This idea proposes that the state, is a gang, in all the essential ways. And the only escape from this subjugating state is to become a freeman, else you will remain a slave to the state. To escape the state gang and become a freeman one has to run to the freeland.
It's a co-dependent relationship. Between the husband as the master in the form of the state gang. And the wife as the slaves in the great masse of people. It's a co-dependent relationship. There are those who say wealth and power are to blame for the world's evils. And others who say the people who elect them are most complicit. But it's a co-dependent relationship. Both are relying on the other to maintain an unjust and destructive relationship. The couple are struggling to marry, consumate it and raise children wise enough to understand how to run to the freeland.
There are many types of state gangs which form naturally within social organisation. The primary winning state, corporate entities, etc. And the more commonly known street gangs which take over the governing of power in smaller inner city areas.
A corporation is a weaker form of state too, a second place gang. Differing only in size and power from the winning state. And being a tyranny rather than a democracy, not that that is a significant difference. Let us call these weaker losing gangs 'the private state'. Eventually a private state corporation will be in a position to usurp the incumbent, with more relative power than the incumbent, usually because the latter was performing badly. But nothing important fundamentally will have happened then even so. It will only signal a transfer of power from one gang to the other, even though the ideological images both create out of nothing make it appear to be important.
These ideological gang narratives are just images, things for children to play with at best. For the adult raising children they are extremely dangerous illusions. Images of the world like this will play a large part in the downfall of a gang.
The winning state is the biggest gang. Meaning it can successfully market itself as legitimate by virtue of it's size and power, in a way that all slaves believe. Slaves pay very little attention to what is really going on so long as there's enough bread and circuses. Or until the waves are now lapping at their particular door, when they will start to complain like spoiled children who can't have their sweeties. What's the complaint? They've been fed, housed, clothed, medically cared for and protected by the state already.
This state legitimacy is really a hypnosis of the great masse of people - the slaves. Obviously the state does not exist materially, it's an illusion. And a very powerful one too. Only by virtue of slavery can it maintain itself.
Just like a gang, the state charges for protection, an illusory service it claims to give it's subjugated people. It calls this protection charge, taxation. And demands it using force and coercion.
That the state gives the subjugated people protection is a sub-illusion. There's no connection between how much protection money you pay it and the actual protection you get back as a service from the state. You are owned by the state. All you can do is hope you're paying too little in protection money for the benefits, if any, you receive back from the state.
State apologists will make a public display of how they are good people, because they have paid all their taxes. But they are just slaves who worship their master in exchange for reduced protection money....maybe. But this is a fools campaign. For once you have joined the gang in this way, you can never leave. You will have committed yourself to perennial servitude to the gang as well as your family and all those who surround you and your descendants too. Is the chance of this freebie really worth it especially when there was equal opportunity to become a freeman? I guess it all comes down to ones personal character in the final analysis.
State sponsored apologists will run campaigns to stool pigeon any freeman who has managed to avoid paying. And will put bitter and spiteful effort into making sure that a freeman who has evaded paying protection money(breaking the illusion of the law) is jailed, or worse. Certainly for both attempts at freedom, the goal of the state apologists is also reputation destruction - 'the violence of women'.
Like a gang, the state maintains it's dominance over all other gangs, by having the biggest tools to maintain it's domination - security forces, military, judiciary, law.
When it comes under threat from another gang, either locally known as a political party, or remotely as the political party of another so called nation, it wields the full force if it's powers to fight them off. Sometimes it holds out with the illusion. Sometimes the ideology of another gang wins and the people are coerced into adopting the new ideology. To all intents all that has changed is the illusion that something important has happened.
A successful switch of hypnotic ideologies like this is also known as 'a conquest' or 'invasion', newspeak to make it hard for the slave to understand that nothing fundamental, at all, actually happened.
The income stream to the winning gang and freeman is called an economic rent, because there was no work or investment made in exchange for the rental incomes. Even the capital costs of the conquest will have been paid for by slaves when all totted up accurately. The gang and the freeman always use other people's money to pay the costs. Nonetheless, the income stream from successful invasion is economics 101: economic rent. That is what power really goes after in the economic sense, not the care of the poor, justuce or equality. More illusions to keep the slaves drugged up.
The newspeak of the state is "Slavery is Freedom". That is to say, "we own you". And as it happens this is true to the extent the great mass of people allow the illusion to play out in reality.
So what is the motivation of this illusion people call 'the state'. What is the primary goal of it's existance as an idea? It is POWER of course, just like Orwell described, except that he was rather too timid about it.
What are the proceeds of this power then? As described above the proceeds areEconomic Rent. A rarely used term in economics today due its ability to immediately dissolve the illusions described above. A rent is any income at all, where there has been no inputs of hard work, skill, industry. Or saved up prior forms of these things known as capital. Rent is the income stream which is pocketed by the state by systemic theft or by a freeman through his wisdom.
In other words if you do not get rent you are de facto a slave. Or if all your income is rent, then you're a freeman or a gang. And typically it will fall somewhere in between the two. Meaning the proportion of income which is economic rent defines how much power you have as a gang or how free you are as a man.
So rent is also known as the income stream of a gang or a freeman. It should come as no surprise to those with ears to listen, that a gang or freeman never pay tax for protection. And during hard times such as a periodic great recession, the gang and the freeman are always bailed out first. Usually these are the only ones who get bailed out.
Have a think about where you fit in here. How will your descendants remember you?
I'm not saying the state is right or wrong, that we need a state or not. Or that being a rent seeker is right, wrong or needed.
I am just pointing at it.