WEBVTT NOTE Parasitism and the Origin of the State 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:13.000 Okay, let me start. I have been admonished by Joe Stromberg to make you aware of the fact that today is Jefferson Davis' birthday. 2 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:17.000 So, otherwise... 3 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:20.000 Will there be a cake? 4 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:25.000 I think we will have to ask Joe Stromberg if he provided the cake. 5 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:54.000 The other remark, I recommended yesterday or so, among sociologists, Stanislav Andresky and I want to, apart from his general books mentioned in particular, 6 00:00:54.000 --> 00:01:03.000 This is one that is also a hilarious book that is called Sociology as Sorcery. 7 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:09.000 It makes fun, so to speak, of the sociology profession in general. 8 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:13.000 If you have not read that book, I highly recommend it. 9 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:23.000 That is something that you should read late at night before you go to bed and you will laugh yourself to sleep. 10 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:34.000 Stanislaw Andreski 11 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:49.000 and the book is called Sociology as Sorcery 12 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:52.000 a wonderful little book 13 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:57.000 That's all you need to know about sociology when you find it. 14 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:08.000 My subject today is parasitism and the origin of the state. 15 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:19.000 So far, one important element has been missing in my reconstruction, so to speak, 16 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:42.000 When we speak of the present world, we have seen what the nature of man is, we've talked about property, division of labor based on property, the development of money, capital accumulation, 17 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:51.000 law and order production and the natural order resulting out of all of this. 18 00:02:51.000 --> 00:03:02.000 And now we have to come, so to speak, to the disturbing elements that developed in history. 19 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:25.000 History, those events that somehow took the natural tendencies off its path and deviated history from its natural core, so to speak. 20 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:39.000 Let me begin by reminding you why we had this tendency towards a natural order. 21 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:54.000 The fundamental insight was that division of labor and human cooperation is beneficial for all people who participate in it. 22 00:03:54.000 --> 00:04:09.000 Division of labor implies higher productivity and provides mankind with a reason, so to speak, to peacefully cooperate with each other. 23 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:16.000 Otherwise, if there would not be this higher productivity associated with division of labor, 24 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:26.000 We would indeed get some sort of permanent war against each other. 25 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:36.000 Mises writes, for instance, if it were not for this higher productivity of labor based on division of labor, 26 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:53.000 Therefore, men would have forever remained deadly foes of one another, irreconcilable rivals in their endeavors to secure a portion of the scarce supply of means of sustenance provided by nature. 27 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:59.000 Each man would have been forced to view all other men as his enemies. 28 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:09.000 His craving for the satisfaction of his own appetites would have brought him into an implacable conflict with all his neighbors. 29 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:16.000 No sympathy could possibly develop under such state of affairs. 30 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:28.000 And again, because of this higher productivity, this tendency is, so to speak, not necessary that people consider themselves as enemies, 31 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:40.240 as enemies, but can consider themselves as cooperative partner, if not even friends. 32 00:05:40.240 --> 00:05:49.640 And again, to hammer away on this point, let me once again briefly 33 00:05:49.640 --> 00:05:58.640 I want to re-quote something that I have already quoted before in a slightly different connection, 34 00:05:58.640 --> 00:06:13.640 where Mises says that if one recognizes this principle of higher productivity, of cooperation based on division of labor, 35 00:06:13.640 --> 00:06:35.640 If one recognizes a principle which results in the union of all Germans or all proletarians and all forms of special nations, races or classes out of individuals, then this principle cannot be proved to be effective only within the collective groups. 36 00:06:35.640 --> 00:07:04.640 The Anti-Liberal Social Theories skim over the problem by confining themselves to the assumption that the solidarity of interests within the group is so self-evident as to be accepted without further discussion and by taking pains only to prove the existence of the conflict of interests between groups. 37 00:07:05.640 --> 00:07:11.640 and the Necessity of Conflict as the sole dynamic force of historical development. 38 00:07:11.640 --> 00:07:19.640 But if war is to be the father of all things, the fruitful source of historical progress, 39 00:07:19.640 --> 00:07:28.640 it is difficult to see why its fruitful activity should be restricted within states, nations, races and classes. 40 00:07:28.640 --> 00:07:39.640 If nature needs war, why not the war of all against all, and why merely the war of all groups against all groups? 41 00:07:39.640 --> 00:07:50.640 Now, at this point, before I come to my genuine subject here, let me make you aware of the fact that, of course, 42 00:07:50.640 --> 00:08:00.640 This principle that people can cooperate peacefully with each other to their own advantage 43 00:08:00.640 --> 00:08:10.640 does not necessarily mean that all groups have to live in immediate neighborhood with each other. 44 00:08:10.640 --> 00:08:15.640 That is, even if people so to speak dislike each other, 45 00:08:15.640 --> 00:08:25.640 Recall, if people hate each other for various other reasons, then they can still peacefully cooperate with each other from some sort of distance. 46 00:08:25.640 --> 00:08:37.640 That is, to accept the principle of peaceful cooperation does not at all imply the advocacy, for instance, of multicultural societies. 47 00:08:37.640 --> 00:09:04.640 Multicultural societies might indeed, and likely will be, extremely dangerous institutions because people who are ethnically different, culturally different, do not necessarily like each other very much, but from a distance, from a physical distance, again, there is this overriding solidarity of mankind as a whole, 48 00:09:04.640 --> 00:09:18.640 We can all benefit from each other peacefully cooperating with each other without any need to have multicultural societies on any point on the globe. 49 00:09:18.640 --> 00:09:32.600 Now, so far, I have concentrated in all of my talks with brief deviations on what we 50 00:09:32.600 --> 00:09:38.400 might call productive activities. 51 00:09:38.400 --> 00:09:50.640 Let me briefly explain again what I mean by productive activities in order to contrast 52 00:09:50.640 --> 00:10:00.680 productive activities from what one might call parasitic activities. 53 00:10:00.680 --> 00:10:09.680 Interactive activities are activities that increase the well-being of at least one person, 54 00:10:09.680 --> 00:10:14.680 reducing the well-being of other individuals. 55 00:10:14.680 --> 00:10:26.680 You realize that by this definition we avoid all sorts of interpersonal comparisons of utility. 56 00:10:26.680 --> 00:10:41.680 This formulation is similar to the formulation of the so-called Pareto criterion that also assumes that we cannot compare my happiness with your happiness. 57 00:10:41.680 --> 00:10:52.680 And if we cannot compare your happiness with my happiness, can we still say something about social welfare increasing or not increasing? 