in a great variety of forms and in many entangled ways and bypasses, all for the ruthless realization of their own interest, regardless of the interests of others. Not only that, they have also put members of the government or the administration under "pressure" by means ranging from mild corruption to harsh extortion. Whatever is revealed of this is comparable only to the tip of an iceberg whose main mass remains invisible.

Such associations not only make themselves at home in government and administration, but by means of public corporations, also establish their own parallel governments withdrawn from all parliamentary control. This happens under harmless-sounding formulas such as "justice" and "welfare," or even under noble terms, all legally established. Thus, for instance, institutions like Medical Associations and Insurance Doctors' Associations become privileged by receiving a monopoly as public bodies, which not only ensures massive material advantages to certain interest groups, but has multiple negative effects for most of the population. A report in Der Spiegel (No. 11-14, 1972) entitled "Das Geschaeft mit der Krankheit" (The Sickness Business) provides much relevant material.

The EEC's agricultural policy is one of the most expensive and at the same time most absurd forms of State subsidy. It has been calculated that each German farmer who gave up his farm and thus renounced the customary subsidies (which increase prices) could pocket at least 1,100 DM net a month without requiring a tax or price increase. Under the present subsidized economy, however, many farmers do not earn such an income in spite of hard work. Alternatively, a yearly sum of 5,000 to 6,000 DM could be paid to all farmers if the State gave up agricultural subsidies now practiced and granted all that money directly to the farmers.

Through so-called "economic policy" whole mountains of butter, pork and milk-powder are today artificially produced by means of subsidies, and further subsidies are declared necessary in order to level these mountains.

With equally free access to land for everybody and after the cessation of land rent and interest, there will be no "agricultural problem" at all, and any "economic policy" - which has always represented a rapacious intervention of the State in favour of the privileged - will cease.

The State actually encourages the economy to merge as much as possible (and above all creates the presuppositions for mergers) as, for example, with Ruhrkohle-AG - in order to help the subsequently unprofitable enterprises with thousands of millions of DM out of the pockets of the taxpayers. On the other hand, large enterprises and corporations, so variously favoured by the State, have often become so powerful in the market as to equal a State within a State and to make the State's economic policy increasingly ineffective. For instance, associations of the steel industry manage autonomously to divide international markets among themselves, by agreements on delivery quotas. At home they put the market economy out of operation by increasing prices instead of reducing them when sales stagnate, as was done, e.g., in the car industry. While State measures to restrict credit hurt small and middle sized enterprises, they have no effect upon the "big ones," as these party finance themselves by means of monopolistic prices and partly through foreign banks which are closed to others. The Department of Justice in the U.S. has recently started proceedings against the computer firm of IBM on the charge of "fixing prices at a rapacious level."

There are IBM factories and offices in more than 100 countries worldwide and the stock capital alone of this one firm reaches 140,000 million DM, approximately the stock exchange value of all West German corporations together. With a turnover of 8,300 million dollars and with 1,100 million dollars as net profit in 1971, it could afford to spend 550 million dollars in 1972 on research and development, i.e. double the amount spent by Germany's biggest computer producer's (Siemens) total turnover in the computer sphere in 1971.

The huge firm grew, as a rule, through massive public support especially in the arms industry and then used their superior power to swallow up their competitors.

Incidentally, one must not conclude from the IBM example that German corporations are poor. Siemens, for instance, was able to invest in each of two successive years approximately 1,000 million DM and by such investments has bought or founded approximately 80 firms in Germany and in foreign countries during the last 20 years.

By means of cartels, price agreements, mutual shareholding and common subsidiaries, a mutual entanglement of the monopolists has arisen which makes a mockery of the allegedly free competition and free market economy. EEC Commissioner Albert Borschette, who is responsible in Brussels for questions regarding competition, came to the conclusion: "In the long run the concentration of industry forces us to consider a new social order."

