Скачать или смотреть The Structural Illegitimacy of State Authority

I. Core Thesis

• Modern states lack genuine moral legitimacy.
• Their authority rests on self‑validating logic, not objective ethical grounding.
• Institutional power persists by suppressing individual autonomy rather than appealing to universal truth.

II. Self‑Justifying Nature of State Power

• Governments define their own legitimacy through circular reasoning (“lawful because we say so”).
• Legal and political systems reinforce themselves through tradition, coercion, and monopoly on force.
• Authority becomes performative rather than principled.

III. Historical Evidence of State‑Induced Harm

• Quantitative historical data shows centralized governments have caused more preventable suffering than natural disasters.
• Examples include:
• war casualties
• politically induced famines
• genocides
• mass repression
• These harms are predictable outcomes of concentrated power, not anomalies.

IV. Support from Academic Disciplines

• Public Choice Theory: bureaucrats and politicians act in self‑interest, producing systemic failure.
• Political Philosophy: questions the moral basis of coercive authority.
• Historical sociology: documents recurring patterns of state‑driven catastrophe.
• These fields collectively undermine the idea of the state as a rational or benevolent actor.

V. Internal Contradictions of Illegitimate Systems

• Systems lacking moral grounding eventually collapse from:
• structural inefficiency
• corruption
• loss of public trust
• contradictions between stated values and actual behavior
• Collapse is driven by internal decay, not emotional outrage or external attack.

VI. Defining State‑Induced Harm as “Evil”

• “Evil” is defined operationally as the large‑scale, foreseeable violation of human flourishing.
• When state actions predictably generate suffering, repression, or death, they meet this definition.
• This classification is objective, not emotional or rhetorical.

VII. Final Conclusion

• State authority is structurally illegitimate because it rests on coercion, self‑justification, and historical patterns of harm.
• Its failures are systemic, not accidental.
• Ultimately, such systems erode from within, undone by the very contradictions that sustain their power.