Excerpt: "Anatomy of the State"

The State is almost universally considered an institution of social service. Some theorists venerate the State as the apotheosis of society. Others regard it as an amiable, though often inefficient, organiza-tion for achieving social ends. But almost all regard it as a necessary means for achieving the goals of mankind, a means to be ranged against the “private sector” and often winning in this competition of resources.
With the rise of democracy, the identification of the State with society has been redoubled, until it is common to hear sentiments expressed which violate virtually every tenet of reason and common sense such as, “we are the government.”
The useful collective term “we” has enabled an ideological camouflage to be thrown over the reality of political life.
If “we are the government,” then anything a government does to an individual is not only just and untyrannical but also “voluntary” on the part of the individual concerned.
If the government has incurred a huge public debt which must be paid by taxing one group for the benefit of another, this reality of burden is obscured by saying that “we owe it to ourselves.”
If the government conscripts a man, or throws him into jail for dissident opinion, then he is “doing it to himself” and, therefore, nothing untoward has occurred.
Under this reasoning, any Jews murdered by the Nazi government were not murdered; instead, they must have “committed suicide,” since they were the government (which was democratically chosen), and, therefore, anything the government did to them was voluntary on their part. . .
If, then, the State is not “us,” if it is not “the human family” getting together to decide mutual problems, if it is not a lodge meeting or country club, what is it?
Briefly, the State is that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area.
In particular, it is the only organization in society that obtains its revenue not by voluntary contribution or payment for services rendered but by coercion.
While other individuals or institutions obtain their income by production of goods and services and by the peaceful and voluntary sale of these goods and services to others, the State obtains its revenue by the use of compulsion; that is, by the use and the threat of the jailhouse and the bayonet.
Having used force and violence to obtain its revenue, the State generally goes on to regulate and dictate the other actions of its individual subjects.
One would think that simple observation of all States through history and over the globe would be proof enough of this assertion; but the miasma of myth has lain so long over State activity that elaboration is necessary.

Murray N. Rothbard
From “The Anatomy of the State,”