LIVING IN THE STATE SOCIETY, VARIOUS ESSAYS by Derrick A Pike Freely distributable, but please quote source THE MOST DANGEROUS FEATURE OF THE STATE To live in a state is to live in continuous danger for it produces massive poverty and, in many countries, disease, riots, revolutions and 'conventional' wars. Besides this continuous danger there is the threat of a greater one that hangs over our heads like the proverbial Sword of Damocles. To understand why this danger exists, we must understand how power is distributed in the state. There are massive inequalities of wealth and leisure in the state, and so people have to be induced by propaganda, enticed by rewards, and forced by violence to live together in such an unjust way. One or more rulers exert this control in government. Although a government has all the power, it delegates its authority to manage day-to-day affairs. Those immediately below the government have less power than the maximum, those below again still less, and so on, to some extent, down through society. Most people in society have no power at all. The state is hierarchical. Those at the top of the power structure direct the power of all those below them so that they have complete control of everyone. If there is more than one ruler at the top of the power hierarchy, the power is diluted and the excesses of any individual curbed, but if there is only one ruler, his or her power is unrestricted. There is an ever-present danger in the state because any individual at the top of the power structure may have the opportunity to seize all of it. That individual then becomes a dictator, and he or she can control all the country. People become dictators by being born in the right bed, by being elected in a democratic parliament, and by seizing power during a coup. They do not need to be mentally well or moral to become dictators. Just the reverse, so that most are mad with power and wicked. Examples are Idi Amin and Pol Pot. At the end of January this year there were memorial services held to remind us of the terrible deaths that took place in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and other German towns fifty years ago. These generated several articles stating that we must be vigilant so that the horror was not repeated. Some people wanted to know if it were possible for the horror to happen again. Unfortunately, the power structure of the state society makes it possible to happen anytime. So the answer to the question, "Coul d there be another holocaust?" is "Yes, and most likely, there will be." Hitler could destroy one and a half million people in the most horrible way because he could use the state pattern of society. Because dictators and governments can control everyone, they will behave in a very wicked way if it suits them. To retain their power, they have brutal and repressive regimes that imprison without trial, torture, and kill dissidents. If they want to exterminate a particular race or religious group, they will do it. No government of any kind has any compunction about killing millions of people. In Britain, as in other countries, we do not know our real rulers, but they have, without our consent agreed to the development of the atomic bomb and made war against the Germans, the Faulklanders, and the Iranians. They decide whether we shall arm, with what, and by how much. Millions of us may have to suffer and die in an atomic war or in a holocaust of one kind or another. We can protect ourselves from our continuous danger and from periods of special danger only by creating a free society where people cooperate with one another of their own free will. We cannot change the behaviour of governments and so we must protect ourselves by discarding them. GOVERNMENTS CREATE THE SOCIAL EVILS, NOT US According to governments, the people themselves are responsible for all the social evils. Governments design their propaganda to give the impression that they are standing apart from society, like a benevolent father, always ready to give help when we get ourselves into trouble. That is why we hear that children are not being educated properly because the teachers do not know their job and because they waste their time spreading liberal ideas. We hear that when people are poor and unemployed it is because they are lazy and do not look for work. And we are given to understand that there are crime and violence because some people are wicked and because parents spoil their children by not giving them enough discipline. Governments then appear to be dealing with these evils by changing the National Curriculum, by giving us social security money, and by putting criminals in prison. They perform this massive con trick, safe in the knowledge that most people will not realise that children are not educated properly because the school funding is too low and the National Curriculum badly designed. People will not see that they are poor because the economy of the state and capitalism are inefficient and money is wasted on the state and on giving the privileged riches they do not deserve. Everyone will accept that there is crime because people are wicked and not because the state gives us no real purpose in life and no fair distribution of wealth. Governments blame the people for the starvation and poverty that exists in the Third World. According to them, people starve because they breed too quickly. There are too many people to feed on the world's limited resources. They say that unless they enforce birth control, people would suffer more than ever. This is a lie. People starve because they are forced to make war and because they are exploited by the capitalists and the World Bank. They starve because governments cannot organise any venture that serves the people. They cannot organise the fair production and distribution of food. The idea of their remoteness is never more firmly instilled by governments than in time of war. How often are we told that Churchill saved us and lead us to victory in World War 2? Saved us indeed! We would never have been in trouble were it not for Churchill and his ilk. We will never rid ourselves of poverty and war unless we realised that we have these social conditions because we have governments. Governments are in charge. They make the laws and they enforce them with the violence of their police, so the society we have is the result of their rule. Governments cannot evade responsibility by saying the social evils are our own fault, although they will do so as long as we allow them to exist and be in control. Left alone we shall not produce the social evils and so we must see to it that there are no governments to interfere with us. We must see to it that we rule ourselves. LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO WASTE While suffering a long and painful illness (and probably getting older!), I realised more than ever that life is short. I had not felt the presence of the Grim Reaper, but one evening I caught a glimpse of the shadow cast by his scythe. It was enough to make me assess the value of my life. Because I place happiness above wealth, I had not made much money, but my life so far had been very interesting with several different occupations and certain successes. As a designer, I had helped develop an object that stayed in use for many years; I h ad started a viable business; I had taught subjects that interested me; and I had done much else. But looking back I realised that, apart from my personal life, nothing seemed satisfying, purposeful, or of lasting value - except - well, more than once, I did save a life. There was nothing especially to my credit in this because it is comparatively easy for a large, muscular, six foot man to rescue a struggling teenager from a river or lift a woman from danger. And the other events were equally mundane. Nonetheless, it did mean that but for me some people were alive who would otherwise be dead. Then I remembered that as a young man, during WW2, I had refused to stay in a reserved occupation because I would have been helping to kill my fellow human beings. The memory gave me extreme satisfaction. I realised that no one who has created life, who has saved a life, or who has refused to take a life has lived his or her life in vain. We cannot all be a mother producing children, and not all of us are fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time to save someone from a fatal accident, but all of us can refuse to kill or help kill. So because life is short (your own and others), young men and women should realise that if they do not want to waste the time they have, they should become conscientious objectors. Conscientious objectors do not kill or injure for the state and because they do not, they help destroy it. They help destroy the state which is the cause of all suffering. When they grow older they will realise that it was the best thing they ever did.