How should The State be evaluated?

 Statists fail to evaluate The State correctly. They consistently neglect to count all the costs of initiated force, including…

• The moral costs of using force to oppress individual conscience. This oppression creates victims. Statists pretend those victims don’t exist.

• The opportunity costs, which are the alternative uses to which the same resources could have been put. Statists never consider the alternative benefits that could have been achieved if people had been allowed to keep and spend their own money.

• The superior performance inherent to efforts controlled by consumers vs efforts controlled by politics. Humans tend to be less efficient when they’re spending other people’s money. Even worse, performance declines when there’s no risk of losing funding. Taxation shields The State from the need to do a good job. Worst of all, politicians often use failure as an excuse to spend more money. In other words, the statist approach rewards failure.

• The risk cost of giving any human institution a monopoly power to initiate violence. Statists always ignore the fact that any power that can be used to do good, can also be used to do bad.

Statists never account for any of these problems. But voluntaryist libertarians do.
For these reasons and more, voluntaryists believe governments must obey the Zero Aggression Principle. Governments must not initiate force. They must only use force defensively. 

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Jim Babka

About the Author

Jim Babka

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Jim Babka is co-founder of the Zero Aggression Project and President of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. He’s an author and former talk show host.
Previously, he was the President of RealCampaignReform.org, Inc., defending free press rights all the way to the Supreme Court. He and Susie are the proud, home-schooling parents of three teenagers. He enjoys theology, UFC, target practice, and Tai Chi.

Perry Willis

About the Author

Perry Willis

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Perry Willis is the co-founder of the Zero Aggression Project and Downsize DC. He was the National Director of the Libertarian National Committee on two occasions, and ran two Libertarian Party presidential campaigns. He has an extensive background in marketing and fundraising, and has ghost written direct mail appeals for numerous luminaries, including Karl Hess, Ron Paul, Charlton Heston and Harry Browne.