A New Conception of Statism

The Importance of Language

"Political chaos is connected with the decay of language," said George Orwell. He was right, of course. Language is the tool the mind uses to understand its interactions with the physical world. With an effective language, one identifies things for what they are. As politics relies heavily on mass deception, an obfuscation of language is always integral to the advancement of the state. With this in mind, I'd like to propose a new conception of statism.

The Free Dictionary defines "statism" as the practice or doctrine of giving a centralized government control over economic planning and policy. That's not a worthless definition, to be sure, but it leaves a bit to be desired. How much economic planning is enough to count as statism? Exactly how centralized is "centralized," really? Is it not also statism to advocate a coercive theocracy, even one which leaves the market comparatively unhindered?

With this in mind I propose to define "statism" as quite simply the belief that the state exists. This fits conveniently with other "-isms" such as theism and polylogism, and it suggests its own antonym, "astatism." Here I take "the state" to mean the legitimate monopoly on coercive governance in a geographic region. Statists, then, are those people who recognize a notion of such a monopoly. Most statists in America view the U.S. federal government as the state, though some prefer other organizations such as the North Carolina government.