Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

While it is common for us to use the terms “State” and “government” interchangeably, it is wise to make a distinction given that when many people first encounter the anti-State perspective, they draw the illegitimate conclusion that the anarchist is arguing for no “governance” whatever — that anti-statism means lawlessness, “anarchy,” and disorder. We should not lead men to think that because we oppose the State, ie., an institution that violently arrogates resources to itself and gives men no other choice but to accept and pay for these goods and services, that we oppose all government. There is a distinction to be made. There is “governance” without the State.

This institution that we call the State, i.e., that coercive institution set up by men to dominate others, is different from what we might call “government” or “governance.” It is a mistake to simply refer to it as “the government” like we do. Indeed, the State wants men to make this conflation so that it appears that a political monopoly on the “legal” use of violence appears to others as the only way to bring order (or “governance”) to society. The State wants men to think just how most of them do, questioning how we would have anything at all if it weren’t for Pharaohs and their agents of iniquity willing to put the boot on people who don’t obey them.

Thus most people miss the nefarious reasons for centralizing the control of various resources in a so-called “government,” thinking that it is done out of some economic necessity or the inability of markets and private individuals to provide these things, where the great god-State swoops in and “saves” the day. But the State “provides” various goods and services (civil law, protection, roads, schools) not because it is the only method of providing them or because they are making some honest attempt to serve “the people,” but because they must, as a group of men intent on controlling a given population, seize control of these things if they are to have any power. As the libertarian anarchist Murray Rothbard has explained,

“Throughout history groups of men calling themselves ‘the government’ or ‘the State’ have attempted—usually successfully—to gain a compulsory monopoly of the commanding heights of the economy and the society. In particular, the State has arrogated to itself a compulsory monopoly over police and military services, the provision of law, judicial decision-making, the mint and the power to create money unused land (‘the public domain’), streets and highways, rivers and coastal waters, and the means of delivering mail. Control of land and transportation has long been an excellent method of assuring overall control of a society; in many countries, highways began as a means of allowing the government to move its troops conveniently throughout its subject country. Control of the money supply is a way to assure the State an easy and rapid revenue, and the State makes sure that no private competitors are allowed to invade its self-arrogated monopoly of the power to counterfeit (i.e., create) new money. Monopoly of the postal service has long been a convenient method for the State to keep an eye on possibly unruly and subversive opposition to its rule.”

The State controls these things because they have to if they wish to carry out their plunder scheme, not because the “services” are necessary or because the State actors are benevolent. As Rothbard went on,

“Control of the police and the army is particularly important in enforcing and assuring all of the State’s other powers, including the all-important power to extract its revenue by coercion.”

It isn’t like the State is merely some institution that just passively and neutrally exists to facilitate the provision of “public goods” to people, as if self-interested men aren’t involved in it. Rather, it uses its monopoly status to further its own power. As Rothbard adds,

“The State does not merely use coercion to acquire its own revenue, to hire propagandists to advance its power, and to arrogate to itself and to enforce a compulsory monopoly of such vital services as police protection, firefighting, transportation, and postal service. For the State does many other things as well, none of which can in any sense be said to serve the consuming public. It uses its monopoly of force to achieve, as Albert J. Nock puts it, a ‘monopoly of crime’—to control, regulate, and coerce its hapless subjects. Often it pushes its way into controlling the morality and the very daily lives of its subjects. The state uses its coerced revenue, not merely to monopolize and provide genuine services inefficiently to the public, but also to build up its own power at the expense of its exploited and harassed subjects: to redistribute income and wealth from the public to itself and to its allies, and to control, command, and coerce the inhabitants of its territory.”

What we call “the State” then can hardly be considered governance. As Rothbard defines this political system, “The State is a vast engine of institutionalized crime and aggression, the ‘organization of the political means’ to wealth…the State is a criminal organization.” As opposed to those who provide goods and services voluntarily and freely with others, with no threat of caging or killing them if they don’t accept, Rothbard explains that “the State is a coercive criminal organization that subsists by a regularized large-scale system of taxation-theft.”

