Anatomy of the State | by Murray N. Rothbard

"The state is a gang of thieves, writ large."

“The State, by its very nature, must violate the generally accepted moral laws to which most people adhere.”

“The State says that citizens may not take from another by force and against his will that which belongs to another. And yet the State…does just that.”

“To go beyond one’s right of self-defense would be to aggress on the rights of others, a violation of one’s legal duty. And yet the State by its claimed monopoly forcibly imposes its jurisdiction on persons who may have done nothing wrong. By doing so it aggresses against the rights of its citizens, something which its rules say citizens may not do.”

“The State is an inherently illegitimate institution of organized aggression, of organized and regularized crime against the persons and properties of its subjects… a profoundly antisocial institution which lives parasitically off of the productive activities of private citizens.”

“Since the State necessarily lives by the compulsory confiscation of private capital, and since its expansion necessarily involves ever-greater incursions on private individuals and private enterprise, we must assert that the state is profoundly and inherently anti-capitalist.”

“We must, therefore, emphasize that ‘we’ are not the government; the government is not ‘us.’ The government does not in any accurate sense ‘represent’ the majority of the people.”

“The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State…is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State.”

“All of the services commonly thought to require the State…can be and have been supplied far more efficiently and certainly more morally by private persons. The State is in no sense required by the nature of man; quite the contrary.”

Murray N. Rothbard

Murray Rothbard was known as the state's greatest living enemy, and this book is his most succinct and powerful statement on the topic. He explains what a state is and what it is not. He shows how it is an institution that violates all that we hold as honest and moral, and how it operates under a false cover. He shows how the state wrecks freedom, destroys civilization, and threatens all lives and property and social well being, all under the veneer of "good intentions." Narrated by Harold Fritsche. Music by Kevin MacLeod. http://mises.org

Full text of 'Anatomy of the State' available online: http://tinyurl.com/ls36c

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Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995) was America's greatest radical libertarian author -- writing authoritatively about ethics, philosophy, economics, American history, and the history of ideas. He presented the most fundamental challenge to the legitimacy of government, and he refined thinking about the self-ownership and non-coercion principles.

Links to selected online writings by Murray Rothbard:

Man, Economy, and State: A Treatise on Economics
http://tinyurl.com/y8zg569h
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/axhdzg3

For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto
http://tinyurl.com/qgt9xqf
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/ph9k2zu

The Ethics of Liberty
http://tinyurl.com/pekmz3j
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/pwt6pzz

Economic Thought Before Adam Smith: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Vol. I
http://tinyurl.com/ngqzfup
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/a3obfgu

Classical Economics: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Vol. II
http://tinyurl.com/np6a898
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/bd44b6s

The Case Against the Fed
http://tinyurl.com/qbr9twj
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/na9ds33

What Has Government Done to Our Money?
http://tinyurl.com/p3mkr6z
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/pku6eyp

A History of Money and Banking in the United States
http://tinyurl.com/ot23t9p
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/o8xj73s

The Progressive Era
http://tinyurl.com/ydhn5aob
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/wd53r7v

The Betrayal of the American Right
http://tinyurl.com/r33fgpt
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/yx6vjudz

Conceived in Liberty, Vol. 1: A New Land, A New People: The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century
http://tinyurl.com/prrc32p
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/nhv65at

Conceived in Liberty, Vol. 2: "Salutary Neglect": The American Colonies in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century
http://tinyurl.com/nh8bst5
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/pdo4xup

Conceived in Liberty, Vol. 3: Advance to Revolution, 1760-1775
http://tinyurl.com/qj9dfhm
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/q5kw4ke

Conceived in Liberty, Vol. 4: The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784
http://tinyurl.com/pkhlb2p
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/ns5gkuv

Conceived in Liberty, Vol. 5: The New Republic: 1784–1791
http://tinyurl.com/tuel93c
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/qtlup2h

Ludwig von Mises: Scholar, Creator, Hero
http://tinyurl.com/obyk7yp

Economic Depressions: Their Cause and Cure
http://tinyurl.com/ogo5ku2

Education: Free and Compulsory
http://tinyurl.com/wb7gsfy

Science, Technology, and Government
http://tinyurl.com/uz24qlh

Ten Great Economic Myths
http://tinyurl.com/nnr9dh9

The Economics of War
http://tinyurl.com/otzpgct

Left, Right, and the Prospects for Liberty
http://tinyurl.com/u9mfmnl

Kingdom Come: The Politics of the Millennium
http://tinyurl.com/nhps5vo

Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature
http://tinyurl.com/oqxsjl3

Murray N. Rothbard vs. The Philosophers
http://tinyurl.com/kv8eeup

America's Great Depression
http://tinyurl.com/p7wqfgx

Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy
http://tinyurl.com/qgnc7ra

World War I as Fulfillment: Power and the Intellectuals
http://tinyurl.com/pyzyfzb

Related online resources:

Murray Rothbard: Mises's True Heir
http://tinyurl.com/y9hj64db

Man, Economy, and Liberty: Essays in Honor of Murray N. Rothbard
http://tinyurl.com/oevl64l

Rothbard's Legacy
http://tinyurl.com/3yselcl

Rothbard Vindicated
http://tinyurl.com/q3yos7x

Murray N. Rothbard: Mr. Libertarian
http://tinyurl.com/o7v6zgj

Meeting Murray Rothbard On the Road to Libertarianism
http://tinyurl.com/ux9zxef

Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
http://tinyurl.com/yapklreq
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/ab8wx88

Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution
http://tinyurl.com/q9kf6jq
Audio version: http://tinyurl.com/aa7gyv2

Why Austrian Economics Matters
http://tinyurl.com/y7xhoajq

Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis
http://tinyurl.com/q2sq87w