This essay was heavily influenced by one of my (now-former, 2023) intellectual heroes, Hans Hermann Hoppe:
Almost all of us hold two beliefs which contradict a third near-universal belief. The first is that a state, however else defined, is a geographic monopoly of security and justice. One cannot appeal a ruling beyond the state, and whatever private providers of security and justice may exist, they do so in pronounced subservience to and supervision by the state.
The second is that monopolies invariably cause high prices and low quality. Is it so absurd to unite these two self-evident ideas and suggest that states are poor providers of security and justice?
This, of course, rattles to its very foundation a belief most people consider unassailable: that states must invariably provide us, the gray, primitive, violent, purposeless masses, with security and justice — or else civilization itself would plunge into darkness and despair.
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