Our Enemy, the State

Our Enemy, the State is the best-known book by libertarian author Albert Jay Nock, serving as a fundamental influence for the modern libertarian and American conservatism movements. Initially presented as a series of lectures at Bard College, it was published in 1935, and attempts to analyze the origins of American freedom, as well as questioning the nature and legitimacy of authoritarian government. Nock differentiates between that, which he refers to as "the State" (as described by Franz Oppenheimer in his book The State) and legitimate government, including governing oneself or consensual delegation of decision-making to leaders one selects.

Nock is not attacking government, per se, but "The State", authority that violates society itself, claiming to rule in the people's name but taking power away from the community.

In his opening paragraphs, he states that the expansion of the state comes at the expense of social power, shrinking the role of community. Denying that the two are the same, he points out the historic origin of authoritarian government through conquering warlords and robber barons. This reflects the influence of Franz Oppenheimer on Nock, a key proponent of the conquest theory of the state.

Nock argues, further, that the Articles of Confederation that preceded the US Constitution were actually superior to it, that the reasons given for its replacement were excuses by land speculators and creditors looking to enrich themselves.

While he did laud the Founders for establishing a legitimate government, as opposed to state, that was intended to protect natural rights.

The state, according to Nock, "turns every contingency into a resource for accumulating power in itself, always at the expense of social power". People become conditioned to accept their lost freedom and social power as normal, in each subsequent generation, and so the State continues to expand, and society to shrink. He cites Thomas Paine as pointing out that the state "even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one".

He goes on to quote Sigmund Freud as noting that government does not actually show any tendency to suppress crime, but only to protect its own monopoly over it. Along with Paine and Freud, Nock talks about the usurpation of power and resources by The State in the context of Benjamin Franklin, Henry George, and others. In fact, he argues that this seizure is comparable to the gathering of land by the Crown in 1066 England, be it in the Federalization of land in Western states or elsewhere as "needed" for control over the populace.