This must, however, happen very differently from the hitherto imagined manner in which the State was to become the only monopolist or was to operate as the controller and supervisor of the monopolists. No, the monopolies themselves must disappear or, where this is not possible, they must be rendered ineffective through appropriate measures (for which we have a proposal which is as simple as it is surprising). For there has been anti-trust legislation in the U.S.A. for more than 80 years, and this has not at all prevented the ongoing concentration of industry. John Kenneth Galbraith, once a Kennedy adviser, declared: "Anti-trust laws are a farce, as the industrial giants are immune to them." And Volkmar Muthesius, always acting as a faithful guardian for the interest of great capital and especially of financial capital, in his eagerness to deny their economic as well as political power, went so far once as to tell the truth by mistake: "In economic life there is only such power as descends from the State, as is granted by it." Exactly this has been explained here.

THE STATE AS CRIMINAL (^)

It is only too characteristic for the State that any crime, if only it comes within the law, becomes "legal" i.e. from the State's perspective this crime becomes a tolerated and even praiseworthy act. For almost all acts which are prohibited by the criminal codes of particular States and are punished, the State says: "You must not do this, but I may!"

The State works as murderer and killer in the activities of its secret services, by capital punishment, and in war it even compels those within its power to commit murder themselves in case of war or to help in the murdering of others.

The State acts as a highway robber by charging custom duties and taxes at borders and within the country itself.

It acts as a robber when, by means of the tax office and foreclosures, it expropriates immense sums from the working incomes and the property of all within its sphere of power. It acts as a small thief as it does not dare to let the degree of its plundering become obvious, and thus spreads it over numerous special duties and taxes (which is described as "the science of public finance") in such a way that to most people its total extent remains hidden. If they knew it, they would not put up with it any longer.

The relevant figures were mentioned previously and thus need not be repeated here.

Apart from this, in the collection of social security contributions as well as in withholding taxes, German firms have to do unpaid work for the State which costs them (according to statements of the taxpayers' association) almost ten thousand million DM annually, which, added to the prices, must naturally be carried by all consumers.

Inflation, by which the State relieves itself of its own debts and "redistributes" wealth by taking money from the pockets of the poor and the poorest and placing it in those of the rich, is an especially clever form of thievery. The State never robs and steals only for its own purposes, but also for those who have built it up and established it in such an artful way.

The State acts as a swindler when, while prohibiting the falsification of weights and measures, as well as the forgery of its own money, it falsifies it by itself or allows the falsification of the most important measure, money, the means of exchange, after having first monopolized it and enforced its acceptance. The swindle consists then in constantly reducing its purchasing power.

Its banknotes are, basically, debt certificates of the Central Bank (whose acceptance is enforced). The Central Bank, however, does not pay interest on them, but on the contrary - based on its monopoly position - collects interest from its creditors. A private person making a similar demand would be imprisoned either as an extortionist or as a mental case. But a monopolist can allow himself everything, at least one who is legally protected. One should have learnt, though, under the Nazi regime, that laws can be criminal, too.

The State works as an extortionist by making numerous activities dependent upon its licence. Moreover, it oppresses and exploits people, and their clients and customers, by a multitude of regulations. Especially, it extorts the total support for all its servants. The State sings the praises of work and prohibits gambling, and then invites people to play lottery and soccer pools, while confiscating the lion's share of the takings. The same is done with the profits from gambling casinos which are "licensed" by the State.

The State acts as a pimp by tolerating and indirectly furthering what it first calls vice and threatens with penalties, if only it brings in money. While it praises the "dignity" of human beings, it draws its money from the dirtiest sources, according to the principle: "Pecunia non olet." ("Money does not stink.")

The State prohibits slavery and serfdom. But the condition of minority, tutelage, holding on a leash, manipulation and subjection in which it puts all those within its sphere of power, differs very little from slavery and serfdom. In war, the State not only decides about the property but also about the life of the individual. Even during peace, an individual's possessions and liberties are always, so to speak, only on lease from the State and may be diminished and restricted by it at any time.

The State engages in spying and maintains a considerable apparatus of spies and secret agents, in its own territories as well as in foreign countries. However it punishes spies investigating its own State secrets.