58 00:10:52.680 --> 00:11:12.680 The answer is, yes, we can do this if we recognize that if my well-being increases and through my activities the well-being of others is not decreased, then we can indeed say that social welfare has increased. 59 00:11:12.680 --> 00:11:28.680 And there exist three types of activities that accomplish this, that is, making at least one person better off without making anybody else worse off in the following sense. 60 00:11:28.680 --> 00:11:40.680 An act of original appropriation, that is, I am the first person to put some previously unowned resource to some use, 61 00:11:40.680 --> 00:11:46.680 is, in this sense, a Pareto superior move. 62 00:11:46.680 --> 00:11:53.680 It makes me better off, otherwise I would not have appropriated what I appropriate, 63 00:11:53.680 --> 00:12:10.680 and it does not take away anything from anybody else because everybody else would have had the chance to appropriate the same thing but they demonstrate through their own activity that they did not attach sufficient value to it, they did something else. 64 00:12:10.680 --> 00:12:22.680 So nothing has been taken away through an act of original appropriation from anybody else but one person is definitely better off, nobody else is made worse off. 65 00:12:22.680 --> 00:12:32.680 The second type of Pareto superior move is to engage in acts of production. 66 00:12:32.680 --> 00:12:40.680 I use my own physical body with the help of originally appropriated resources 67 00:12:40.680 --> 00:12:48.680 and now transform something that was less valuable into something that I expect to be more valuable. 68 00:12:48.680 --> 00:12:59.680 Obviously, I am better off because of this, otherwise I would not have engaged in this act of production, and nothing is taken away from anybody else. 69 00:12:59.680 --> 00:13:07.680 Everybody else has exactly the same resources at their disposal that they had prior to my act of production. 70 00:13:07.680 --> 00:13:12.680 One person is better off, no one is made worse off. 71 00:13:12.680 --> 00:13:33.680 and finally acts of voluntary contractual exchange, also are productive in the sense that two individuals benefit from the exchange, otherwise this voluntary exchange would not have taken place 72 00:13:33.680 --> 00:13:46.680 And again, no resources at the disposal of any third party are affected by this voluntary transaction between two individuals. 73 00:13:46.680 --> 00:13:59.680 So in this case we have two individuals gaining in utility and satisfaction and nobody losing in utility or satisfaction as a result of that. 74 00:13:59.680 --> 00:14:14.680 Because of this, these three types of activities can be referred to as productive activities, as activities that increase social well-being. 75 00:14:14.680 --> 00:14:22.680 In contrast, we have, of course, what we call parasitic activities. 76 00:14:22.680 --> 00:14:33.680 And I mean parasitic this time in a slightly different meaning from that that I mentioned very early on as having been used by Carol Quickly. 77 00:14:33.680 --> 00:14:49.680 Remember, Quickly refers to parasitic activities as activities that somehow diminish the amount of goods in existence, like picking berries and not replacing it with anything. 78 00:14:49.680 --> 00:14:57.680 I would call this, under the current definition, as a productive activity. 79 00:14:57.680 --> 00:15:02.680 So he uses that term in a slightly different way. 80 00:15:02.680 --> 00:15:15.680 At that time, when I talked about that, the use of parasitic simply had a different explanatory purpose than the one that I'm using now. 81 00:15:15.680 --> 00:15:30.680 What I mean by parasitic in this context is activities that make some people better off at the expense of making other people worse off. 82 00:15:30.680 --> 00:15:42.680 And those activities would be obviously activities such as taking away what some other person has originally appropriated, 83 00:15:42.680 --> 00:16:04.680 Taking away what some other person has produced, or not waiting for the agreement of some potential exchange partner, but simply robbing him of whatever is his. 84 00:16:04.680 --> 00:16:16.680 In this case, in all of these cases, we obviously have one person gains and another person loses. 85 00:16:16.680 --> 00:16:38.120 Let me briefly mention three typical parasitic activities that play a great role in history 86 00:16:38.120 --> 00:16:49.120 before I then come to a special form of parasitic behavior which is associated with the institution of the state. 87 00:16:49.120 --> 00:16:56.120 Parasitic behavior would be, for instance, in the most drastic form, cannibalism. 88 00:16:56.120 --> 00:17:03.120 That is, people simply eating another person up. 89 00:17:03.120 --> 00:17:18.120 It was, again, insight and intelligence on the part of people that led to the abolition of cannibalism. 90 00:17:18.120 --> 00:17:26.120 People realized that, yes, in the short run cannibalism might be beneficial. 91 00:17:26.120 --> 00:17:38.120 But, if you have slightly longer term perspectives, you would prefer slavery over cannibalism. 92 00:17:38.120 --> 00:17:48.120 This is indeed a stage of human development for which we have anthropological evidence. 93 00:17:48.120 --> 00:18:07.120 I think that most cannibals realized at some point, after smarting up a little bit, that slavery was definitely superior over this, unless you are very, very hungry at this particular moment. 94 00:18:07.120 --> 00:18:11.120 I wonder what would be a grain pit, or a ranch for a grain pit? 95 00:18:37.120 --> 00:18:44.120 during the times when cannibalism was still a common practice. 96 00:18:44.120 --> 00:18:53.120 And they asked him what he missed the most about this period of cannibalism. 97 00:18:53.120 --> 00:19:03.120 And what he said was, you know, what I missed the most was the baby meat. 98 00:19:03.120 --> 00:19:31.120 That was the most tender of all the meats, but at least people even overcame this delicious temptation and developed slavery and again it was rational thought, so to speak, that also overcame this institution of slavery. 99 00:19:31.120 --> 00:19:44.120 Because they realized that slavery is by and large an unproductive system of human interaction. 100 00:19:44.120 --> 00:19:49.120 Again, slavery in the short run can of course be beneficial. 101 00:19:49.120 --> 00:19:58.120 If I can use you as my slave for a while, even if I would recognize that in the long run 102 00:19:58.120 --> 00:20:05.120 I would be better off if you were a free man and I would be a free man and we would cooperate with each other. 103 00:20:05.120 --> 00:20:09.120 In the short run, of course, slavery can have certain advantages. 104 00:20:09.120 --> 00:20:15.120 And again, it requires, so to speak, a certain development of intelligence, 105 00:20:15.120 --> 00:20:20.120 a certain lowering of our time preference, so to speak, 106 00:20:20.120 --> 00:20:24.120 in order to be willing to give up this immediate advantage 107 00:20:24.120 --> 00:20:32.120 and the advantage that the institution of slavery might represent. 108 00:20:32.120 --> 00:20:52.120 Apart from slavery, of course, the most common form of parasitic behavior is plain crime and robbery and fraud and activities such as those. 109 00:20:52.120 --> 00:21:06.120 And again, we can say, of course, that the fact that most people abstain from these type of activities is based on insight, 110 00:21:06.120 --> 00:21:12.120 is based on the fact that they realize in the long run these things simply do not pay. 111 00:21:12.120 --> 00:21:20.120 If robbery would become, so to speak, a general practice, we would all be in terrible shape. 112 00:21:20.120 --> 00:21:32.120 And we abstain even from engaging in robbery and fraud, even if we know that in the short run we might be able to get away with it. 113 00:21:32.120 --> 00:22:00.120 Again, insight, a certain amount of intelligence, a certain ability to delay gratification is necessary on the part of man in order to give up the temptations that these forms of parasitic behavior might represent. 114 00:22:00.120 --> 00:22:16.120 And because of this, because of a certain amount of intelligence and so forth, we have reached a stage where cannibalism has basically disappeared, 115 00:22:16.120 --> 00:22:35.120 where slavery has basically disappeared and where fraud and robbery have become rare events conducted by just some few asocial individuals that most people abstain from it. 116 00:22:35.120 --> 00:22:51.120 So civilization is maintained by rational insight, by having developed a certain state of intelligence and having lowered our time preference to a certain degree. 