To deconflate “State” and “government” would then be a step in the direction of liberty. That way, we can show that there is no sense in arguing that evil—the inherent violence of statism—is “necessary” to social order. It is not necessary that we rob people in order for goods, services, and order to be provided, and arguably necessary that we don’t if we wish to have those things. For being based in violence and theft, the State is actually anti-social, anti-law, and anti-order.

State vs. government

It should not be thought that because we must oppose the State (as anyone who opposes evil must), that we are against “government” (so to speak). As I wrote in a previous article,

“It could be argued that ‘government’ is necessary, but that ‘government’ would be a God-centered patriarchy, as God prescribed, not bureaucratic government as we know it, and certainly not a democratic secular system like we have today where we yoke ourselves to infidels.”

Here we must however distinguish between “government” as most men conceive of it today (as the violent and political system of statism) and “government” in the sense of truly organizing society how God willed it. And here we will see that opposition to the State, which has merely intentionally conflated itself with governance in order to make men believe it’s an indispensable feature of society, does not imply that one is opposed to “government” or social order in a strict sense.

Paul Maitrejean has explained the difference between Godly government under the family, and ungodly statism under the rule of other men.

“One [government] is founded by God Himself at creation, the other [the State] is founded by Nimrod; one is established in family order, the other in the idea of man ruling over man; one is necessary for order and justice, the other disregards order and justice; one establishes harmony, the other establishes chaos; one encourages growth, the other stunts and discourages it; one is based in freedom, the other in slavery.

Any instance of men seeking power over other men, or men seeking other men to rule over them, is the spirit of Nimrod…Man was not meant to rule man. The desire for control over others is the very heart of Babylonian statism.”

If the patriarchal (ie., family-centered) “government” of God stands in stark contrast to the statist systems of men, it’s easy to see why the State must attack the true means of “governance” — hence why they attempt to raise your kids in government schools, why they break up families, why they attack a man’s ability to provide for his family, why they break into houses with their SWAT teams and shoot men over alleged charges of possessing marijuana, why they push the gay and “transgender” agenda, etc. Hence why statist philosophers like Plato advocated for the abolition of the traditional family structure and for children being raised communally by the State in his well-known book The Republic, where children wouldn’t know their biological parents but would be shipped off to state nurseries where they would be molded into “good citizens” fit for operating the State machinery, rather than godly children prepared to continue God’s patriarchal order for government. Hence why Karl Marx and his co-conspirator Fredrich Engels called for an “abolition of the family!” and “replacing home education by social [state education]” in their Communist Manifesto (1848), and why Engels took after Plato in his Principles of Communism (1847) by calling for “educating children on a communal basis.”

We see, in many quotes by socialists that attack the family, just how much statism is an attack on God’s family-centered social order, and just how much it has to be, given that the political method of supplying the needs of “the people” through violence and theft at the hands of political “fathers” is a competing, alternative form of “government” to the family-based model where these things are carried out voluntarily and in true godly love of family and neighbor. It is no coincidence that socialists have attacked the family, nor how modern-day feminism has come out against men and “the patriarchy”; socialism is an attempt to substitute statism for God’s family-based model of “government,” where man’s needs a met within the family and within the market-based network of voluntary exchange that is formed in this private society.

Thus, socialists advocate for “public schools” to raise children who they necessarily believe are property of the State (hence why they’ll put parents in jail who don’t comply with them). This is part of the attack on families, and many have abdicated responsibility here too by handing their children over to Caesar as a way of pawning them off for the day and going about their business. For the responsibility of teaching was given to families (Deut 4:9). We were told, concerning the words of God, that “you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk down the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deut 6:7; cf. 11:19). The Bible speaks of sons coming to their fathers to learn (Deut 6:20), not to the state “fathers.”

