Cited on other threads. Worth reviewing, in my estimation.
The state is an organized crime racket. It appropriates wealth by coercion and regularly uses force in violation of the nonaggression principle. The state is a parasite that perpetuates itself at all costs and extends itself by any means possible. Regardless of its putative leaders, the state grows and increases its power at the expense of its hosts and others who fall victim to its predations.As Hans-Hermann Hoppe poignantly wrote, states are “gangs of murderers, plunderers and thieves, surrounded by willing executioners, propagandists, sycophants, crooks, liars, clowns, charlatans, dupes and useful idiots—[the state is] an institution that dirties and taints everything it touches.”
One of the state’s dirty occupations is war. When undertaking war, the state uses expropriated wealth and human capital to defend its territory or extend its reach and influence. Clearing away the fog of statist preconceptions regarding war, Hoppe explains that war is gang warfare: “Gang wars, then, typically involving some territorial issues, are always wars conducted by rival gang leaders with other people’s money, machines and manpower (just think of taxation and compulsory conscription!).”
In Statism Is the Cause of the Israel-Hamas War Mises Institute, 30 October 2023