– Franz Oppenheimer, The State, 1908 (emphasis mine)

“The positive testimony of history is that the State invariably had its origin in conquest and confiscation. No primitive State known to history originated in any other manner. On the negative side, it has been proved beyond peradventure that no primitive State could possibly have had any other origins. Moreover, the sole invariable characteristic of the State is the economic exploitation of one class by another. In this sense, every State known to history is a class State.”

– Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy, the State, 1935 (emphasis mine)

“In Western Europe, as in many other civilizations, the typical model of the origin of the State was not via a voluntary “social contract” but by the conquest of one tribe by another. The original liberty of the tribe or the peasantry thus falls victim to the conquerors. At first, the conquering tribe killed and looted the victims and rode on. But at some time the conquerors decided that it would be more profitable to settle down among the conquered peasantry and rule and loot them on a permanent and systematic basis. The periodic tribute exacted from the conquered subjects eventually came to be called “taxation.”"

– Murray Rothbard, For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, 1973

If we accept the thesis that the states arise and have arisen, not through the hocus-pocus of “social” “contracts”, but through conquest, and are perpetuated as systems of exploitation — especially, to use Nock’s terminology, “of one class by another” — does it not follow that we are at war?

Does it not follow that all people living under state domination and exploitation ought to rebel, right now?

Does it not follow that all of the state’s edicts, decrees, laws, proclamations and regulations which affront the sensibility of the individual, the tribe, the family, the neighborhood, ought rightly be ignored, denounced, ridiculed and overthrown?

Does it not follow that state agents are the enemy and deserving, perhaps qualifiedly in some cases, of the same response given to those who violate a peaceful person, a peaceful tribe, a peaceful family, a peaceful neighborhood?

And yet this does not happen. It does not happen despite the noble efforts of generations of philosophers, revolutionaries, scholars, activists and teachers.

The whole planet has been conquered. The whole planet has been being conquered, and held under conquest and exploitation for the benefit of the smallest, most despicable number, for a great many centuries.

They live. We sleep. And it is we who live the nightmares.

The author (YouTube page) writes at his blog:

You are being used. You are being exploited. You are a slave, and you are kept only comfortable enough so that you will not notice. You are regularly misled, propagandized, and all out lied to.

You, as a human being, are nothing but a faceless resource to the moneyed power structure that controls modern banking and politics. You are a drone, a pack-horse, a conspicuous consumer.

When you no longer can labour, when there is nothing left to strip mine, like Boxer in Animal Farm you are left to simply die in the fields.

I think you deserve better. I think we all deserve better. And I’m here to make sure that we get it.

This analysis resonates with me. I don’t agree with everything in the video, but it has plenty of merit nonetheless.

Hat tip to Talley.