Anyone who loved God and liberty would never hand their children over to a state-funded school, because they would realize this is a critical point at which the State is able to triumph over private society, over God’s form of “government.” The State’s involvement in education—as with its pretend-attempt to protect, feed, clothe, provide for men in retirement, and do the million other things it tries to do—is a calculated attempt to subvert family-based order and substitute itself for the government of God. “Public schools,” “food stamps,” “social security,” etc., are attempts by the false government of statism to get men to forsake the true government of God by transferring their responsibilities to their family and neighbors to the State. Rather than form networks where families and neighbors help to educate each other’s children, and do so without the bondage of taxation and state-dictated curriculums, lazy and godless men allow Caesars to bring their children up. Rather than work with their neighbors to look after one another and care for each other, they allow Caesars to send them food money and retirement checks. Rather than work together to protect each other and be the eyes and ears of their neighborhoods, they allow Pharaohs and his armies and officers to stand over them.

It’s no wonder either that our people are largely state-worshipers who revere “constitutions,” laud police as “heroes,” vote for new masters every couple years as their “civic duty,” and tell us about the great “founding fathers” who gave us “our government” that is allegedly indispensable to “freedom”: they were raised by the people who had a vested interest in men believing these lies.

Once we see the distinction here, all of this should be expected. Since the government of God (in the family) and the State (man’s rule over man) are necessarily opposed to one another, it’s no wonder the latter attacks the former: a proper godly upbringing would keep men away from the State and its methods of “governance” (ie., by political violence and rule over men). As Paul Maitrejean continued.

“God established a natural order in the family, the very order the State seeks to dismantle. The State understands better than most Christians that the family is the foundation of true government, God’s government. And so, for the State to overcome, the family must perish.”

There is no case for accusing the anti-statist of being anti-government, then. The State is something wholly different from true government. As Paul continued,

“Whenever we seek a form of rulership outside the family, we are going after Babylon and will naturally find ourselves falling into tyranny.”

In fact, as Paul says, turning the statist’s charge against us on its head, the “anti government” indictment would be most applicable to them! For they are supporting a State that works to abolish true governance. As he writes,

“If anyone ever accuses you of being anti-government, remember that it is they who are in fact, as statists, anti-government. True Christians are pro-government, and anti-state.”

God’s “government”

As we see, the “government” that God gave us was not a State. Statism is the system of Egyptians that we’re called to walk away from. They are systems of robbery, man-gods, and idolatry that are raised up in rebellion to God, and punished accordingly. They are at best instruments of God’s judgment against those who are so disobedient as to erect one of these violent organizations. States come as a curse to men whose sins are so great as to clamor for political rulers, not as a blessing to them.

When men seek to be “governed” by the “laws” of men who organize themselves into “States,” God is reluctantly willing to give them over to these evils and pay the price for it (as we are today). He is, with some hesitation and after great warnings, willing to let men suffer under the “laws” of men (eg., the “acts” of the “United States Congress,” the “executive orders” of its “Presidents,” or the bureaucratic decisions of its many alphabet agencies who send armed thugs to kick in your door for allegedly possessing something they have deemed “illegal”). For not obeying the statutes and ordinances that God gives us, God says how He is willing to “[give men] over to statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live” (Ezekiel 20:7-25).

The State, then, is contrary to God’s idea of “government.” God gave us the family, a patriarchial order, for “government.” The paternal State is a false government (and, for that matter, a false god).

Indeed, in the scriptures, the State is born in rebellion to the family-based order of “government” (1 Sam 8:2-5). Thus, far from some alleged need to cling to the State if we want to follow God’s way, statism is essentially a rebellion against God’s “system” of “government.” State-seeking, i.e., building up a vast political apparatus of human rulers, is an attempt to get away from God’s order and to copy all the other rebellious men around the world — to “be like all the other nations, with a king to judge us, to go out before us, and to fight our battles” (1 Samuel 8:20).

As the Christian anarchist Kevin Craig explains,

“When the people desire centralized political structures it is because they desire to flee personal patriarchal responsibility. God judges their sin by granting their wish, and inflicting upon these covetous, irresponsible Families the curse of the State. Empire is a substitute for Godly Families.”

