The Noose Continues to Tighten But No Government Lasts Forever

07-17-2012 • http://www.voluntaryist.com, By Carl Watner

Theodore Lowi, a professor of political science at Cornell University in the early 1980s, authored a book, INCOMPLETE CONQUEST (1981), in which he observed:

Every action and every agency of contemporary government must contribute to the fulfillment of its fundamental purpose, which is to maintain conquest. Conquest manifests itself in various forms of control, but in all those forms it is the common factor tying together in one system the behavior of courts and cops, sanitation workers and senators, bureaucrats and technocrats, generals and attorney generals, pressure groups and presidents. [p. 13]

Two of the most basic "forms of control" exercised by any government are that of demanding enrollment in its armed forces, and in collecting taxes based on one's income and/or accumulated wealth. Perhaps conscription is the State's most direct control over your life, but its ability to tax ultimately destroys the principle of private ownership. Everything you think you "own" is really held subject to its pleasure. It is as though you are a slave and your master allows you to retain certain perks.