Max Stirner book The Ego and Its Own
The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.
As quoted in The Great Quotations (1960) by George Seldes, p. 664
The Ego and Its Own (1845)
Modern Review (October, 1935) p. 412. Interview with Nirmal Kumar Bose (9/10 November 1934)
1930s
Context: It is my firm conviction that if the State suppressed capitalism by violence, it will be caught in the coils of violence itself, and fail to develop non-violence at any time. The state represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The Individual has a soul, but as the state is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.
Max Stirner book The Ego and Its Own
The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.
As quoted in The Great Quotations (1960) by George Seldes, p. 664
The Ego and Its Own (1845)
Rudolph Rummel (1932–2014) American academic
“Libertarianism, Violence within States, and the Polarity Principle,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Jul., 1984), pp. 443-462. Published by Comparative Politics, Ph.D. Programs in Political Science, City University of New York. https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP84.HTM
Rudolph Rummel (1932–2014) American academic
“Libertarianism and International Violence”, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 27, Sage Publications, March 1, 1983, p. 27-71 https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP83.HTM
“The state, conceived in violence, and backed by violence, will never achieve true peace.”
Philip Berrigan (1923–2002) Priest and anti-war activist
Fighting the Lamb's War: Skirmishes with the American Empire (1996), p. 202
Context: The Biblical view of the law, the courts, and the state is profoundly radical. The Bible looks upon the state as a kind of rebellious artifice; it is spurious, a human creation in rebellion against God.
In the Old Testament, when the first state is proposed in the person of Saul, the first King of Israel, God tells the prophet Samuel that this project spells rejection of God. The state and its legislature are in rebellion against, or rejection of, God. Its courts are a human fabrication, cannot promote justice and peace; they are founded in violence, and legalize violence.
The state holds together through police power, against the citizenry.
The state, conceived in violence, and backed by violence, will never achieve true peace.
A.C. Cuza (1857–1947) Romanian politician
From Naţionalitatea în artă ("Nationality in Art"), Bucureşti: Cartea Romaneasca, 1905.
Rudolph Rummel (1932–2014) American academic
“Libertarianism, Violence within States, and the Polarity Principle,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Jul., 1984), pp. 443-462. Published by Comparative Politics, Ph.D. Programs in Political Science, City University of New York.
Richard Epstein (1943) American legal scholar
[Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain, https://books.google.com/books?id=uz7nJkFvVn0C, 1985, Harvard University Press, 978-0-674-86729-1] (quote from p. 3)
Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist
Worshiping Power: An Anarchist View of Early State Formation (2017), p. 7
Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) American economist of the Austrian School, libertarian political theorist, and historian
Murray Rothbard, The Anatomy of the State, Auburn, Alabama, Mises Institute (2009) p.11, first published in 1974 https://mises.org/library/anatomy-state