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State Aggression
"Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force. And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." - George Washington
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." - Mao Tse-Tung
Anarchists see the power of social contract theory, but unlike the liberal statist, takes it seriously. A contract requires consent - unanimous consent of every participant. One is able to opt out of a contract, with due compensation for any consequent damages. This self-sovereignty, the right to enter or not enter into association, is a central anarchist theme.
A social contract of some sort seems to be the basis for voluntary association, but not for a state. Historically, states came about by marauding bandit gangs who realized that sustainable spoliation with oversight is more lucrative than pillage and destruction. The rate of return is higher, it's more dependable and less dangerous, and the masses can rather easily be indoctrinated into servitude. In short, the state is the organization of institutionalized plunder. Certainly the state has changed its spoliation technology over time, from plunder in kind to taxation to fiat money inflation. No doubt the control points of society have changed, and techniques for manipulating public opinion. But the essence of the state, as a criminal organization with aura of legitimacy, as a vampire feasting on the blood of society, does not change.
Here's how Lysander Spooner recounts the beginning of states in Natural Law:
All the great governments of the world - those now existing, as well as those that have passed away - have been of this character. They have been mere bands of robbers, who have associated for purposes of plunder, conquest, and the enslavement of their fellow men. And their laws, as they have called them, have been only such agreements as they have found it necessary to enter into, in order to maintain their organizations, and act together in plundering and enslaving others, and in securing to each his agreed share of the spoils.
All these laws have had no more real obligation than have the agreements which brigands, bandits, and pirates find it necessary to enter into with each other, for the more successful accomplishment of their crimes, and the more peaceable division of their spoils.
Thus substantially all the legislation of the world has had its origin in the desires of one class - of persons to plunder and enslave others, and hold them as property.
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