A review by shanehawk
Our Enemy, the State by Albert Jay Nock
5.0
An excellent piece of political writing. Nock is lucid and accessible despite writing this 83 years ago. His discernment of FDR’s policies at the time was spot-on. It is broken down into six parts; each exploring a differentiated “State” from “government.”
One of my favorite bits out of many:
“Thus while the American architects assented ‘in principle’ to the philosophy of natural rights and popular sovereignty, and found it in a general way highly congenial as a sort of voucher for their self-esteem, their practical interpretation of it left it pretty well hamstrung. They were not especially concerned with consistency; their practical interest in this philosophy stopped short at the point which we have already noted, of its presumptive justification of a ruthless economic pseudo-individualism, and an exercise of political self-expression by the general electorate which should be so managed as to be, in all essential respects, futile.”
One of my favorite bits out of many:
“Thus while the American architects assented ‘in principle’ to the philosophy of natural rights and popular sovereignty, and found it in a general way highly congenial as a sort of voucher for their self-esteem, their practical interpretation of it left it pretty well hamstrung. They were not especially concerned with consistency; their practical interest in this philosophy stopped short at the point which we have already noted, of its presumptive justification of a ruthless economic pseudo-individualism, and an exercise of political self-expression by the general electorate which should be so managed as to be, in all essential respects, futile.”