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Book Review: Life after the state

Life after the state

Why we don't need government

The decade has been a tumultuous period for centralised states. They continue their deep slide into failure but yet they still clamour on and try to maintain relevancy in the everyday lives of their citizens. Governments across the globe have grown to become completely inefficient, monstrous and the for most part completely dictatorial.

It has become abundantly clear that no form of government philosophy or ideology actually works, or at least the interpretation of the ideologies that governments choose to implement.

Across the globe, there are growing number of protests and civil unrest against any number of governments. People and communities are continuously taking to the streets to protest against decisions, dictum's, regulations, enforcement's and in a number of cases wars. The rising levels of dissatisfaction of people being voiced against their governments continue to grow and this trend is only set to magnify with the passage of time. It has become abundantly clear that the concept of centralised governments or nation states is a failing one and if we are to survive as species on this planet we need to acknowledge this fact and start to explore the alternatives.

The examples from 2022, prove that this is the case. Canada for instance, previously thought of a free and democratic country has seen its government over step it mark and over exert its control on the populace. Russia another prime example of government taking the country into war at the behest of its tyrannical leader and fictitious and unjustified reasons.

We are continually to see the rising growth and influence of completely unnecessary and ineffective secondary and quasi governmental bodies trying to impose their versions of failing systems, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Economic Forum (WEF), NATO, United Nations, World Bank etc. These organisation are nothing more than rent-seeking ineffective, unproductive and for the most part completely unnecessary. The have been countless examples over the decades where we have seen them getting involved in situations only to make matters worse.

Governments and leaders are the cause of most wars, with clashing ideologies, races and conquests usually the fundamental reasons

Dominic Frisby

Why I read this book

Like many people I have become completely disillusioned with government and the concept of a centralised state. I have to admit, that for the most part this has been a driving force throughout my whole life, as I have always been some sort of anarchist at heart with a healthy distrust of governments. I had assumed that this stance may soften as I got older, but I fear if anything it has got stronger.

Having witnessed the UK government lurch from one disaster to the next over the course of the past decade and it seems clear that this trend is not going to discontinue anytime soon, especially considering the bankruptcy of talent we have at our disposal. The UK has a political party that has been in power for over a decade, but has been able to achieve nothing of any discernible success. In fact the only thing it has actually achieved is something that hasten its own demise.

Time and time again we are reminded that one of the supposed successes of this government has been that it "Got Brexit done" which is ironic because all Brexit really was about at its core was a failing centralised state choosing to leave another collection of failing states. The British people were promised a utopia of democracy and sovereignty upon leaving a supposedly corrupt, inefficient, dictatorial, unproductive and rent-seeking organisation. However, what has transpired is that we now have an even more corrupt, inefficient, dictatorial, unproductive and rent-seeking government only this time with a Union Jack as it emblem.

The irony, that this book is authored by someone who stood as a parliamentary candidate for the Brexit party in Old Bexley and Sidcup, after all this is what David Graeber describes in Democracy Project as classic "small a" anarchist.

willing to work in broad coalitions as long as they work on horizontal principles

David Graeber

Frisby tackles all the areas where states are failing spectacularly i.e. Taxation, Education, Security, Regulation, Health care, Law & Order , basically everything we ever put our faith into the state to solve. He also contributes and provides evidence to where this fabled and much touted concept of Democracy does not work.

I really appreciate the open section of the book, where Frisby draws on his experience of visiting Cuba and South America in his youth. Providing evidence as to why Communism and Socialism as political ideals and systems fail.

This is expanded upon by clearing up that indeed the current interpretation of Capitalism, otherwise known as Crony-capitalism fails across the western world.

The Democracy Project is an exploration of anti-capitalist dissent and new political ideas from David Graeber, author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years and a leading member of the Occupy movement.

Why I like this book

This book is jammed pack with some useful historical references that provide evidence of just how centralised states of governments we currently have, have always been failing. It is also coincidental that it was initially written and published around the same time as David Graebers Democracy Project, in fact Frisby references some of Graebers work in Debt: The first 5000 years

Debt

The first 5000 years


David Graeber

Before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods—that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors—which lives on in full force to this day.

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The world we currently inhabit is one big gigantic ball of mess. There is so much misinformation, lies, falsities and what has become known as "disinformation" most of it actually made up and promoted by centralised states. Politicians are so corrupt and are lying so much that they themselves wouldn't know the truth if it slapped them in the face with a dead trout. It can be hard to even imagine a brighter future.

My entire life has been spent under the threat of an all out nuclear war. The current state of the globe as I write this, seems we are even closer to this. The reality is these are just the final death throws of the states and inept servants. If the only way states can control their populace is through fear, then that is all one needs to know about states and just how useless they are.

This book provides all the historical references to illustrate just how we as species got to this point in our evolutionary cycle where governments have completely outgrown their usefulness.

Let us have a money that is independent - a money that no single body has the power to print or create

Dominic Frisby

One of the the reviews I read regarding this book is that it was labelled as Libertarian Propaganda, and I would have to conclude that in some way it could possibly be. However, this only works because the book highlights the failures of state.

Frisby covers in depth just how invasive the state has become in our everyday life and how it keeps its tentacles in you from birth to death and even then it still wants more from you. He also scratches the surface of why Taxation is theft, a subject he elaborates on more in another book Daylight Robbery : How Tax Shaped Our Past and Will Change Our Future , the primary reason why is that a lot of the problems of the state are primarily due to taxation and if the populace cry out to the state to act in particular situation or circumstance the default response of the state is to increase taxation.

This is where the whole circle jerk of state control begins. The state conditions you that taxes are used for good and the benefit but the reality is taxation is the primary route of all that is evil in the world.

Daylight Robbery

How Tax Shaped Our Past and Will Change Our Future


Dominic Frisby

traces the origins of taxation, from its roots in the ancient world, through to today. He explores the role of tax in the formation of our global religions, the part tax played in wars and revolutions throughout the ages, why, at one stage, we paid tax for daylight or for growing a beard. Ranging from the despotic to the absurd, the tax laws of the past reveal so much about how we got to where we are today and what we can do to build a system fit for the future.

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Why I recommend this book

In my opinion this is a thoroughly thought provoking book. It will undoubtedly inspire you to think outside of the box that centralised states try to enforce you in. This book has certainly provided me with further inspiration to promote the ideals.

Reading this book, I was often reminded of the lyrics of one of my favourite songs as youngster.

Born to live, then to die
Never ask the question why
State control by mindless men
Believe in death, they live to win

State control - your time has come
Mind control - go get a gun
Life control - you'd kill to win
State control - they've won again

Shoot you down again and again
Want to live, your biggest sin
Fight the system, only to die
It's hard to live with hate and lies

Take your mind, programmed to kill
Make you fight against your will
Sadistic men obsessed with death
Shot in the back, lose your breath

State Control - Cryptic Slaughter

Life after the state

Why we don't need government

Have you ever had the nagging feeling that the problems the country faces are spiraling out of control, that the government has lost its way and that, despite its promises, nothing ever changes? Well, you're right. In every instance where government gets involved in people's lives with a desire to do good, it can always be relied on to make the situation much, much worse. 

Gary Woodfine
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