117 00:22:51.120 --> 00:23:02.120 And again, a quote to this effect by Mises and then I will really come to the problem of the origin of the state as I promised. 118 00:23:02.120 --> 00:23:12.680 promised, Mises says here, one may admit that in primitive men the propensity for killing 119 00:23:12.680 --> 00:23:18.120 and destroying and the disposition for cruelty were innate. 120 00:23:18.120 --> 00:23:23.800 We may also assume that under the conditions of earlier ages the inclination for aggression 121 00:23:23.800 --> 00:23:28.440 and murder was favorable to the preservation of life. 122 00:23:28.440 --> 00:23:36.700 Man was once a brutal beast, but one must not forget that he was physically a weak animal. 123 00:23:36.700 --> 00:23:42.060 He would not have been a match for the big beasts of prey if he had not been equipped 124 00:23:42.060 --> 00:23:45.420 with a peculiar weapon, reason. 125 00:23:45.420 --> 00:23:51.100 The fact that man is a reasonable being, that he therefore does not yield without inhibitions 126 00:23:51.100 --> 00:23:57.780 to every impulse, but arranges his conduct according to reasonable deliberation, must 127 00:23:57.780 --> 00:24:02.380 must not be called unnatural from a zoological point of view. 128 00:24:02.380 --> 00:24:09.340 Rational conduct means that men, in face of the fact that he cannot satisfy all his impulses, 129 00:24:09.340 --> 00:24:16.900 desires and appetites, forgoes the satisfaction of those which he considers less urgent. 130 00:24:16.900 --> 00:24:23.420 In order not to endanger the working of social cooperation, man is forced to abstain from 131 00:24:23.420 --> 00:24:31.340 and satisfying those desires whose satisfaction would hinder establishment of societal institutions. 132 00:24:31.340 --> 00:24:35.540 There is no doubt that such a renunciation is painful. 133 00:24:35.540 --> 00:24:38.860 However, Men has made his choice. 134 00:24:38.860 --> 00:24:44.660 He has renounced the satisfaction of some desires incompatible with social life and 135 00:24:44.660 --> 00:24:51.340 has given priority to the satisfaction of those desires which can be realized only or 136 00:24:51.340 --> 00:24:56.540 or in a more plentiful way under a system of the division of labor. 137 00:24:56.540 --> 00:24:59.940 This decision is not irrevocable and final. 138 00:24:59.940 --> 00:25:04.980 The choice of the fathers does not impair the son's freedom to choose. 139 00:25:04.980 --> 00:25:07.500 They can reverse the resolution. 140 00:25:07.500 --> 00:25:14.700 Every day they can proceed to the transvaluation of values and prefer barbarism to civilization 141 00:25:14.700 --> 00:25:22.700 or, as some authors say, the soul to the intellect, myth to reason and violence to peace. 142 00:25:22.700 --> 00:25:31.700 But they must choose. It is impossible to have things incompatible with one another. 143 00:25:31.700 --> 00:25:42.700 Now this fact that mankind has by and large developed the sufficient reason to engage in cooperation 144 00:25:42.700 --> 00:26:11.700 that has been built as society has also led, on the other hand, of course, to the temptation of creating a system of institutionalized exploitation or institutionalized parasitism or, as some people have referred to it, as stationary banditry. 145 00:26:12.700 --> 00:26:28.700 It is only if, insofar as we have a rich society in front of us, does a temptation arise for some people to take advantage of the wealth that society has accumulated 146 00:26:28.700 --> 00:26:44.700 can institute a system where they can systematically benefit themselves at the expense of the great masses of productive individuals. 147 00:26:44.700 --> 00:26:49.700 And this brings me to the institution of the state. 148 00:26:49.700 --> 00:27:00.580 Let me begin by giving you a definition of what the state is, a definition that is more 149 00:27:00.580 --> 00:27:10.620 or less uncontroversial, that you find adopted by practically everyone who talks about this 150 00:27:10.620 --> 00:27:13.780 institution. 151 00:27:13.780 --> 00:27:23.620 And this definition of the state is that a state is defined as an organization or an 152 00:27:23.620 --> 00:27:36.740 agency that exercises a territorial monopoly of ultimate jurisdiction or of ultimate judgeship 153 00:27:36.740 --> 00:27:44.740 or of ultimate arbitration in cases of conflict. 154 00:27:44.740 --> 00:27:54.460 In particular, it is an institution that is also the ultimate judge in cases of conflicts 155 00:27:54.460 --> 00:28:03.960 involving itself with other people in society and as a second element of the definition 156 00:28:03.960 --> 00:28:08.400 in which is in a way already implied in the first one. 157 00:28:08.400 --> 00:28:18.200 The state is an organization that exercises a territorial monopoly of taxation. 158 00:28:18.200 --> 00:28:30.740 That is, it can determine unilaterally, without the consent of others, how much the inhabitants 159 00:28:30.740 --> 00:28:41.820 of a territory have to pay to the agency of the state for the state providing this service 160 00:28:41.820 --> 00:28:50.180 of being the ultimate judge and arbitrator in the territory. 161 00:28:50.180 --> 00:29:10.180 Now, you immediately recognize from this definition that it is not difficult to explain why people might be motivated to create an institution such as a state. 162 00:29:10.180 --> 00:29:16.180 Just imagine what that means. 163 00:29:16.180 --> 00:29:37.180 It means that whenever you have conflicts with each other, you must come to me and I settle the conflict and I tell you then what you owe me for this settlement without receiving or having your consent doing this. 164 00:29:37.180 --> 00:30:03.180 This is of course a magnificent position to be in, and even better is the position, once you recognize that even if I cause a conflict, if I hit him on the head, then he must come to me and I decide what is right and what is wrong, 165 00:30:03.180 --> 00:30:09.180 and then typically decide, of course, that what I did was likely right 166 00:30:09.180 --> 00:30:16.180 and what he did that is complaining about the fact that I hit him on the head was wrong 167 00:30:16.180 --> 00:30:23.180 and then I tell him in addition that this is the amount of money that you have to pay me 168 00:30:23.180 --> 00:30:27.180 for providing you with this magnificent service. 169 00:30:27.180 --> 00:30:41.180 So it should be from the outset very clear that to explain why there have been attempts to form an institution such as states is anything but difficult. 170 00:30:41.180 --> 00:30:50.180 This is easy as pie to explain why there are constant attempts, so to speak, to try to form institutions such as this. 171 00:30:50.180 --> 00:31:07.180 Because what more wonderful position could one have, so to speak, as somebody who has parasitic inclinations than being in charge of an apparatus such as a state. 172 00:31:07.180 --> 00:31:17.180 So to explain why attempts to found states is a very, very easy thing to do. 173 00:31:17.180 --> 00:31:28.180 What is a difficult thing to do is to explain why anybody can get away with this. 174 00:31:28.180 --> 00:31:38.180 Why people do not prevent such institutions from coming into existence. 175 00:31:38.180 --> 00:31:49.180 And I will turn now to this task to explain why people would ever put up with an institution such as this. 176 00:31:49.180 --> 00:31:59.180 This explanation becomes even more difficult, so to speak, once you recognize the following, 177 00:31:59.180 --> 00:32:24.180 The fundamental law of parasitism is simply this, one parasite can live off a hundred or a thousand hosts in a very comfortable way. 178 00:32:24.180 --> 00:32:39.180 But we cannot imagine that thousands of parasites can live a comfortable life of one or two or three hosts. 179 00:32:39.180 --> 00:32:44.180 In that case, their life would be miserable too. 180 00:32:44.180 --> 00:32:52.180 So what we recognize from this fundamental law of parasitism is that those people who aspire to institute 181 00:32:52.180 --> 00:33:20.180 Institutes and institutions such as a state must also always have an interest to be themselves just a small group that is capable of ruling, of exploiting, of taxing and exercising an arbitration monopoly over a group of people far larger than they themselves are. 182 00:33:22.180 --> 00:33:33.180 And if this is the case, that the state must always attempt to be a very small group as compared to the group which they exploit, 183 00:33:33.180 --> 00:33:42.180 then we realize or recognize some other fundamental insight. 184 00:33:42.180 --> 00:33:57.180 Obviously, a small group, a very small group, cannot subject a large group only by means of brutal force and weapons. 