Frank Chodorov Quotes

The one facet of human nature which, because of its invariability and constancy, we can put down as a natural law is: man always seeks to satisfy his desires with the least effort. It is because of this inner compulsion that man invents labor-saving devices, and it is also because of this inner compulsion that man sometimes turns to exploiting his neighbor, which is a form of robbery. But, robbery is attended with the use of force, which might be met with a contrary and defeating force, and is therefore risky; however, when the government, which has a monopoly of coercion, exercises its power so as to favor one individual or set of individuals to the disadvantage of others, there is nothing to do but to comply with its edicts. And, because its edicts are regularized by law, mental adjustment to the exploitation takes place, while the recipients of the advantages thus gained learn to look upon their loot as a "right." The urgency for something-for-nothing is endemic to the human being; therefore, when the government exploits one group in favor of another, the cry goes up by other groups, in the name of "justice," for some of the same. Thus, a new ethic, a new complex of beliefs and conventions, takes hold of the people; all of them expect society, through the agency of government, to take care of them.

Since the State thrives on what it expropriates, the general decline in production that it induces by its avarice foretells its own doom. Its source of income dries up. Thus, in pulling Society down it pulls itself down. Its ultimate collapse is usually occasioned by a disastrous war, but preceding that event is a history of increasing and discouraging levies on the marketplace, causing a decline in the aspirations, hopes, and self-esteem of its victims.

When the right of property is abrogated, all the other rights of the individual are undermined, and to speak of the sovereign citizen who has no absolute right of property is to talk nonsense.

Statism is not a modern religion. Even before Plato, political philosophy concerned itself with the nature, origin, and justification of the State. But, while the thinkers speculated on it, the general public accepted political authority as a fact to be lived with and let it go at that. It is only within recent times (except, perhaps, during periods when Church and State were one, thus endowing political coercion with divine sanction) that the mass of people have consciously or implicitly accepted the Hegelian dictum that "the State is the general substance, whereof individuals are but the accidents." It is this acceptance of the State as "substance," as a suprapersonal reality, and its investment with a competence no individual can lay claim to, that is the special characteristic of the 20th century. In times past, the disposition was to look upon the State as something one had to reckon with, but as a complete outsider. One got along with the State as best one could, feared or admired it, hoped to be taken in by it and to enjoy its perquisites, or held it at arm’s length as an untouchable thing; one hardly thought of the State as the integral of Society. One had to support the State -- there was no way of avoiding taxes -- and one tolerated its interventions as interventions, not as the warp and woof of life. And the State itself was proud of its position apart from, and above, Society. The present disposition is to liquidate any distinction between State and Society, conceptually or institutionally. The State is Society; the social order is indeed an appendage of the political establishment, depending on it for sustenance, health, education, communications, and all things coming under the head of "the pursuit of happiness." In theory, taking college textbooks on economics and political science for authority, the integration is about as complete as words can make it. In the operation of human affairs, despite the fact that lip service is rendered the concept of inherent personal rights, the tendency to call upon the State for the solution of all the problems of life shows how far we have abandoned the doctrine of rights, with its correlative of self-reliance, and have accepted the State as the reality of Society. It is this actual integration, rather than the theory, that marks off the 20th century from its predecessors. One indication of how far the integration has gone is the disappearance of any discussion of the State qua State -- a discussion that engaged the best minds of the 18th and 19th centuries. The inadequacies of a particular regime, or its personnel, are under constant attack, but there is no faultfinding with the institution itself. The State is all right, by common agreement, and it would work perfectly if the "right" people were at its helm ... The idea that this power apparatus is indeed the enemy of Society, that the interests of these institutions are in opposition, is simply unthinkable. If it is brought up, it is dismissed as "old-fashioned," which it is; until the modern era, it was an axiom that the State bears constant watching, that pernicious proclivities are built into it.