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This
illustration is a whole education in political economy in a few
thousand pixels.
The
annotations are significant, but even more so is the geometry through
which they're depicted: an expanding sphere of State control, first
over our necessities, then over our discretionary activities, and
ultimately over the whole of human existence. At each stage, the
State's coercive powers are amplified by the importance and scope of
the resources it appropriated in the previous stage, such that
individuals and voluntary organizations steadily lose all power to
resist its further expansion. The Blob wouldn't have had a chance
against the State.
I
can add only a single observation to this depiction: As the State
swells, it ceases to perform any of its functions even marginally well.
Indeed, the first functions it will slough are the ones for which we
originally agreed to tolerate a pre-indemnified coercive authority:
national defense, police protection, and the administration of
impartial justice. In the terminal stage of its expansion, when it lays
claim to all things and no one outside its corridors may do anything
without first asking its permission and paying its price, the State's
sole concern becomes the maintenance of its power and the perquisites
of its nomenklatura.
This
is likely to be a rather hectic day for me, so I doubt I'll be posting
anything further until tomorrow. Therefore I urge you one and all,
Gentle Readers, to reflect upon the above, and to ask yourselves:
This "anarchy" the State's boosters are always warning
me against: Just how bad would it be?
Francis W. Porretto - bastionofliberty.blogspot.com/
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Vietnam vets who 
Ras