On Revolution: The Right to Smash the State

"Let's do like economists and assume a country. Imagine, for a moment, that you are living in a land...where a fine net of detailed regulations controls virtually everything you do in the course of everyday life, from driving a car to hiring employees to building a house; where for a host of purposes you have to fill in forms and answer personal questions from bureaucrats; where, say, a third of what the people produce and earn is seized in taxes, and you have to file and sign periodic income reports; where people are conceived of as 'human resources' the state can draw upon; where there is a very powerful permanent army; where the people have been disarmed; where you need permits to engage in many economic activities; where the authorities decide what you may consume and even, in some cases, read; where your identity is basically defined by official identification papers, and the government even issues you a number that defines you as a citizen; where the state circumvents the rule of law with complicated and abstruse legislation that most citizens do not know and cannot understand; where the majority apparently assents to all this in formal elections, but a large bureaucracy and an entrenched political class actually rule. Obviously, you would call for, or even start, a libertarian revolution. Or would you?" A thought-provoking classic from Pierre Lemieux.