The Case for Autostatism

By Insula Qui Author’s note: The reader can find everything else I have written about the concept of autostatism here. Introduction Libertarians have always had ambitions that are both universalist and purist. Most libertarians are willing to admit that their vision will not be realizable in their own lifetimes and rather hope that future generations are wiser than they themselves have been. These libertarians take an approach that could only be considered rational when one takes into account the very nature of libertarianism. The search for liberty means always fighting against tremendous odds, as many people care more about increasing their personal power than about liberty. Power is a great direct gain, while liberty is a diffused social gain. This insight, combined with the logic of public choice, tells us that when people seek power, they are more likely to attain it than those who want to destroy power are to destroy it. These people seek power for themselves by being parasites on others, which is generally incompatible with achieving liberty. The achievement of a libertarian social order requires collective motivation on a scale that is only present when the state has become so oppressive as to be intolerable. The state has adapted to this and tries very hard to avoid any loss of power by being as tolerable as possible and making its operations as covert as possible while openly integrating themselves into the lives of everyone. This helps the state remain an unambiguous sovereign and appear to be a fundamental condition of life from which it is hard to deviate psychologically and intellectually. The modern state makes itself into a leviathan not by lording over people, but rather by integrating itself into the population. This process is neither peaceful nor painless; the methods by which the state integrates itself into a society must be fundamentally based on indoctrination and coercion. But once sufficiently advanced, the state becomes a fact of life that is almost incontestable by any rational person, and support for the abolition of the state will be extremely sparse. Thus it is possible to say that up to a point, the more oppressive a state is, the more it can be expected to have popular support. Collective Separation The main premise from which the strategy of autostatism is derived from is that separating ourselves into multiple autonomous governments or stateless localities is a necessary precondition for abolishing the central state. In modern democracies, all sides of all conflicts are under immense pressure and are thus very hostile towards everyone with whom they are in conflict. Since all issues are to be decided by all people in a democracy, the people who have their lives questioned will be the people who resist those who challenge their ability to live their own lives as they please. Note that in a healthy social order, the challengers themselves would be the imperiled group. From this comes a desire to separate from the hostile factors that are directly antagonistic to the individual’s lifestyle and property. There is no reconciliation or common ground within the framework of democracy because democracy intentionally creates unresolvable antagonisms. The common decision-making process is irreconcilable with personal liberty. Having the masses govern the masses thus becomes a self-reinforcing structure of creeping totalitarianism. Read the entire article at ZerothPosition.com

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Source: Reece Liberty.Me – The Case for Autostatism