185 00:33:57.180 --> 00:34:01.180 Yes, for a short time that might be possible. 186 00:34:01.180 --> 00:34:19.180 We can imagine that there are ten people who are all heavily armed that might control 200, 300, 400 people and keep them in subjection if they have no arms and the rulers do have arms. 187 00:34:19.180 --> 00:34:23.180 But in the long run, this is very difficult to maintain. 188 00:34:23.180 --> 00:34:32.180 That is, we must expect that these 400, 500 people will also find a way to arm themselves. 189 00:34:32.180 --> 00:34:43.180 And in that case, how can 10 people equipped with arms rule over 400, 500 or thousands of people 190 00:34:43.180 --> 00:34:48.180 also equipped with arms and means to defend themselves? 191 00:34:48.180 --> 00:34:52.180 Then the explanation of violence does it. 192 00:34:52.180 --> 00:34:55.180 Sheer brute force does it. 193 00:34:55.180 --> 00:34:58.180 This explanation does not work. 194 00:34:58.180 --> 00:35:05.180 What we recognize instead is the class of the parasites, 195 00:35:05.180 --> 00:35:11.180 the small group of parasites must, if it wants to rule over 196 00:35:11.180 --> 00:35:21.180 over lengthy periods of time over a population must base its power on opinion. 197 00:35:21.180 --> 00:35:29.180 That is, it must have at least tacit support among the public. 198 00:35:29.180 --> 00:35:36.180 The public must have taken on a position where they put up with this, 199 00:35:36.180 --> 00:35:44.180 somehow see a reason in having this institution, and so forth. 200 00:35:44.180 --> 00:35:51.180 The public must have accepted certain ideologies. 201 00:35:51.180 --> 00:36:00.180 And the insight, which has been first formulated by Etienne de la Boitie and then by David Hume, 202 00:36:00.180 --> 00:36:23.180 We also find that in Ludwig von Mises and in Murray Rothbard, the basic insight is the rule of the state over its population depends not on the exercise of sheer brute force, even though that plays some role, 203 00:36:23.180 --> 00:36:39.180 but rests fundamentally on nothing else but opinion and tacit agreement on the part of the public. 204 00:36:39.180 --> 00:37:08.180 So then the task becomes to explain the transition from a natural order, as I described it yesterday, from a system of feudalism where essentially no state organizations existed to a state of affairs where a stable state of affairs existed. 205 00:37:08.180 --> 00:37:15.180 A stable state institution has come into existence. 206 00:37:15.180 --> 00:37:28.180 And let's assume for a moment, so to speak, the most favorable situation for state formation 207 00:37:28.180 --> 00:37:34.180 without having a state already there. 208 00:37:34.180 --> 00:37:52.180 And what I mean by this is the following scenario. Let's assume we have a feudal king who is, so to speak, the natural monopolist of conflict resolution. 209 00:37:52.180 --> 00:38:01.180 As a natural monopolist, I mean every person, whenever they have conflicts with each other, 210 00:38:01.180 --> 00:38:13.180 do in fact go to the king and say, come on, you are the most prestigious, most wise and most experienced person. 211 00:38:13.180 --> 00:38:21.180 I'll ask you to settle the dispute that I have with somebody else. 212 00:38:21.180 --> 00:38:42.180 People are entirely free to choose different arbitrators, different judges, so to speak, but as a matter of fact, they all go to the king to do this. 213 00:38:42.180 --> 00:38:50.180 Such a scenario would still be what I call a natural order. 214 00:38:50.180 --> 00:38:59.180 The king in this situation would receive nothing but rental payments from his own tenants. 215 00:38:59.180 --> 00:39:12.180 And the nobles would receive rental payments from their tenants. 216 00:39:12.180 --> 00:39:18.180 There is no exploitation of any kind going on. 217 00:39:18.180 --> 00:39:29.180 The king does not tax anyone, anyone who has property that is independent of the property of the king. 218 00:39:29.180 --> 00:39:35.180 The king also does not pass any laws, that is, he does not legislate. 219 00:39:35.180 --> 00:39:46.180 Of course, he lays down the rules that his tenants have to follow, but that would be no more than if I'm the owner of a house, 220 00:39:46.180 --> 00:39:58.180 And of course I lay down certain rules that the tenants of my house have to follow, that whatever, that they have to clean the stairs once a week and things like this. 221 00:39:58.180 --> 00:40:08.180 So this king is part of a natural order and not yet a state king. 222 00:40:08.180 --> 00:40:12.180 He neither taxes nor legislates. 223 00:40:12.180 --> 00:40:21.060 Money collects rents and lays down the rule of the house of which he himself is the genuine 224 00:40:21.060 --> 00:40:23.620 owner. 225 00:40:23.620 --> 00:40:33.780 The decisive step that he must take in order to transform his position into the position 226 00:40:33.780 --> 00:40:38.160 of a state would be the following. 227 00:40:38.160 --> 00:40:46.880 The king at one point would have to say, so to speak, now you must come to me whenever 228 00:40:46.880 --> 00:40:50.580 you have a conflict with somebody else. 229 00:40:50.580 --> 00:40:57.220 You can no longer go to anybody else for conflict resolution. 230 00:40:57.220 --> 00:41:03.020 Up to this point you chose me, so to speak, voluntarily to be the judge in all cases of 231 00:41:03.020 --> 00:41:04.560 conflict. 232 00:41:04.560 --> 00:41:13.040 Now I take away this possibility from you to turn to others, and I take the right away 233 00:41:13.040 --> 00:41:22.620 from others to act, if they should be chosen as judge to do so. 234 00:41:22.620 --> 00:41:31.840 Now you immediately recognize that by taking this seemingly small step, the king does engage 235 00:41:31.840 --> 00:41:36.540 in an Act of Expropriation. 236 00:41:36.540 --> 00:41:41.860 In particular, visible is this Act of Expropriation vis-a-vis 237 00:41:41.860 --> 00:41:47.480 the other leaders in society, the other nobles, so to speak, 238 00:41:47.480 --> 00:41:50.840 to whom conflicting parties could 239 00:41:50.840 --> 00:41:56.120 have turned to receive justice. 240 00:41:56.120 --> 00:41:58.720 Again, recall, in the feudal order, 241 00:41:58.720 --> 00:42:09.720 It was precisely the fact that there existed a large number of independent, separate jurisdictions, so to speak. 242 00:42:09.720 --> 00:42:25.720 Each lord was responsible to create justice within his own territory, over his own property. 243 00:42:25.720 --> 00:42:54.720 Now he can no longer do this. So it is in particular the other nobles, of whom we would expect that they will put up resistance against this attempt of the king to monopolize, to acquire the exclusive monopoly, no longer a natural monopoly, but in this case it becomes a compulsory monopoly of being the ultimate. 244 00:42:54.720 --> 00:43:01.720 and final judge in cases of conflict. 245 00:43:01.720 --> 00:43:09.720 How can the king get away with this? 246 00:43:09.720 --> 00:43:20.720 The first step, and again I offer you here, so to speak, 247 00:43:20.720 --> 00:43:30.720 So to speak, not a precise historical description of what had happened here or there, 248 00:43:30.720 --> 00:43:41.720 but something that you might call a logical reconstruction of what has happened more or less all over the place. 249 00:43:41.720 --> 00:43:53.720 The first step is for the king to cause and bring about a crisis situation. 250 00:43:53.720 --> 00:43:59.720 And how does he bring about a crisis situation? 251 00:43:59.720 --> 00:44:04.720 In a way that is not very difficult to explain. 252 00:44:04.720 --> 00:44:18.720 Just as we recognize how natural, how easy it is to have the motivation to become a state, 253 00:44:18.720 --> 00:44:30.720 we can also recognize that among mankind there exists always the temptation, the itching, so to speak, 254 00:44:30.720 --> 00:44:47.720 especially among the tenants to free themselves from their rent payments and the rules laid down for them by their own landlords. 255 00:44:47.720 --> 00:45:08.720 That is, tenants, wherever you go, you can imagine that it would be not all that difficult to persuade them to gauge in some sort of riots against their own landlords. 256 00:45:08.720 --> 00:45:14.720 I free you of the rent payment that you must pay. 257 00:45:14.720 --> 00:45:22.720 I free you of the disciplinary rules that your landlord imposes on you. 258 00:45:22.720 --> 00:45:26.720 And I promise you to make you a free man. 259 00:45:26.720 --> 00:45:37.720 I promise you that you will become the owner of those things which you previously only occupied as a tenant. 