The State demands for itself the right of self-determination. But when some section of its population claims the same right for itself, then it shouts about "sedition" and "high treason" and moves against them with brute force.

Especially remarkable is the threat of punishment against foreigners for "high treason" against the German Federal Republic, even if this offence was committed abroad.

In one breath the State demands "the right of the people to utilize or apply the power of the State" and the "exclusion of any coercive and arbitrary domination."

Whoever does not want to submit to the aggressive power of the State, i.e. its interference with the equal freedom of all, however, is threatened with punishment for "resistance against the power of the State." For the essence of the State lies in its internal as well as external aggressiveness; this is the so-called "reason of State," the law of the big fist. It lies in the maintenance of a system of domination, not only in favour of the State itself but also in favour of the individuals and groups privileged by it. The majority, however, is oppressed and exploited by monopolies, among which the land oligopoly and the money monopoly are only the most important. To this must be added oppression and exploitation by the State itself.

The State, however, also acts as a slanderer. Thus, during the German Empire, harmless social democrats were often officially called "anarchists" in order to discredit them. Today, too, by people who know better, a systematic slander campaign is conducted against the concepts of anarchy and anarchism. The true meaning of the concepts of

a) anarchy as non-domination, which is not only opposition to being dominated, but is also a voluntary renunciation of any desire to dominate others, and

b) anarchism, which fundamentally refuses to use any aggressive force and is thus the most decisive opponent to terrorism,

are sufficiently known from a literature extending over a hundred years. It is an especially infamous slander systematically and repeatedly to designate the Baader-Meinhof group (consisting of revolutionary Marxists who expressly disclaimed the "anarchistic" label) and their political friends, who aim at the opposite of anarchism, as "anarchists" only in order to discredit this concept by means of an unparalleled hate campaign.

When it has finally been understood that there is only one crime (in its various forms), namely, coercive intervention in the equal freedom of all, then one may perhaps designate the socially faulty organization of the State as the fundamental and main criminal and as a criminal syndicate.

Even today, though, because of its above-demonstrated double morality and the fact that gangsters have derived their basic principle (the protection racket) from the State, the State has moved dangerously close to such an organization.

IS THE STATE A NECESSARY EVIL? (^)

Whoever considers the State necessary, believes aggressive force to be necessary too (without being aware of the consequences), and confuses an aggressive organization with a purely defensive one. It is a platitude that there are things that cannot be regulated by each individual himself but only in community with others. But for all such arrangements there are always two possibilities: on the one hand, aggressive force which forces an arbitrary solution on opponents; and on the other hand, a voluntary settlement which seeks a solution based on the equal freedom of all. The latter means, at the same time, the outlawing of aggressive force and the establishment of defensive organizations against it.

Most people mean such a defensive organization when referring to the State because they never seriously reflect upon its nature. For them the State has become self-evident as a customary phenomenon. They can hardly imagine its disappearance.

But trials of "witches," torture, the Inquisition, and absolute monarchies once were such traditional phenomena, too, whose abolition could hardly be imagined.

That the State must at least be abolished as the creator and protector of monopolies and privileges has become an insight which urges itself more and more upon us, the more the fallacies, false premises, and assumptions of the past are corrected. Concerning the other functions of the State, outside of that main function, an increasing development towards independence, pluralism and "democratization" is undoubtedly aiming in the direction of a reduction of the dominating functions of the State (even when, in most instances, ineffective means are used).

People also mistakenly believe that agreed upon (i.e. genuine) rights are not possible without the guarantee of a superior and dominating force. In this case, international law offers an evident counter example, although not a model one. Above "sovereign" States there is no superior authority comparable to the State in its internal effects. Nevertheless, international law largely functions as contractual law. It works imperfectly because the "sovereignty" of the State is based on its ultimate principle, the law of the big fist. The sovereignty of the individual is of a quite different kind. It is based on the outlawry of the law of the big fist or the sword (i.e. of aggressive force) and rests, instead, on the common interest, in the equal freedom of all and in its defence.

