Freedom, Society, and State - Ludwig von Mises Institute

CHAPTER II I
The Stale IS I Casle Institution
1. THE ORIGIN OF THE STATE
For his views on the origin and nature of the
state, the individualist anarchist owes a heavy intellectual
debt to the sociological writings of Herbert
S pen c era n d s u c h me mb e r s 0 f the·. Ger rna n s c h 0 0 lor
historical sociology as Ludwig Gumplowicz. Gustav
Ratzenhofer, and, in particular, Franz Oppenheimer.
Since Oppenheimer introduced the distinction between
the "political" and the "economic means," a distinction
which has assumed a central position in the individualist
anarchist analysis of the state, one cannot understand
this analysis without some familiarity with the
wr it ings of this early twentieth century German
sociologist.
Oppenheimer's fundamental insight was that man can
sat i s f y his des ire s t h r 0 ugh two mu t ua I lyexcI us i ve
means. One is work; the other robbery. Work, by which
he means one's labor as well as what one receives in
exchange for one's labor, he designated as "the economic
means."
Robbery, the "unrequited appropriation of the
labor of others , " is termed the "political means."
Whi Ie these two means are mutually exclusive, their
purpose is identical: the acquisition of wealth.
o p pen h e i mer the ref 0 rev i ews It a I I wo rId his tor y. f r OJTl
p rim i t i vet i me sup toour own· c i viI i za t ion n s imp I y as
"a contest. .between the economic and the political
means." . Such is Oppenheimer's conceptual framework and
world view.
There are two ramifications of this conceptual
framework which Oppenheimer is quick to point out: (8)
the s tat e i s the ins tit uti 0 nali zed em bod i men t 0 f the
pol it ical means, and (b) since production necessarily
precedes robbery society, by use of the economic means,
must have obtained a certain level of economic development
before the emergence of the state was possible.
This latter point, Oppenheimer feels, explains why
no state ever existed among such groups as the primi-
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