260 00:45:37.720 --> 00:45:51.800 Or, in a slightly different scenario, you as a king, so to speak, incite a riot among 261 00:45:51.800 --> 00:45:56.200 the poor against the rich. 262 00:45:56.200 --> 00:46:04.360 You form a coalition with the poor against your own immediate competitors, that is, the 263 00:46:04.360 --> 00:46:19.360 The well-to-do people in society that somehow are rivals to the most direct rivals to the king. 264 00:46:19.360 --> 00:46:25.360 So then you create, so to speak, a civil war. 265 00:46:25.360 --> 00:46:43.360 That is to say you create a situation that is similar to the situation that Hobbes claims exists, so to speak, naturally among mankind. 266 00:46:43.360 --> 00:46:51.360 Recall I explained that the natural condition of mankind is not war of all against all. 267 00:46:51.360 --> 00:47:00.360 People do recognize that division of labor is beneficial and because of this tend to be in favor of peaceful cooperation. 268 00:47:00.360 --> 00:47:05.360 At least the large majority of people do this. 269 00:47:05.360 --> 00:47:18.360 But you can incite, especially if you are yourself an influential person, a person that is trusted by the masses, if you are the king. 270 00:47:18.360 --> 00:47:28.360 You can incite a situation that brings about a situation such as a war of all against all. 271 00:47:28.360 --> 00:47:35.360 And then in this situation where the war of all against all breaks out, 272 00:47:35.360 --> 00:47:43.360 where the tenants rise against their landlords and the poor rise against the rich, 273 00:47:43.360 --> 00:47:57.360 Then you come to the rescue of the nobles, the middle classes, and strike some sort of compromise. 274 00:47:57.360 --> 00:48:05.360 That is, you get the promise from the nobles and your immediate competitors, 275 00:48:05.360 --> 00:48:30.360 Yes, we will give up our former right to act as judge ourselves and grant you an exclusive right to be the monopoly judge in exchange for you and us getting together and stopping this civil war conditions that exist. 276 00:48:30.360 --> 00:48:57.360 This was, by the way, precisely the situation, for instance, during the Middle Ages, especially during so-called Protestant revolutions, when first, so to speak, the Protestant revolutions resulted in big-time looting activities and so forth. 277 00:48:57.360 --> 00:49:15.360 And then people turning to the kings and saying, this sort of stuff has to be stopped, and in order to stop it, we will grant you the exclusive right to be the judge. 278 00:49:15.360 --> 00:49:26.360 So you create a Hobbesian situation. The Hobbesian situation does not exist from the outset, but it can be created. 279 00:49:26.360 --> 00:49:55.360 Again, let me just read you a quote here from Henri Perrin that, in a slightly different way, describes the same phenomenon that is to say, the king allying himself with a lower class, 280 00:49:55.360 --> 00:50:19.360 the power classes with the sub-noble classes, so to speak, in order to break the power of the competing aristocracy of those people who would lose the most, so to speak, from the fact that the king acquires a monopoly. 281 00:50:19.360 --> 00:50:29.360 Pyren there says, the clear interest of the monarchy was to support the adversaries of high feudalism. 282 00:50:29.360 --> 00:50:37.360 That is, the adversaries of the noble class, of the aristocracy. 283 00:50:37.360 --> 00:50:47.360 Naturally, help was given whenever it was possible to do so without becoming obligated to, in this case he talks about the cities, 284 00:50:47.360 --> 00:50:54.360 The King in particular also inciting the inhabitants of cities to rise against the nobility. 285 00:50:54.360 --> 00:51:01.360 Whenever it was possible to do so without becoming obligated to the middle classes, 286 00:51:01.360 --> 00:51:11.360 who in arising against their lords fought to all intents and purposes in the interests of royal prerogatives. 287 00:51:11.360 --> 00:51:21.360 To accept the king as arbitrator of their quarrel was, for the parties in conflict, to recognize his sovereignty. 288 00:51:21.360 --> 00:51:37.360 The entry of the burghers upon the political scene had as a consequence the weakening of the contractual principle of the feudal state to the advantage of the principle of the authority of the monarchical state. 289 00:51:37.360 --> 00:52:03.360 It was impossible that royalty should not take count of this and seize every chance to show its goodwill to the communes and also to the peasants and so forth, without intending to do so, who the communes and the peasants, who, without intending to do so, labored so successfully in its own behalf. 290 00:52:03.360 --> 00:52:29.360 Now, but this is of course only the first step. You create the crisis, the noble class comes to you, wants to be rescued and you rescue them in exchange for them granting you exclusive judgeship rights. 291 00:52:29.360 --> 00:52:34.360 You have to offer something, of course, in addition to the aristocracy. 292 00:52:34.360 --> 00:52:41.360 What is typically offered is that the aristocracy now plays some particularly important role 293 00:52:41.360 --> 00:52:54.360 in the slowly developing royal bureaucracy that will be established. 294 00:52:54.360 --> 00:53:03.360 But more than this, you need, of course, now an ideology. 295 00:53:03.360 --> 00:53:14.360 Again, recall, with ideological support for this institution, this institution is not going to last for very long. 296 00:53:14.360 --> 00:53:22.360 And the ideology that is created, and that is still with us to this day, 297 00:53:22.360 --> 00:53:50.360 is the so-called Hobbesian myth, that is the idea that the normal state of mankind is precisely this war of all against all which the king deliberately brought about and that in order to stop this war of all against all 298 00:53:50.360 --> 00:54:04.360 It is necessary that there must be one single monopolist ruling over all people in order to create peace. 299 00:54:04.360 --> 00:54:15.360 Now, if you ask yourself, if you ask all around people, ask them, why do we need a state? 300 00:54:15.360 --> 00:54:20.360 Almost everyone will give you exactly this reason. 301 00:54:20.360 --> 00:54:26.360 Without a single monopolist, there would be permanent war of all against all. 302 00:54:26.360 --> 00:54:35.360 This is the belief that maintains up to this day a state apparatus. 303 00:54:35.360 --> 00:54:38.360 This is what practically everyone believes. 304 00:54:38.360 --> 00:54:45.360 I have asked my own students at times, and that was the answer that everyone gave. 305 00:54:45.360 --> 00:54:52.360 Without the state, of course, there would be chaos. There would be no cooperation. 306 00:54:52.360 --> 00:54:55.360 There must be a single monopolist. 307 00:54:55.360 --> 00:55:03.360 This is the ideology that keeps the state in place. 308 00:55:03.360 --> 00:55:08.360 Now, let me only point out this at this moment. 309 00:55:10.360 --> 00:55:25.360 You can quickly realize the weakness of this ideology if you do two things. 310 00:55:25.360 --> 00:55:35.360 On the one hand, imagine what this means if you have very small groups of people. 311 00:55:35.360 --> 00:55:39.360 That is two individuals. 312 00:55:39.360 --> 00:55:50.360 So what this theory essentially says is no two people can ever peacefully cooperate with each other. 313 00:55:50.360 --> 00:56:03.360 That would always lead to war one against the other. There must be always a master and there must be always someone who is subject to the master. 314 00:56:03.360 --> 00:56:12.360 You realize if you just use a very small group of people, immediately how absurd the Caesar becomes. 315 00:56:12.360 --> 00:56:29.360 We have five people. Is it necessary for five people that there must be one who is the monopolist in every possible conflict, including conflicts involving himself with the other four? 316 00:56:29.360 --> 00:56:37.360 For these small groups, most people would immediately say, you must be crazy to believe this sort of stuff. 317 00:56:37.360 --> 00:56:45.360 That can never be true, because you know groups of this size who peacefully cooperate all the time. 318 00:56:45.360 --> 00:56:50.360 Nonetheless, this is one of the implications. 319 00:56:50.360 --> 00:56:59.360 What you recognize here is that they never talk, so to speak, about the size of the territory. 320 00:56:59.360 --> 00:57:24.360 On the other hand, you recognize that if the theory is true, then of course it must be the case that we must have a world state in order to create peace, because the same argument applies, of course, to a situation where we have a multitude of states. 