A condition without domination and without the State is thus in no way one of arbitrariness or defencelessness. On the contrary, this condition, being opposed to any rule, is directed against any arbitrariness and aggression and thus considers non-aggressive and purely defensive, protective organizations as self-evidently necessary for the defence of this condition.

With the principle of equal freedom for all, something quite new opposes the dominating system so far based on religion or ideology, something based on the criteria of experienced reality. The new system relies exclusively on the criteria of experienced reality - which can be measured as in a balance. It follows as the inescapable choice between aggressive force on the one side and agreement on the other - which is in the long run possible only on the basis of equal freedom for all.

There are many people who proudly speak of "our State," and they are by no means only those privileged by it. They cannot at all imagine an existence without the State and fear nothing more than "anarchy." Why? - Because those who are interested in their own predominance fear non-domination as the end of their own hegemony and privilege. Thus they have falsified the concept of anarchy by equating it with chaos and arbitrariness. Anarchy, in its actual sense, however, means the very opposite of arbitrariness. It is an order based on the mutual freedom of all which is protected by a much more efficient defensively organized force than all previous Statist coercive systems could offer.

Anarchists - people who neither rule others nor want to be ruled by others - do not think at all of hindering the worshippers of the State from submitting themselves even to the most absurd measures of manipulation or exploitation and from "enjoying" all alleged or actual advantages which a "State," i.e. an organization of domination, may offer. Only one thing will not be allowed for such a "State": to subject others who are unwilling to its rule; to claim, for those willing and their State, an increased sphere of freedom at the expense of others, i.e. any monopolies; and to infringe the sphere of the equal freedom of all non-members either by itself or by any of its members. If these conditions are fulfilled then such a "State" is only State in name, and actually is a free protective and social community which one may enter freely, instead of being forced into it. One may also leave it again of one's own free will - after giving due notice - or one may be excluded when violating accepted obligations. But this exclusion will not lead to discrimination

It is nothing but a fixed idea of the State-worshippers when they claim that it has to mind the business of more and more people without their being asked. This quite naturally ends in a conditions where all the affairs of all people are put into the hands of a few, i.e. it ends in domination instead of leadership.

One has to ask: is there any activity which can only be undertaken by the State as such, i.e. as an organization of domination and coercion, through its clerks, its officials, anything which society as such cannot do through its members? - The answer is simple: The rulers and leaders of the State, the government and the administration are not demi-gods or supermen. Nor is the State superhuman, but human throughout, an all too human institution. It practices no kind of activity which could not be done as well by others, individual men or associations of men.

If, however, the substitution of the State by free associations is possible, then there is no excuse or necessity for its present form (which, in any case, has already been found unsatisfactory by progressive people in all States!) or for its kind of coercion and aggressive intervention.

Or could the State prove that it could carry out its activities better and more advantageously than other, free associations could do? Then it should provide this proof, on an equal basis, in free competition, without claiming a monopoly for itself! If the State really care for the best for all individuals, if it had really good intentions and wanted to be merely a servant, as it asserts, then it would not need any coercion. It could leave it to the will of the individuals to associate voluntarily in it for common purposes or, alternatively, to live outside of the State's "sovereignty." Why doesn't the State see its only task which may be fully approved in the establishment and protection of the same sphere of freedom for all?

For this purpose it would not have to become aggressive but could obtain sufficient voluntary members interested in this mutual protection!

But, instead of this, the State aggressively intervenes in the equal freedom of all, limits the liberties of some in favour of increased freedom for others, especially through monopolies and privileges. Moreover, it usurps privileges for itself over individuals, by acting as their master, whereas, according to theory, it should only be their tool and servant.

Whenever the State speaks of the common good, it never actually means the common good of all individuals but always merely the welfare of a section of this whole which it wants to further at the expense of the other sections.

The above sketches should at least make one thoughtful about the grossly one-sided and aggressive manner in which this patronization occurs.