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Warren emphasizes what would later be called "methodological individualism" by Max Weber and Ludwig von Mises.
If we would have a prosperous state, it must result from the prosperity of the individuals who compose the state. Where every individual is rich, the state will be rich. Where every individual is secure in his person and property, the nation, or state, is secure. Where every individual thrives, there will be a thriving state or nation. Where every individual should do justice, there justice would reign in the state or Nation. Where every Individual should be free, there would be a free state or a free nation. The liberty, freedom, or sovereignty of a state or Nation, must consist of the sovereignty of the individuals who compose the state or Nation. ...
There can be no FREE state or Nation, where every Individual lives UNDER, instead of ABOVE, the customs, laws, and institutions of the state or Nation!! - Josiah Warren, Equitable Commerce
Security of Person and Property
Warren observes that the rationalization for states has been the protection of person and property. Like Burke, he sees the abject failure of states to accomplish this end.
They never have, never will accomplish this professed object; although they have had all the world at their control for thousands of years, they have brought it to a worse condition than that in which they found it, in spite of the immense improvements in mechanism, division of labor, and other elements of civilization to aid them. On the contrary, under the plausible pretext of securing person and property, they have spread wholesale destruction, famine, and wretchedness, in every frightful form over all parts of the earth, where peace and security might otherwise have prevailed. They have shed more blood, committed more murders, tortures, and other frightful crimes in the struggles against each other for the privilege of governing, than society ever would or could have suffered in the total absence of all governments whatever! - Josiah Warren, Equitable Commerce
Warren concludes: "Rulers claim a right to rise above and control the individual, his labor, his trade, his time, and his property, against his own judgment and inclination, while security of person and property cannot consist in anything less than having the supreme government of himself and all his own interests; therefore, security cannot exist under any government whatever."
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