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Entry: Goodbye to Politics Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/goodbye_to_politics#13581 Post contents: Mr. Zmirak: Maybe you need a bit more historical perspective as to why people prefer powerful States. It has to do with the alternative being feudalism, the tyranny of the local strongman. Historically it happened when the Roman Empire disintegrated and the only way people could get any protection at all was by submitting to the rule of the local warlord (Hayek got it wrong, historically serfdom did not grow out of a strong state, but of its disappearance). And the inconvenients of rule by local strongman were such that a strong State that a)permitted free movement to find a better place to live it b) was less intrusive in its demands, since it lived at considerable distance and could not sustain as much interest in the minutiae of daily life. And like it or not, in the nineteenth cenutry corporations set themselves up as feudal lords (like owning whole towns, having their own currency, and policed private guards), there was a very good reason for people to embrace the State, not because they hated freedom but because they loved it and knew where to get more of it. Perhaps libertarians ought to consider whether they might not call themselves feudalists, as they have a lot to say about tyranny by the state but not tyranny by the local strongman - or corporation. As for myself I am a bit wary of those who in their enthusiasm for freedom seem determined to re-invent the less admirable features of the Middle Ages (like advancing te idea of tolls to pay for roads and bridges, unaware that they are reinventing internal tariffs for non-local goods) Sent at: 2009 01 07