Often, when the “smash the state” position is invoked—especially among those less familiar with the state as an institution—further investigation reveals a dangerous lack of precision about what exactly the state is.
Present-day prophets of a united Europe share with past conquerors like Napoleon and Hitler a strong preference for a society directed, more or less violently, by a small political elite. All in the name of "eternal peace."
Evolutionary social theory can form part of a liberal theory of politics, but Hayek and Spencer's evolutionary arguments to explain the emergence of freedom in mass societies are deficient.
According to customary analysis, public goods will not be supplied efficiently. But it does not follow that the good will not be supplied at all, or in a quantity insufficient to “do the job.”
The popular pastime of modern democracies of punishing the diligent and thrifty, while rewarding the lazy, improvident, and unthrifty, is cultivated via the State, fulfilling a demo-egalitarian program based on a demo-totalitarian ideology.
