The state and regulations are a predator.
Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2026 6:25 pm
Most people are taught to see the state as a protector. A neutral referee. A necessary manager of society.
But what if it is something else entirely.
What if the state is simply the institutionalization of predation. Not random violence. Not chaos. But organized extraction within defined borders. A system that claims moral authority to take, regulate, punish, and command, while denying individuals the same permission.
In nature, predators do not ask consent. They feed because they can. In political systems, taxation is enforced not by agreement but by threat of penalty. Compliance is not voluntary. It is compelled. The difference is not moral, but procedural. One is informal. The other is bureaucratically refined.
The state monopolizes force within a territory and then labels its own use of that force as lawful, necessary, and virtuous. Yet if any private individual behaved the same way, demanding payment under threat, restricting movement, punishing peaceful exchange, we would recognize it immediately for what it is.
This is the uncomfortable insight behind the concept.
Predation does not disappear when it becomes official. It becomes systematized. It becomes normalized. It becomes wrapped in flags, rituals, and language that softens its reality.
The deeper question is not whether society needs coordination. Humans self organize constantly through markets, communities, contracts, and voluntary cooperation. The question is whether coercion must sit at the center of that coordination, or whether statism simply trains us to accept organized dominance as inevitable.
A system built on voluntary exchange rewards value creation. A system built on territorial monopoly rewards power concentration.
Once you see that distinction, it is difficult to unsee it.
But what if it is something else entirely.
What if the state is simply the institutionalization of predation. Not random violence. Not chaos. But organized extraction within defined borders. A system that claims moral authority to take, regulate, punish, and command, while denying individuals the same permission.
In nature, predators do not ask consent. They feed because they can. In political systems, taxation is enforced not by agreement but by threat of penalty. Compliance is not voluntary. It is compelled. The difference is not moral, but procedural. One is informal. The other is bureaucratically refined.
The state monopolizes force within a territory and then labels its own use of that force as lawful, necessary, and virtuous. Yet if any private individual behaved the same way, demanding payment under threat, restricting movement, punishing peaceful exchange, we would recognize it immediately for what it is.
This is the uncomfortable insight behind the concept.
Predation does not disappear when it becomes official. It becomes systematized. It becomes normalized. It becomes wrapped in flags, rituals, and language that softens its reality.
The deeper question is not whether society needs coordination. Humans self organize constantly through markets, communities, contracts, and voluntary cooperation. The question is whether coercion must sit at the center of that coordination, or whether statism simply trains us to accept organized dominance as inevitable.
A system built on voluntary exchange rewards value creation. A system built on territorial monopoly rewards power concentration.
Once you see that distinction, it is difficult to unsee it.