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Comment by drummer | Hacker News Reader

Highly recommend his writings on money and government. The man was brilliant.

"The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens… Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere." — Leo Tolstoy

"The essence of all slavery consists in taking the product of another’s labor by force. It is immaterial whether this force be founded upon ownership of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to live. ('Taxation')" - Leo Tolstoy

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Are these notions applicable in practice? Could a society without a state hold against its neighbors who have governments and armies?

Kipling's 1894 view: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24527260

To what extent did the turn of that century agree? Among the afghanistani? Among the boers? What about later decades?

    If any question why we died
    Tell them, because our fathers lied.

Their fathers might have lied, but their nephews lived a jolly good life, donchathing? (Afghanistan was a waste of time of course, other colonies not so much)

No general wants his compatriots dead, but the will to sacrifice some for benefit of others seems to advance countries big time.

In the general case, I doubt fraternisation was a thing in the turn of the century brit army, so while enlisted men may have been compatriots ("people who share a fatherland") of their officers, they literally were neither potes ("mates at the pub", compare symposium) nor copains ("messmates").

In this particular case, there were to be no (in the narrow sense) nephews.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_Bambridge (née Kipling)

> "On her death, in 1976, having no children, she bequeathed her property and its contents to the National Trust."

In an even more general sense, there were many more people staying in Britain than dying or in fact participating in any war. They got the spoils of war (some more than others for sure).

Second Afghan war was mostly fought by Indians too, how's that for benefiting.

Colonised with benefits? Emperors (and Empresses) gonna empire.

Victoria: Let's you and him fight.

Caesar: Divide et impera

Phillip: Διαίρει καὶ βασίλευε

I wonder how the sentiment was expressed in Sumerian? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24737221

The War on Terror could be construed as an attempt to prove that it cannot

There isn't a state more oppressive than what "we" fight in that war. ISIS is pretty much a swearword for a reason.

Bringing ideology into this is a distraction. ISIS is a swear word to you (and most), but do you think they see themselves as evil, or as freedom fighters?

You seemed to imply that war on terror is a war on people unoppressed by the state, whereas, ideology aside, people under Taliban and ISIS are as far from that from that as you can possibly imagine.

Pretty sure Hitler didn't see himself as evil either. Your point?

Ok, I see where you're coming from now. You are thinking of a specific organization that you believe operates in a way that resembles a state structure in terms of control (or oppression).

That's another interesting discussion unrelated to my point. I'm saying that the War on Terror has been waged under the (perhaps false) belief that a powerful state actor is able to eliminate a group of people who are united by an idea, regardless of how good, evil, or ugly that idea might be.

>money that he must get to live

That refered to taxation as a secondary measure, but much less so as it refered to the wage system.

From "What shall we do?", Tolstoy :

-"So it was in ancient times, in the Middle Ages, and so it occurs now. In the ancient world, where the subjugation of one people by another was frequent, personal slavery was the most widespread method of subjugation, and the centre of gravity in this compulsion, owing to the non-recognition of the equality of men. In the Middle Ages, feudalism—land-ownership and the servitude connected with it—partly takes the place of personal slavery, and the centre of compulsion is transferred from persons to land. In modern times, since the discovery of America, the development of commerce, and the influx of gold (which is accepted as a universal medium of exchange), the money tribute has become, with the increase of state power, the chief instrument for enslaving men, and upon this all economic relations are now based." (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38690)

Tolstoy here refers also to the centrality of the state in the institution of wage labour, that he sees as akin to slavery. Indeed, Tolstoy was an anarchist, and thus violently anti-capitalist.

Not 'violently. He was a Christian anarchist.

Ah yes, that was a poor choice of words. I meant it as in "in a very strong or vigorous manner".

in this regard with can take it further and call ourselves slaves of our instincts and desires. (eating, breading etc) in which case word slave loses meaning.

I disagree. slavery is real absolutely immoral thing, while working for money is more about law of energy conservation, something transforms in something else, hence very reasonable and natural.

Yes tolstoi influence was key to the liberation of russian peasants under the tsar rule , before bolchevike revolution, most of the land was already distributed from landlords and nobles

no way, he became known after his great novels in the 60s, he had no influence on the liberation which was officially pronounced 1861. Maybe as part of the overall public opinion in the upper class (he was a count, after all)

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