We live under false premises, the false premises of power. The State has been put over as a fraud. We are promised one thing. We get quite another.
The journey to self-government (anarchism) will be long and tough. We won’t arrive unless and until we clearly understand what the goal implies and why the goal is a good goal. Changes in human nature, in the ways we think, feel, and act, are not a necessary condition for us to create better social and political lives. Changes in understanding are.
We will understand the logic of self-government better when we understand the illogic of the State better. Most portrayals of the State draw on at least three concepts: sovereignty, legitimacy, and territorial integrity. States are defined by legitimate sovereignty over a fixed territorial area, or a legal monopoly of violence in a fixed region. I will argue that each of these three aspects of the State is inherently illogical and self-contradictory: sovereignty or a power monopoly, legality of such a power, and legality of such a power over a fixed area. The confused disorder and insecurity that flow from these contradictions help make the State a fundamentally malignant institution, securing not the blessings of liberty and security but their opposites. .