LvM L&Sa - I.1.Ownership (9)
The feudal view did not achieve a similarly closed systematization. It was impossible to think out, to its logical conclusion, the theory of violence. Try to realize completely the principle of violence, even only in thought, and its anti-social character is unmasked. It leads to chaos, to the war of all against all.
What delightful nonsense, starkly in contradiction to reality as it finds itself. Only the truely rotten socialist minds could possibly sprout something of the sort, I distinctly recall the broken records of soviet propaganda harping all about how decadent burgeois capitalism is bankrupt up until the very week of their collapse into bankruptcy.
Perhaps it's not the case that World War 1 was the bloodiest, most destructive, unhappiest affair in all human history up until World War 2 came along. Perhaps I have been misinformed. Perhaps these flew out of the feudal system, rather than directly out of the nonsense entertained by our clueless friend. Perhaps the scouring of Europe attendant the first socialist revolution in France came all out of the violent and obsolete feudal system and I misapprehended the reality of the matter. Perhaps it's the victim's fault after all.
Perhaps all those stories about gallant wars being fought as closer to sporting contests among two teams of men, which the women watched while having tea perched on the surrounding hills before enjoying the victors in their own bed (or, I suppose more imperiously, in the streets) are just fairy tales, and it's not the case that feudal armies schooled boys into men and created the officer in the first place, that grand accomplishmenti of man which three centuries of socialist rot haven't yet managed to completely dismantle.
Perhaps it's not the case that socialism always has and always will lead to chaos, perhaps it's really true that everything else causes chaos as proven by the chaotic state of the socialist experiment. Foreign agents conspiring to destroy the hope of all humanity, quick, quick, to the rescue, rally ye famished masses, stand up ye imbeciles of seemingly endless supply. Perhaps it's really true that the victim is at fault, perhaps it's really true that the world may work "without violence" in the sense of, without directing any violence at the violent pretenders and I just can't see it, because I'm a product of the feudal order five centuries after the fact. Perhaps I'm wrong and anyone could well live accepting this endless pile of nonsequiturs as "true" just as well as Mises can. Perhaps we should all make a point of fearing death enough to forget how to live. That must be it!
The principle of violence works to its ultimate conclusion just fine, and taking pride in one's ignorance of the fact is scarcely an argument in the matter. The end result of the principle of violence is not antisocial but profoundly social, the actual content of the very notion of "society" which the socialists of all types and persuasions have since tried unsuccessfully to obtain synthetically through some sort of industrial success.
The principle of violence works so that the inferior submit to their superiors, as they should, as they always have. The principle of violence works so that the clueless submit to those in the know, and the weak to the strong, and the scared to the brave and the lazy to the active and womanly men or women to manly men or women and so on and so forth. It yields all the vibrant warmth of intimacy, and all the seductive depth of reality, and all the colors of the rainbow.
What leads to chaos, and to the war of all against all are the propositions on which Mises feeds his nonsense, of universal equality and "brotherhood", of "ending violence" and of generally being stupid in the way a barely literate publican may understand a poor translation of a bad translation of an old Greek text. What has in fact led to chaos, each and every time, what has in fact led to a war of all against all were the propositions on which Mises feeds his nonsense, of universal equality and "brotherhood", of "ending violence" and of generally being stupid. How and when did the peasants of Russia massacre the peasants of Russia ? They're not really peasants, they're "kulaks", right ? Well done, the end to violence, the universal brotherhood that has constructed such a beautiful system truely brings a tear in my eye.
A tear at how fucking stupid otherwise intelligent, educated people can be.
———- You perhaps don't know what it even means, being an officer in 1700. Your loss, I won't be bothered to explain. [↩]
