This article was first published in Vol. 24, Number 2 of The Free Market.

Critics accuse libertarians of reveling in government failures. Yes and No. No one is pleased to see the destruction caused by government policies, whether small scale, as when a tighter regulation causes business failures, or large scale, as when wars destroy life for millions.

The kernel of truth to the claim is this: the failure of government illustrates something extremely important about the structure of reality that most people are likely to forget. It comes down to this: statesmen and public officials, no matter how powerful they may be, cannot finally control social outcomes.

If I might offer a summary of a point emphasized in all of Mises’s works: the structure of society and world affairs generally is shaped by human actions, stemming from imaginative human minds working out individual subjective valuations, and their interactions with the material world, which is governed by laws that are beyond human control.

This essay first appeared in The American Mercury in March 1939.

As well as I can judge, the general attitude of Americans who are at all interested in foreign affairs is one of astonishment, coupled with distaste, displeasure, or horror, according to the individual observer's capacity for emotional excitement. Perhaps I ought to shade this statement a little in order to keep on the safe side, and say that this is the most generally-expressed attitude.

All our institutional voices – the press, pulpit, forum – are pitched to the note of amazed indignation at one or another phase of the current goings-on in Europe and Asia. This leads me to believe that our people generally are viewing with wonder as well as repugnance certain conspicuous actions of various foreign States; for instance, the barbarous behavior of the German State towards some of its own citizens; the merciless despotism of the Soviet Russian State; the ruthless imperialism of the Italian State; the "betrayal of Czecho-Slovakia" by the British and French States; the savagery of the Japanese State; the brutishness of the Chinese State's mercenaries; and so on, here or there, all over the globe – this sort of thing is showing itself to be against our people's grain, and they are speaking out about it in wrathful surprise.

I am cordially with them on every point but one. I am with them in repugnance, horror, indignation, disgust, but not in astonishment. The history of the State being what it is, and its testimony being as invariable and eloquent as it is, I am obliged to say that the naive tone of surprise wherewith our people complain of these matters strikes me as a pretty sad reflection on their intelligence. Suppose someone were impolite enough to ask them the gruff question, "Well, what do you expect?" – what rational answer could they give? I know of none.

First published in the American Mercury, 1927, and republished in On Doing the Right Thing, NY: Harper & Brothers, 1928, pp. 123–161.

When I was seven years old, playing in front of our house on the outskirts of Brooklyn one morning, a policeman stopped and chatted with me for a few moments. He was a kindly man, of a Scandinavian blonde type with pleasant blue eyes, and I took to him at once. He sealed our acquaintance permanently by telling me a story that I thought was immensely funny; I laughed over it at intervals all day. I do not remember what it was, but it had to do with the antics of a drove of geese in our neighborhood. He impressed me as the most entertaining and delightful person that I had seen in a long time, and I spoke of him to my parents with great pride.

At this time I did not know what policemen were. No doubt I had seen them, but not to notice them. Now, naturally, after meeting this highly prepossessing specimen, I wished to find out all I could about them, so I took the matter up with our old colored cook. I learned from her that my fine new friend represented something that was called the law; that the law was very good and great, and that everyone should obey and respect it. This was reasonable; if it were so, then my admirable friend just fitted his place, and was even more highly to be thought of, if possible. I asked where the law came from, and it was explained to me that men all over the country got together on what was called election day, and chose certain persons to make the law and others to see that it was carried out; and that the sum-total of all this mechanism was called our government. This again was as it should be; the men I knew, such as my father, my uncle George, and Messrs. So-and-so among the neighbors (running them over rapidly in my mind), could do this sort of thing handsomely, and there was probably a good deal in the idea. But what was it all for! Why did we have law and government, anyway! Then I learned that there were persons called criminals; some of them stole, some hurt or killed people or set fire to houses; and it was the duty of men like my friend the policeman to protect us from them. If he saw any he would catch them and lock them up, and they would be punished according to the law.

Slavery existed for thousands of years, in all sorts of societies and all parts of the world. To imagine human social life without it required an extraordinary effort. Yet, from time to time, eccentrics emerged to oppose it, most of them arguing that slavery is a moral monstrosity and therefore people should get rid of it. Such advocates generally elicited reactions that ranged from gentle amusement to harsh scorn and violent assault.

When people bothered to give reasons for opposing the proposed abolition, they advanced many different ideas. In the first column of the accompanying table, I list ten such ideas that I have encountered in my reading. At one time, countless people found one or more of these reasons an adequate ground on which to oppose the abolition of slavery.

So far in this book, we have developed a theory of liberty and property rights, and have outlined the legal code that would be necessary to defend those rights. What of government, the State? What is its proper role, if any?

Most people, including most political theorists, believe that once one concedes the importance, or even the vital necessity, of some particular activity of the State – such as the provision of a legal code – that one has ipso facto conceded the necessity of the State itself.

The State indeed performs many important and necessary functions: from provision of law to the supply of police and fire fighters, to building and maintaining the streets, to delivery of the mail. But this in no way demonstrates that only the State can perform such functions, or, indeed, that it performs them even passably well.

Suppose, for example, that there are many competing cantaloupe stores in a particular neighborhood. One of the cantaloupe dealers, Smith, then uses violence to drive all of his competitors out of the neighborhood; he has thereby employed violence to establish a coerced monopoly over the sale of cantaloupes in a given territorial area.

A major problem with discussions of the necessity of government is the fact that all such discussions necessarily take place within a context of centuries of State existence and State rule – rule to which the public has become habituated. The wry coupling of the twin certainties in the popular motto "death and taxes" demonstrates that the public has resigned itself to the existence of the State as an evil but inescapable force of nature to which there is no alternative.

The force of habit as the cement of State rule was seen as early as the sixteenth-century writings of de la Boetie. But, logically, and to cast off the scales of habit, we must not merely compare an existing State with an unknown quantity, but begin at the social zero point, in the logical fiction of the "state of nature," and compare the relative arguments for the establishment of the State with those on behalf of a free society.

Let us assume, for example, that a sizeable number of people suddenly arrive on Earth, and that they must now consider what sort of social arrangements to live under. One person or group of persons argues as follows (i.e., the typical argument for the State): "If each of us is allowed to remain free in all aspects, and particularly if each of us is allowed to retain weapons and the right of self-defense, then we will all war against each other, and society will be wrecked. Therefore, let us turn over all of our guns and all of our ultimate decision-making power and power to define and enforce our rights to the Jones family over there. The Jones family will guard us from our predatory instincts, keep social peace, and enforce justice." Is it conceivable that any one (except perhaps the Jones family itself) would spend one moment considering this clearly absurd scheme?