321 00:57:24.360 --> 00:57:38.360 If we have a multitude of states, then these various states are in a state of anarchy, of natural order vis-a-vis each other, and allegedly there must be permanent war among them. 322 00:57:38.360 --> 00:57:53.360 Now this is also obviously not the case. There are wars among them, and I will explain why there are more wars among states than there are wars among individuals, so to speak, in one of my next lectures. 323 00:57:53.360 --> 00:58:01.360 But it is certainly not the case that states are permanently at war against each other. 324 00:58:01.360 --> 00:58:21.360 So what remains entirely unexplained here and what is somehow taken intuitively for granted is that we are talking about sizes of states 325 00:58:21.360 --> 00:58:31.860 where it is not perfectly clear immediately that, of course, these people would peacefully cooperate with each other. 326 00:58:31.860 --> 00:58:39.860 But the size of states are in a way arbitrary. Why should not a state have the size of whatever, a small village? 327 00:58:39.860 --> 00:58:49.360 In a small village, we have not the slightest difficulty imagining that there is peaceful cooperation going on without a monopolist. 328 00:58:49.360 --> 00:59:04.360 Only when the size becomes a little bit bigger, then we become increasingly blinder, so to speak, to recognizing that at all times, of course, the same principle is at work. 329 00:59:04.360 --> 00:59:14.360 Just as the same principle was at work in order to explain why all of mankind can engage in peaceful cooperation based on division of labor. 330 00:59:14.360 --> 00:59:26.360 Why there is not only a reason for division of labor for the Germans, but the Germans and the French against each other must fight? 331 00:59:26.360 --> 00:59:32.360 Why the same principle applies to Germans and to French? 332 00:59:32.360 --> 00:59:42.360 So we have to recognize that this status principle, if it should be correct, should also apply to the level of you and me. 333 00:59:42.360 --> 00:59:53.360 That is to say, either I am your slave, or you must be my slave, but it is impossible that peaceful cooperation between two of us can exist. 334 00:59:53.360 --> 01:00:02.360 And once you recognize that the same principle that applies not just to two people, but applies to the entire world, 335 01:00:02.360 --> 01:00:31.360 in our world, you recognize immediately, of course, that this is just a made-up myth created, so to speak, by this initial crisis that the states themselves, or the would-be states, created in order to blind people to something that should be perfectly obvious. 336 01:00:32.360 --> 01:00:51.360 So now, once a state has established this sort of mythology, they all go through a sequence of steps, again essentially the same sequence of steps wherever you look. 337 01:00:51.360 --> 01:01:00.360 The first one is, of course, you have to disarm the population. 338 01:01:00.360 --> 01:01:10.360 There existed initially in the Middle Ages, of course, independent army leaders, 339 01:01:10.360 --> 01:01:17.360 offering their army services to whoever needed them, mercenary troops. 340 01:01:17.360 --> 01:01:25.360 They are now incorporated into the national army or into the king's army or they are eliminated. 341 01:01:25.360 --> 01:01:33.360 Again, all states try to disarm the population. 342 01:01:33.360 --> 01:01:46.360 In the Middle Ages, one of the immediate things that kings as soon as they had acquired semi-state position 343 01:01:46.360 --> 01:02:14.360 The first imposition was to insist that all the nobles had to raise down their own fortresses to prevent, so to speak, that they might come up with the idea that maybe that whole thing was a screwy process after all, and they would defend themselves against the jurisdiction or the tax impositions coming from the side of the king. 344 01:02:14.360 --> 01:02:25.360 Now you can build nice palaces, so to speak, but no longer anything that serves defensive purposes. 345 01:02:25.360 --> 01:02:36.360 Then, of course, all independent jurisdictions must be eliminated. 346 01:02:36.360 --> 01:02:51.360 Ultimately, even going as far as no longer allowing the husbands and wives, so to speak, to be judged in their own house. 347 01:02:51.360 --> 01:02:54.360 This process takes hundreds of years. 348 01:02:54.360 --> 01:03:03.360 My reconstruction compresses this, of course, into a very short period of time. 349 01:03:03.360 --> 01:03:13.360 But all of these powers are gradually, step by step, won from civil society. 350 01:03:13.360 --> 01:03:21.360 And we have basically only now, in the 20th century, reached the point where the power of the state 351 01:03:21.360 --> 01:03:35.360 The State extends as far as involving itself in immediate family affairs, like daring, for instance, to take the kids away from parents. 352 01:03:35.360 --> 01:03:41.360 This is something that would not have been possible, of course, hundreds of years ago. 353 01:03:41.360 --> 01:03:47.360 The power of the kings was not sufficient from the outset to do something like this. 354 01:03:47.360 --> 01:03:58.360 But we now realize, of course, now the power of the state is large enough in order to tell you whether you can smoke in your own room or not. 355 01:03:58.360 --> 01:04:11.360 The next step is, very importantly, of course, to control the ideology, to keep this belief in the Hobbesian myth 356 01:04:11.360 --> 01:04:29.360 and the Necessity of the State for the Creation of Peace Alive and for this you have to take over, will try to take over first the churches. 357 01:04:29.360 --> 01:04:40.360 This occurs basically with the Protestant Revolution as a result of which a far closer alliance between church and state is built 358 01:04:40.360 --> 01:04:46.360 that existed prior to the protestant revolutions. 359 01:04:46.360 --> 01:04:53.360 By the way, that's why the protestant revolutions, of course, were supported by so many princes 360 01:04:53.360 --> 01:05:01.360 because they realized that that was exactly offering them the opportunity to establish themselves as states. 361 01:05:01.360 --> 01:05:23.360 Besides the motive, of course, that they could also grab the property of the Catholic Church, which in some countries made up 20 to 30 percent of the used land mass. 362 01:05:23.360 --> 01:05:42.360 So it offered them a great opportunity to just enrich themselves greatly by expropriating the churches and then of course introducing successively public education. 363 01:05:42.360 --> 01:05:54.360 either controlling the church, which the church was the main instructional institutions for a long period of time, making the priests state employees. 364 01:05:54.360 --> 01:06:05.360 This has of course happened in all European countries to a larger or smaller extent, in particular of course in the Protestant countries, 365 01:06:05.360 --> 01:06:27.360 And if this does not go far enough, then of course, create a system of public education under direct state control. 366 01:06:27.360 --> 01:06:47.360 Again, Martin Luther, for instance, played a great role in this thing, advising the princes, not only to oppress the peasants, who he had first, so to speak, brought to rise against the princes, but then smashed them down, 367 01:06:47.360 --> 01:06:56.360 who advised the princes that just as the people should be trained in order to be ready for war, 368 01:06:56.360 --> 01:07:15.360 so of course they should be also brainwashed in state controlled schools in order to be brave and well trained citizens. 369 01:07:15.360 --> 01:07:41.360 And in the last step, after the nationalization of education, or the two last steps are the control of money, that is the monopolization of the issue of money. 370 01:07:41.360 --> 01:08:11.260 There existed, for instance, in France, before the establishment of a central French king, a multitude of mints competing against each other, trying to acquire, so to speak, the reputation of producing the best, most reliable, least manipulated type of money. 371 01:08:11.260 --> 01:08:24.260 All these competing mints were gradually closed down until in the end only one central government mint remained in existence, 372 01:08:24.260 --> 01:08:33.260 which of course makes it far easier to engage in manipulations of the gold or silver content 373 01:08:33.260 --> 01:08:39.260 than it would be if there would be a multitude of mints competing against each other. 