I do not know how today will end, let alone how the events currently unfolding will end. Therefore, I will write about what seems to me the main lesson for us—for the near future, if we don’t want this nightmare to repeat itself.
Those familiar with the “social sciences” from school or university have probably noticed that the question of the state’s origin is either glossed over or presented as if it simply arose on its own. Meanwhile, the state has its own history of emergence and subsequent evolution, and science generally does not dispute the “military-fiscal” origin of this strange institution. That is, the state, to those who study it, is legalized racketeering. A group that seizes a certain territory and levies tribute upon it is the state. What follows can vary, from “live as you please, just pay me tribute” to “now you are all my slaves.” In the first case, we are dealing with “civilized” development; in the second, with tyranny.
However, in any case, the primary function of the state is the ability to collect tribute and protect its borders. Therefore, the army is the most important and oldest state institution. This is followed by “legislation.” One can not only collect tribute but also regulate it properly, appropriating for oneself the powers of lawgiver. I note that in all cases the state invents and creates nothing—it only appropriates. The people it seized already had some form of defense. They also had their own legislation. The various “truths”—legal codes that appeared in the Middle Ages—are not things invented by wise men, but legal practice that existed earlier and was appropriated by the state, which then introduced changes important for itself, including those intended to guarantee the immutability of the existing order (the obligatory nature of tribute, for example, and increased punishment for killing the sovereign’s subjects). Hammurabi did not invent anything either. He, and all his successors, simply said, “Now we will decide what is legal and what is not,” and so that people would not worry, they simply “legalized” the practice that already existed. Courts logically followed—having a monopoly on determining what is legal and what is not.
All further development of state power is the history of its appropriation of institutions that society generated. After all, as the host grows, so does the parasite. Social insurance, money, education, science—all of this was, at various times in various countries, seized by the state. We are accustomed to considering state functions as self-evident, but in reality, the “sacredness” and “immutability” of these functions is directly related to how long they have existed. Law enforcement, legislation, and courts seem immutable to us only because they were appropriated in time immemorial. The state constantly strives to expand, to seize more and more functions; this is its nature. It evolves and develops, including ideologically, in order to justify its existence in the eyes of the people. For example, now it calls the functions it has appropriated “services.”
A free—and, worse still, armed—person is the most dangerous enemy of the state. The entire history of freedom, and the history of successful countries we admire, is the history of the struggle against the state and its encroachments. The Magna Carta is a limitation of royal power undertaken under circumstances favorable to the barons. What is called the “English constitution” is the result of the Glorious Revolution. The American constitution is the result of colonists defending that very British constitution, which, in their view, the English king was trampling upon. And so on. Everywhere, success and prosperity occur where it proves possible to halt the growth of the state and its encroachments.
In 1991, we started from a situation where the state was in a rather pitiful state. That is, formally its powers remained vast, but they could not actually be exercised. Society, on the other hand, was in an even more deplorable condition. The communists had been destroying civil society, persecuting the establishment of free horizontal ties, and punishing people for creating them. People believed that the state should do everything, and simply could not imagine life without it. They could not imagine a private bakery, let alone a private newspaper. And I am not joking. Society had no institutions of its own, and people did not consider their emergence possible.
At that time, two processes began. The first was the natural growth of social institutions. The second was the expansion of the state and the growth of its actual powers. For many reasons—and primarily because of the faith that persists to this day in the state’s ability to “do” things and even that it “should” do them—the second process turned out to be significantly faster. The conflict between society and the state begins when the state encroaches on occupied territory. In our case, however, it expanded into desert territories, free from social institutions. Throughout all twenty years of our history, the state constantly tested us. “Can we get away with this?” the state would say, biting off a piece of our freedom. “That’s fine!” we would reply. It’s for our own good, after all! And since state institutions are non-productive, each piece bitten off by them meant a reduction of opportunities for the growth of normal social institutions and practices.
In general, we were very lucky. God sent us a leadership that simply at some point stopped bothering to find pretexts for expanding its power over us.1 “I will do with you what I want, and you will pay me and not resist”—the leadership declared. It turned out that quite a lot of Ukrainians were already free enough to tell the leadership, “No, that’s not how it’s going to be.”2
You and I are living directly in a textbook on the origin of the state. What we see is its naked essence—violence, violence, and yet again violence for profit. When everything is over, there will be an illusion of relief. The familiar political scheming will resume in the state, pressure on society will weaken. Moreover, talks will certainly begin that in a “critical” (what else could it be!) situation we need “strong authority,” “care for the people,” “maintaining order,” and so on more than ever. But if we want what we are currently experiencing never to repeat itself—and moreover, if we want development and prosperity—we must remember that the essence of the state will not change for a single second, as it is determined not by the people in power, but by the ability to legally appropriate other people’s property for one’s own benefit (taxation in the broad sense of the word). We must remember that the state is our main enemy. Right now, it needs to be given a bloody nose. Then put in a stall. Restricted. And dismantled. Carefully, so that it does not fall on someone’s head and crush anyone.
P.S. Lviv was left without state police. This is the holiest of holies for all statists. They believe that only the presence of a monopolistic state guardian keeps us all from tearing each other’s throats. However, Mayor Sadovy’s report says otherwise. Although I almost do not doubt that various measures will now be undertaken to convince Lviv’s residents that they really need a police monopoly.