the-most-dangerous-superstition-larken-rose-20111

work without the involvement of “authority”-and many scholarly treatises do exactlythat-but once someone truly understands the insanity inherent in any belief in “authority,”he will never go back to accepting the myth regardless of what he thinks might happenwithout it, any more than an adult would go back to believing in Santa Claus because hedoes not know whether Christmas would work without him.You Rule You, I Rule MeBy definition, in the absence of “authority,” no one would have the power or the right toproclaim, “This is how things will be done.” Yet that is the only template of thoughtwhich most authoritarians have ever considered. Those who realize that they have neitherthe ability nor the right to control all of humanity do not think in terms of a master planfor the human race. Instead, they think in terms of the only thing they can truly control:their own actions. They think in terms of, “What should I do about this?” instead of,“What should I ask the masters to do about this?” They are not so arrogant or delusionalto think they have the right or the ability to make choices for all of mankind. They maketheir own choices, and accept the unavoidable reality that other people will makedifferent choices.On a practical level, it is absurd to expect that a system of centralized control, wherein ahandful of politicians, with their limited understanding and experience, come up with amaster plan and then force it on everyone else, would work better than comparing andcombining the knowledge, ingenuity and expertise of hundreds of millions of individuals,via a network of mutually voluntary trade and cooperation. No matter what the goal iswhetherit is food production, road building, protection against aggressors, or anythingelse-the ideas that come from the “chaos” of millions of people trying different inventionsand solutions will always be better than the ideas which a handful of politicians willcome up with. This is especially true in light of the fact that while politicians force theirideas on everyone via “the law,” even if they are lousy ideas that no one else likes, freemarket ideas have to be good enough that others will voluntarily support them.Despite the amazing prosperity already created by relatively free, “anarchistic” trade andmutual cooperation, the though: of people coexisting without all of them being controlledand regulated by some master plan is still incomprehensible to most statists. Most statistshave never even begun to contemplate the possibility of truly being in charge of their ownlives. Everything about modem authoritarian society trains people to be loyal subjects of