374 01:08:39.260 --> 01:08:49.260 If you have a multitude of mints competing against each other, each mint has, so to speak, an incentive to point out if another one is defrauding you. 375 01:08:49.260 --> 01:09:00.260 Just now here are these guys, here are mints from town A or town B, they are engaging in coin clipping and people would bankrupt this type of mint. 376 01:09:00.260 --> 01:09:09.260 as soon as only one exists over large territories, it becomes far easier to engage in these sorts of manipulations 377 01:09:09.260 --> 01:09:22.260 and thereby again having a tool of enriching yourself besides your power to tax 378 01:09:22.260 --> 01:09:37.260 And lastly, they of course also then monopolize the means of transportation and communication, 379 01:09:37.260 --> 01:09:45.260 which is of great importance once you recognize it, of course, means of communication and transportation 380 01:09:45.260 --> 01:09:57.260 would play a very important role, would have to play a very important role in any attempt to revolt against the government. 381 01:09:57.260 --> 01:10:06.260 You have to move troops from place to place and so forth. You have to just send letters and messages from place to place. 382 01:10:06.260 --> 01:10:16.500 to Place, so you monopolize the postal service and you monopolize at least the main throughways 383 01:10:16.500 --> 01:10:25.700 and make them the king's roads and the king's postal service and so forth in order to control 384 01:10:25.700 --> 01:10:26.700 the public. 385 01:10:26.700 --> 01:10:27.700 You have a question? 386 01:10:27.700 --> 01:10:28.700 Yeah. 387 01:10:28.700 --> 01:10:33.700 Yeah, I think I have another one and you probably touched upon it already in your final two 388 01:10:33.700 --> 01:10:53.700 as well as the controlling of ideology, but in more abstract terms, and I would say that's the introduction of state symbolism, money is of course a state symbol, there are also songs, I wrote down some more flags, as well as very important architecture, governmental buildings as well. 389 01:11:03.700 --> 01:11:17.700 and all of a sudden it has the imprint of the king flags and all the rest of it are part of the educational process that you do 390 01:11:17.700 --> 01:11:25.700 to create some sort of myth, also the myth that the king derives directly from the gods and who knows what 391 01:11:25.700 --> 01:11:55.600 For instance, the author, Filmer, wanting to justify the legitimacy of the English king went as far as to say that he derived his authority directly from Adam and Eve in the form of continuous passing on of inheritances to make the claim, so to speak, that after all, he was just a normal landlord and the other people were all tenants. 392 01:11:55.600 --> 01:12:25.600 What can we expect of such an institution that is once you have a stable state in existence, even if you assume that the power of money is in the hands of the people who are in the hands of the people who are in the hands of the people 393 01:12:25.600 --> 01:12:44.600 The power of the state is initially very limited. That is to say, they still have to by and large adhere to the previously existing and recognized laws. 394 01:12:44.600 --> 01:12:56.600 Even if you assume that at the beginning their power to tax is very weak, that is, they can only tax a very small amount, 395 01:12:56.600 --> 01:13:10.600 what we can predict, simply based on the definition of what a state is, is that there will be a tendency of a minimal state 396 01:13:10.600 --> 01:13:17.400 to become a more and more total or totalitarian state. 397 01:13:17.400 --> 01:13:22.600 And again, the prediction of this is very easy, 398 01:13:22.600 --> 01:13:29.600 once we remember what the definition of the state is. 399 01:13:29.600 --> 01:13:35.600 If I am the ultimate judge in all cases of conflict, 400 01:13:35.600 --> 01:13:51.600 including conflicts involving myself, then you can predict that there will be a tendency to deviate from the existing law and make laws, that is, create legislation. 401 01:13:51.600 --> 01:14:12.600 I cause the conflicts myself. I cannot use, of course, the normal laws, because the normal laws would just make me look like what I am, that is, a guy who has caused the conflict myself and deserves to be punished for it. 402 01:14:12.600 --> 01:14:31.600 So, I have to then invent a new law, make law in order to come to the conclusion, despite my act of provocation, despite my act of expropriation, I'm of course perfectly right to do this. 403 01:14:31.600 --> 01:14:42.600 We would expect an increasing perversion of law favoring increasingly the institution of the state. 404 01:14:42.600 --> 01:14:51.600 And on the other hand, we would expect based on the fact that the state has the right to tax. 405 01:14:51.600 --> 01:15:16.600 And based on the insight that nobody really likes to work, that work implies disutility, that the states will in fact do less and less of those things that they were supposed to do, that is to protect us, 406 01:15:16.600 --> 01:15:25.600 and ask for ever higher contributions, ever higher taxes to do so. 407 01:15:25.600 --> 01:15:36.600 And this, as a general prediction, is of course what we have seen over the centuries. 408 01:15:36.600 --> 01:15:51.600 Let me end with a few additional observations. 409 01:15:51.600 --> 01:15:59.600 With states coming into existence, 410 01:15:59.600 --> 01:16:22.600 The normal natural tendencies for markets to expand, division of labor to expand and intensify is, if not brought to a halt, but it is somehow distorted and disrupted. 411 01:16:22.600 --> 01:16:30.600 There exists now all of a sudden state borders that previously did not exist. 412 01:16:30.600 --> 01:16:46.600 And automatically once you have state borders the possibility of course arises that you now hamper and interfere with the free flow of goods. 413 01:16:46.600 --> 01:16:52.600 that is that you will impose tariffs on this. 414 01:16:52.600 --> 01:17:07.600 Secondly, the normal tendency of money to become an international money is also brought to a halt 415 01:17:07.600 --> 01:17:12.600 because now we have borders. 416 01:17:12.600 --> 01:17:28.600 There will be national monies arising, even if they are initially commodity monies, but they will now be French francs and Italian liras or whatever the country's name is. 417 01:17:28.600 --> 01:17:38.480 This and in so far bring about monetary disintegration, reduce the amount of integration that would 418 01:17:38.480 --> 01:17:46.240 otherwise naturally arise on the market. 419 01:17:46.240 --> 01:17:53.600 Then with the existence of the state, of course, the tendency for law to become universal and 420 01:17:53.600 --> 01:17:58.680 International that I described in my lecture yesterday. 421 01:17:58.680 --> 01:18:07.040 We have these insurance agencies and reinsurance agencies and arbitration agencies and the 422 01:18:07.040 --> 01:18:14.360 conflict between various insurance agencies leading then to the competitive development 423 01:18:14.360 --> 01:18:27.020 of universal, everywhere accepted standards of right and wrong, of legal and illegal. 424 01:18:27.020 --> 01:18:28.900 This comes to a halt. 425 01:18:28.900 --> 01:18:36.200 Law is now broken up into whatever, German law, Dutch law, Swedish law, every country 426 01:18:36.200 --> 01:18:43.300 having so to speak different sorts of principles, procedures and so forth. 427 01:18:43.300 --> 01:19:05.300 The tendency that normally exists of unifying this comes to a halt and last but not least states also have a profound effect on the development of languages. 428 01:19:05.300 --> 01:19:27.300 On the one hand, of course, they sometimes forcibly expand certain types of languages within their territory, eliminate, so to speak, certain languages and make some languages the official language of the country. 429 01:19:27.300 --> 01:19:57.300 On the other hand, by doing this, as the other side of the same coin, of course, they also disrupt, so to speak, the natural tendency of people to learn different languages and on the fringes of different territories for people to speak multiple languages and, in a way, also prevent the development of some languages that are used as 430 01:19:57.300 --> 01:20:16.300 International languages. Just think of what happened, so to speak, to Latin, which used to be the language of international communication for hundreds of years, all through Europe. 431 01:20:16.300 --> 01:20:23.300 Latin basically disappears in this function as soon as national states come into existence. 432 01:20:23.300 --> 01:20:33.300 It is then that French is spoken, German is spoken, and so forth, and Latin becomes, yeah, 433 01:20:33.300 --> 01:20:40.300 if it does not die out immediately, it becomes a language that is spoken less and less, 434 01:20:40.300 --> 01:20:53.300 And in the end it becomes, so to speak, just a relic that some strange people still learn in strange places 435 01:20:53.300 --> 01:21:07.300 without really knowing why, because nobody except the Pope and his people actually speak that language. 