Free DemocracyThe God That Failed by Hans-Hermann Hoppe Page A

worldwide government remaining). Moreover, because centralization implies reduced opportunities for interterritorial migration—of voting with one's feet against one's government and in favor of another—the process of intergovernmental competition, of expansive elimination, should be expected to generate simultaneous tendencies toward increasingly higher rates of government expropriation and taxation. 23
    The king could not exact contributions, he could only solicit "subsidies." It was stressed that his loyal subjects granted him help of their free will, and they often seized this occasion to stipulate conditions. For instance, they granted subsidies to John the Good (of France), subject to the condition that he should henceforth refrain from minting money which was defective in weight. In order to replenish his Treasury, the king might go on a begging tour from town to town, expounding his requirements and obtaining local grants, as was done on the eve of the Hundred Years' War; or he might assemble from all parts of the country those whose financial support he craved. It is a serious mistake to confuse such an assembly with a modern sitting of parliament, though the latter phenomenon has arisen from the former. The Parliament is sovereign and may exact contributions. The older assemblies should rather be thought of as a gathering of modern company directors agreeing to turn over to the Exchequer a part of their profits, with some trade union leaders present agreeing to part with some of their unions' dues for public purposes. Each group was called on for a grant, and each was thus well placed to make conditions. A modern parliament could not be treated like that, but would impose its will by majority vote. (Sovereignty, pp. 178-79)
    See also Douglass C. North and Robert P. Thomas, The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), p. 96.
    23 On political decentralization—"political anarchy"—as a constraint on government power and a fundamental reason for the evolution of markets and capitalism, as well as on the tendency toward political centralization—expansive elimination—and the accompanying tendency toward an increase in governments' taxing and regulatory powers see Jean Baechler, The Origins of Capitalism (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976), esp. chap. 7; Hoppe, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, esp. chaps. 3 and 4; idem, "Migrazione, centralismo e secessione nell'Europa contemporanea," Biblioteca delta liberta 118 (1992); idem, "Nationalism and Secession,"

    However, a privately-owned government significantly affects the form and pace of this process. Owing to its exclusive character and the correspondingly developed class consciousness of the ruled, government attempts at territorial expansion tend to be viewed by the public as the ruler's private business, to be financed and carried out with his own personal funds. The added territory is the king's, and so he, not the public, should pay for it. Consequently, of the two possible methods of enlarging his realm, war and military conquest or contractual acquisition, a private ruler tends to prefer the latter. It must not be assumed that he is opposed to war, for he may well employ military means if presented with an opportunity. But war typically requires extraordinary resources, and since higher taxes and/or increased conscription to fund a war perceived by the public as somebody else's will encounter immediate popular resistance and thus pose a threat to the government's internal legitimacy, a personal ruler will have to bear all or most of the costs of a military venture himself. Accordingly, he will generally prefer the second, peaceful option as the less costly one. Instead of through conquest, he will want to advance his expansionist desires through land purchases or, even less costly and still better, through a policy of intermarriage between members of different ruling families. For a