Saint Augustine - On The Predatory State

The other day, I wrote a post on the Pope's speech at the German Parliament, in which he began by quoting St. Augustine - "without justice - what is a State but a band of robbers?" - and then went on to call for a public debate on legal positivism. I had then written: "Without sound money - what is the State but a band of robbers?"


Well, thanks to Christopher Manion on the LewRockwell.com blog, we now have the full text of the passage from St. Augustine's City of God from which the Pope took his quote, and I am placing that passage below for my readers. Note that these words are written by a bishop who was beatified by the Church of Rome:

KINGDOMS WITHOUT JUSTICE ARE BUT ROBBER GANGS

Augustine, City of God, Book IV, Chapter 4.

Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, “What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor.”

Remember - this saint uses the word "justice," while these robbers use the term "social justice." I hope you all will read the second volume of Hayek's Law, Legislation & Liberty, which is titled "The Mirage of Social Justice." You can buy this book in India here.


And do reflect a long while on the PRECISE MEANING of the word Hayek uses in his TITLE - the word "MIRAGE." Desert travellers are very wary of mirages. They KILL.

We need Economic Freedom - not funny money welfarism - and we need real "natural justice" in a private law society: Property, Contracts and Torts.

And we need to throw out these robbers - because, as God Alone Knows, I need a Decent Smoke!