436 01:21:07.300 --> 01:21:34.300 Also currently going on with English, I think, if we perceive English as a natural language at this point, for international trade and communication, there are a lot of countries who try to resist the influence of English by all kinds of ridiculous rules, like no English songs, more than 40% on the radio, or in France, for example, you can't write email as a bureaucrat, you have to write a courriel or something. 437 01:21:37.300 --> 01:21:53.300 The international aspect enters the picture and that is the status of English as a dominant language similar to Latin owes its existence, of course, to the fact of imperialism. 438 01:21:53.300 --> 01:22:11.300 whereas the adoption of Latin as the international language was in a way an organic phenomenon that had very little to do with one place occupying another place and so forth 439 01:22:11.300 --> 01:22:31.300 Whereas nowadays English is of course promoted by the very fact that the United States is of course a dominant country and can impose in a way its language at least as a second most important language in various places. 440 01:22:31.300 --> 01:22:38.300 Mr. Ebonics will be having its break in the next few days. 441 01:23:01.300 --> 01:23:13.300 Isn't the dominance of English today more attributable to increased trade and communication than imperialism? 442 01:23:31.300 --> 01:23:41.300 The second language in Germany before World War II. It was actually Latin and French. 443 01:23:41.300 --> 01:23:50.300 After World War II, English clearly became foreign language number one. 444 01:23:50.300 --> 01:23:57.300 That had nothing to do with trade or so. That had something to do with Germany lost the war. 445 01:23:57.300 --> 01:24:09.300 The United States was the leading place there, the leading occupier there, and they enforced their language on the German school system. 446 01:24:09.300 --> 01:24:13.300 That happened also in the East German part, for instance. 447 01:24:13.300 --> 01:24:20.300 The Russians enforced Russian as being the second most important language in East Germany. 448 01:24:20.300 --> 01:24:27.300 People at that time, so it was easier to impose on the West Germans English because English was number three before. 449 01:24:27.300 --> 01:24:37.300 Whereas, of course, nobody in East Germany even contemplated in its most far-fetched dreams ever learning Russian. 450 01:24:37.300 --> 01:24:42.300 And all of a sudden now they had to learn Russian. 451 01:24:42.300 --> 01:24:51.300 And the consequence was after the Russians disappeared from East Germany, the people just wanted to forget about Russia. 452 01:24:51.300 --> 01:25:00.300 That is, you would then think somehow the people who, after having invested a certain amount of time into learning this sort of stuff, 453 01:25:00.300 --> 01:25:06.300 even if there is no force behind it anymore, you would maintain your skill. 454 01:25:06.300 --> 01:25:16.300 But what happened by and large was people hated it so much that they made an effort to forget even what they knew. 455 01:25:16.300 --> 01:25:18.300 Same as Central Asia. 456 01:25:18.300 --> 01:25:24.300 In many countries. Yes, I think that's probably true for Poland and those countries too. 457 01:25:24.300 --> 01:25:39.300 For them it was even far easier to learn Russian because those were both Slavic languages, whereas for Germans it was quite difficult to learn Russian. 458 01:25:39.300 --> 01:25:49.300 What is in the U.S. today, what are the numbers or the preponderance of parasites versus producers of adults? 459 01:25:49.300 --> 01:26:00.800 I have seen figures that one out of every two employed or working people in America today actually is a bureaucrat. 460 01:26:00.800 --> 01:26:12.800 It sounds a lot like our social security scam where at some point you just cannot have everybody be the parasite and there be no host left. 461 01:26:12.800 --> 01:26:23.800 I don't know numbers about this. It would be interesting to figure that out, but it should be pointed out that it is also a very difficult task. 462 01:26:23.800 --> 01:26:37.800 You see, in the old days, it was more clear who was part of the state apparatus and who wasn't. 463 01:26:37.800 --> 01:26:49.800 Whereas nowadays, of course, there are many private institutions, semi-private institutions that should be counted as government employees. 464 01:26:49.800 --> 01:27:00.800 Let's say people who work for Boeing or firms that have more or less only the government as purchaser of their goods. 465 01:27:00.800 --> 01:27:05.800 Officially they are classified as working in the private sector. 466 01:27:05.800 --> 01:27:11.400 are de facto, of course, they are not. 467 01:27:11.400 --> 01:27:22.760 The other complication is that one has to determine in a way are the net recipients 468 01:27:22.760 --> 01:27:25.460 or net payers. 469 01:27:25.460 --> 01:27:33.680 So in some sense, probably every single person receives some handouts from the state and 470 01:27:33.680 --> 01:27:39.080 is in this way tied to it. 471 01:27:39.080 --> 01:27:44.920 On the other hand, he might pay in far more in taxes 472 01:27:44.920 --> 01:27:46.440 than he gets out. 473 01:27:46.440 --> 01:27:49.240 And in other cases, it might be just the other way around. 474 01:27:49.240 --> 01:27:51.920 So one would have to look almost at every individual 475 01:27:51.920 --> 01:27:54.880 to make a determination of this. 476 01:27:54.880 --> 01:28:01.640 But it is certainly a strategy of states 477 01:28:01.640 --> 01:28:21.640 to make people at least to a small extent dependent on the state and then emphasize in public opinion the tremendous importance of precisely this little handout that they get. 478 01:28:21.640 --> 01:28:33.640 Again, it would be nice to know more precise numbers, what percentage of people can be classified as a net tax payer, 479 01:28:33.640 --> 01:28:48.640 and what can be classified as a net tax recipient that can be probably done, but I haven't done it. 480 01:28:48.640 --> 01:29:03.640 In this development of the state, I think psychologically at least some of this is the ability of people to escape from their own responsibility. 481 01:29:03.640 --> 01:29:13.640 Let me give you an example. Let's say, Ron, I steal his watch, and if the two of us together, he would immediately take action. 482 01:29:13.640 --> 01:29:41.640 Whereas if I make this into a group, and I steal Ron's watch here, and then I'll say well I'm part of the village, and I'll go to the village and I say, even though I get the thing that I should be responsible for, I say well I'm part of the village, and then immediately we get an attack of one group of another, you've wronged my sister or something like this, you get this Klan mentality. 483 01:29:41.640 --> 01:29:54.640 I will come to that when I talk about, in my next lecture, the transition from monarchy to democracy in a way that is a subject that plays into this transition. 484 01:29:54.640 --> 01:30:06.640 It's easier to use anonymous groups to do evil stuff than if it is perfectly clear who does the evil stuff. 485 01:30:06.640 --> 01:30:29.640 Isn't there a certain, English has a facility of expression, as we go into this infusion of economic and scientific, to describe things in a word that in other languages take phrases, and it's a simpler way to communicate in English, whereas in the older languages you, they get kind of pondered. 486 01:30:36.640 --> 01:30:43.640 I have met many German philosophers who have told me philosophy you can only do in German 487 01:30:43.640 --> 01:30:46.640 because German is the most precise of all languages. 488 01:30:46.640 --> 01:30:52.640 I have no opinion on the matter, I'm just saying there's a certain amount of nationalism that goes on. 489 01:30:52.640 --> 01:30:58.640 The international language used to be French and I think that's why the French have their nose out of joint 490 01:30:58.640 --> 01:31:01.640 because suddenly they aren't premier. It's all in English. 491 01:31:01.640 --> 01:31:09.640 Again, you will find very many French people who think that French is the only language in which you can think clearly. 492 01:31:09.640 --> 01:31:17.640 Even though the French have also produced the most unclear thinkers like Jacques Derrida so that you can imagine. 493 01:31:17.640 --> 01:31:27.640 So I think each language community has its own little myths, why they are more precise in some ways than others, 494 01:31:27.640 --> 01:31:46.640 Supposedly English had all these awkward expressions too, but being overrun or captured on several occasions, the captors threw out some of these things. 495 01:31:57.640 --> 01:31:59.640 Thank you very much.