The dichotomy is not simply between “government or no government,” as a basic view of statism and anarchism may appear, but between who is doing the governing: The State or the family? As Kevin Craig went on,

“The alternative is always Patriarchy (government by Godly Families) or the Paternalistic State (‘the government’ instead of Godly Families). Political officers were therefore at all times to be called ‘father’ and ‘mother’ to remind both citizen and officer of the Patriarchal ideal in God’s Law.”

Although feminists (another attempt by statist intellectuals to attack God’s government) would not like this term, the “government” of God, so to speak, is best understood as a “Patriarchy” or a “rule” by families. And this, to be sure, is a “government,” ie., a means of giving way to social order. As Kevin Craig has explained,

“‘Patriarchy’ refers to a situation where families obey God’s Law and provide social order. Property is safe from ‘the State’ because Christian patriarchs don’t form ‘states’…Social order is created by [Christian families] obeying God’s Law in their daily lives, creating vast networks of businesses, charities, and voluntary associations, and passing Christian morality and wisdom on to their descendants.”

Far from the political institution we know as “the State” representing God’s system of government, it is the very proof that Christians have failed to self-govern and have abdicated responsibility to the false “family” of statism. As Kevin Craig says,

“If Christians do not work to see that the Family conforms to the Heavenly Model described in God’s Law, then God’s Law will be replaced by man’s law. The Family will be replaced by the State. The Father will be replaced by Caesar. The State is thus inescapably ‘pater-nalistic.’ It is vain to expect otherwise; the State is God’s judgment on malfunctioning families.”

When men abandon the family-centered, patriarchal “government” of God, they get the centralized State system of men. As Kevin Craig has written, commentating on 1 Samuel 8:4-5,

“The rise of the Empire-State [is due to] failing families. When families fail to lead by obedience to God’s Law in every area of life, those broken families and nomadic individuals (who have already given up trying to keep the covenant) agitate for political systems and institutions. Only when Patriarchs are backslidden do States arise. This is true throughout history. It is true in our day. A strong centralized State arises only when families are not executing God’s judgments, not keeping the Way of the LORD, not doing justice and judgment (Gen 18:19). If Families will simply do all that the LORD commands, there is absolutely no need for political institutions of any kind.”

If men got back to raising godly families (schooling their own children, raising them on the word of God, showing them the idolatries and evils of politics, raising their own food, and caring for their neighbors), such a people would be self-governing and never even think to form political rulers above them. Because God-fearing men don’t set up States, knowing the evils they bring with them. They strive to provide for their own needs and that of their neighbors, knowing that the alternative—Caesar happily running a statist system of welfare and “protection” for everyone to be yoked into—means bondage.

There is a lot of hope today amidst the trouble we’ve created for ourselves. Faith in godvernment continues to decline as such a system continues to reveal its true nature. Many are seeing the evils of government schools and are homeschooling their children now, and even basing such studies around God’s word. People are seeing the need to make the family the center of society as the false gods of the State continue to fail them. These are the things that really need to change if we are ever to raise up godly generations who buck the system.

Conclusion

Far from turning away from “government” and order by turning away from statism and back to God’s prescribed family-centered social order, we are in fact proposing true governance—order based around the family unit and voluntary networks of exchange of goods and services—while the statists, by advocating political violence and arbitrary man-made “laws,” are the ones in opposition to government and order.

Indeed, for making a moral code of its own and exempting itself from the moral law that everyone else is expected to follow, the State is lawless, criminal, and responsible for disorder in society. The ethic of statism is “I can hit you but you can’t hit me.” The State is responsible for everything that is charged against a godly “government” (which we may still consider “anarchist” as far as a State goes) where men live freely under God — “crime and bad guys will abound and men will be robbed all the time.” We have all these things today, from the people who incorrectly call themselves “the government,” but who in reality are nothing more than statist plunderers who have set out (unsuccessfully in the end) to thwart God’s kingdom.