Man has found that, through the process of voluntary, mutual exchange, the productivity and hence, the living standards of all participants in exchange may increase enormously.
The only “natural” course for man to survive and to attain wealth, therefore, is by using his mind and energy to engage in the production-and-exchange process.
The social path dictated by the requirements of man’s nature, therefore, is the path of “property rights” and the “free market” of gift or exchange of such rights.
According to Franz Oppenheimer, there are two mutually exclusive ways of acquiring wealth
Economic means: production and exchange
Political means: seizure of another's goods or services by the use of force and violence.
It siphons production off to a parasitic and destructive individual or group; and this siphoning not only subtracts from the number producing, but also lowers the producer’s incentive to produce beyond his own subsistence.
In the long run, the robber destroys his own subsistence by dwindling or eliminating the source of his own supply.
The state is the organization of the political means
The systematization of the predatory process over a given territory
The State provides a legal, orderly, systematic channel for the predation of private property.
The State has never been created by a “social contract”; it has always been born in conquest and exploitation.
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