The Origins of the Modern State

by Matt Lancaster

One hundred years of rape, theft, and murder is one parent of the State, the desire (greed) for goods that one cannot produce, and land one does not own is the other. 1450 is the date in which the creation of the first bureaucratized, centralized state since the fall of the Roman Empire began. The methods by which this country was created is something that few anarchists know, and few Statists care for them to know. So, in the interest of broadening the intellectual ammunition of the members of our movement, I shall continue.

History: In 1450, King Louis XI of France began his three year campaign to drive the English out of their (actually rightfully acquired, unlike the provinces that they had already been driven out of) provinces of Aquitane and Normandy. His (newly cast and newly invented) cannons battered down the walls of fortresses that held English troops as if they weren’t even there. By 1453 he had driven the English out of France.

(Side note: this was the time that Christendom most needed to put away petty conflicts and come to the aid of the crumbling Byzantine empire, if only to save the now lost treasures of the Roman Empire; not to mention the wealth of books in the great libraries of the city, and to keep Hagia Sophia [seriously the most beautiful church in the world] out of Moslem hands.)

Instead, the French king and his army had a more sinister plot in mind. In the years between 1453 and 1477 he began to knock down the castles of any knights who didn’t pay his taxes, or who rode out with their armsmen to stop the king from levying taxes upon the peasants under their protection. In 1477-1478, Louis attacked the Dukes of Burgundy, who refused to pay his taxes and instead opted to hole up in their once mighty fortresses. He then dismantled their castles and took the lives of their soldiers with his massive cannons. Brittany soon followed. The King began to impose his will upon even more people in France, but no one could defend themselves from his army and cannon. He levied new taxes and built more cannons, hired more mercenaries, and raised more French troops. He died in 1483, but the legacy of terror that his new and monstrous creation lived on, with the new King. From 1494-1498 Charles VIII attacked the free and prosperous city-states of Italy, greedy and seething because his own economy was taking a down turn (sounds a bit too familiar, doesn’t it). Again, no fortress walls could stop him. He took Naples, and plundered it. He plundered Florence. He destroyed the fortresses of San Giovanni and Firizzano.[1] The other city-states and even the Papal lands surrendered to him Then the Holy league, of the Papal States, the Holy Roman Empire, Venice, and Spain formed against him. Though Charles won the main engagement of the War of the Holy League, Fornovo, his bullying was over. He returned to France and died in 1498.

Observations:

1: The State was born in an orgy of blood and fire. It drew its power from its ability to intimidate and bully its subjects, and from the invention of the cannon.

2: It truly is nothing more than what H.L. Mencken said it is “a romanticized gang of thieves”.

3: Nothing other than defense of property and person is justified if it is begotten in violence.

4: If the power of the State is drawn from the Cannon, (as it is shown to be), then any claim to legitimacy and authority that it could ever have would be the claim of the brigand, rouge, cheat, warlord, thief, or no claim at all.

5: None of the above have any legitimacy, because they are begotten in violence.

Conclusion: Since an invention has historically ushered in the period of States, then one may just get us out of its wretched, carrion encrusted claws: the Internet. It is an odd twist of fate that the cannon was the product of private ingenuity, and State-sponsored researchers invented the Internet. (With all due credit to David Smith for elaborating on why the Internet might just be the State’s undoing.) The other invention that could mean the death of the State, was also its invention: the mass-produced weapon. Hopefully it will not get to that stage. Hopefully we can dismantle the State peacefully, in the manner opposite of its formation, by building and creating, not by stealing and destroying.