General Idea of the Revolution in the 21st Century

Patri Friedman at Catallarchy blog raises some interesting questions on the ethical dilemma involved in libertarians accepting money from the government.

Due to my son’s 3 month premature arrival, I recently applied for Social Security, which may give me some cash because of his long hospital stay.

As I commented there (without properly crediting Proudhon for the idea):

Here’s the way I look at it, Patri: to the extent that government engages in activities that would be legitimate if carried out through voluntary association and mutual aid, it is crowding out the alternatives. And its taxing system reduces your purchasing power for such voluntary alternatives. So long as a major part of the necessary activities of society are carried out through the state, there’s no shame in making use of them; all the while, of course, we try to destatize them as much as possible, shift their funding to a voluntary cost basis, and devolve them into the social body. Since the state preempts channels of voluntary cooperation, our strategy should be to seize the state’s functions and change their character, not to penalize ourselves by paying for them twice.