@thesotiris 6 December 2025 more from that month

The dumbest objections against statelessness #17: "You sound utopian"

The epithet “utopian” is a devious, manipulative, shaming smear, a disingenuously loaded term aiming to ridicule and discredit someone’s position by subjectively characterising *them* instead of the argument, thus “attacking” the position by attacking the person (ad hominem fallacy). https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-shaming-fallacy-part-2 “Utopia”, after all, is an idealistic fantasy world without any problems, a demeaning term used to signify unrealistic delusion and naïveté. If you’ve ever attempted to make a case for statelessness, you’ve probably been met with the predictably smug, smirky, condescending, irony-laden retort of “*You must be a utopian*”, as if an opinion-derived characterisation were ever a logical argument. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/regulations-do-not-require-government When you hear “utopian”, you probably think of flower hippies of the 1960s who imagine that all the world’s problems can be solved if we all just “love each other”. So, when you make a case for statelessness (organising society without the centralised, violence-based rule of arbitrary “authority” known as “the state”), naive statists mischaracterise you as “utopian” as a deflection… a clear projection of their own statist utopianism. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-dumbest-arguments-against-statelessness-7 This fallacious “argument” is one that keeps popping up whenever we make a case for statelessness to those already decided that we supposedly have *“the best system possible*”. Yes, I’m naive enough to believe they can change their convenient worldview. “Utopian” implies we are naive, ignorant, and overly trusting of people, and thus our defence of statelessness is discredited. It means we are too simple and poor in intellect that we can’t suspect stupidity or evil intentions in people, who, “*if* *left unchecked* *by the monopoly of violence of a state with imagined “benevolence”*”, will somehow drag us all into a cartoonish Mad-Max-style dystopia where people are suddenly too dumb to understand that trade is more beneficial to all than plunder. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-dumbest-objections-against-statelessness-16 https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-dumbest-objections-against-statelessness-e4b https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-dumbest-objections-against-statelessness-0fd “*You are utopian*” is yet another illogical pillar of the case for statism, which makes you wonder if any statist realises the fact that their entire religious dogma — **statism — is based only on emotionally-driven coping mechanisms and Stockholm syndrome**. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/statism-is-the-new-flat-earth https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-devout-religiosity-of-statism I’m not utopian for knowing that statelessness works; quite the contrary. It is precisely *because* I am cynical and anti-utopian that I reject the alleged “necessity” of the state for social order. It is *because* I am overly suspicious and *because* I see the evil that people are capable of that I am a voluntaryist/consentist, meaning **I do not accept as justified, moral, or economically efficient any human interaction that is not based on mutual and informed consent**. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/on-voluntaryism It is *because* I see the dangers of centralised government, as opposed to the minuscule risks of decentralised self-governance, that I defend statelessness and reject the ridiculous non-sequitur that we somehow “need government due to human irrationality”. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-dumbest-objections-against-statelessness-16 Statists, on the other hand, believe that, **under certain arbitrarily defined circumstances**, human interactions that are not consent-based as somehow “justified”, and that such arbitrary, violence-driven interactions are somehow “moral” and somehow maximise social utility. This is the root of all evil. *This* is being utopian. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/a-threat-based-civilisation-is-not https://sotiris.substack.com/p/on-morality-part-1 https://sotiris.substack.com/p/negative-economics-vs-positive-economics https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-source-of-all-evil Utopianism is imagining that willingly granting absolute, unopposed, and exclusive powers to unaccountable and unapologetically corrupt tyrants will somehow incentivise them to be fair to you. Utopianism is imagining that your meaningless, toothless suggestion every few years between identical, mandatory candidates will somehow “control” the Behemoth of government in your favour at the expense of others. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-case-against-voting https://sotiris.substack.com/p/why-you-want-government Utopianism is imagining that unaccountable, and **legally nonbinding campaign promises** will ever be honoured in anything other than name only for your naive appeasement (see Brexit, for example; it never truly happened; the UK was never freed from the predatory immigration policies of the EU, the main issue of Brexit). Utopianism is imagining that, by protesting or petitioning a monopoly of “excused” violence and of all basic public services, you’d somehow force the unaccountably corrupt politicians behind it to listen to you, when in fact, you’re grovelling to them, thus further **legitimising their tyrannical power over you**. Utopianism is imagining that, despite war, atrocity, tyranny, and corruption being inalienable features (not bugs) of centralised government, it will somehow be better (not worse) in the future, because… reasons. Utopianism is imagining that the miserable excuse for public services the state provides is somehow proof of its alleged “benevolent” nature, and that we can’t ever get those services better and more efficiently without an artificial monopoly of the state. **Utopian statism** is denying the fact that even the worst concentration camps and slave quarters offer “free” food, shelter, policing, clothing, healthcare, means of production, and roads. Utopianism is imagining that the warden of Château d’If is somehow your only way of receiving sustenance, and you therefore must love and defend him. Utopianism is imagining that your hands are clean from the blood of the atrocities committed on your behalf — in your name, and on your money — from the state which you so vehemently defend. We are all guilty of the satanic sin of statism. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-state-is-the-devil The only measure of truth in accusations of utopianism against me is that I am naive enough to hope that a decided statist will ever choose to see reason. **Useful reading** **Voluntaryism, Consentism, and Voluntary, Stateless, Decentralised, Laissez-Faire Systems of Self-Governance in the Style of Rothbardian Austro-Anarchism** ‘Chaos Theory: Two Essays on Market Anarchy’ by Robert P. Murphy https://mises.org/library/book/chaos-theory-two-essays-market-anarchy ‘The Market for Liberty’ by Morris and Linda Tannehill https://mises.org/library/book/market-liberty ‘Democracy: The God That Failed’ by Hans Hermann Hoppe https://mises.org/library/book/democracy-god-failed ‘The Myth of National Defense: Essays on the Theory and History of Security Production’ by Hans-Hermann Hoppe https://mises.org/library/book/myth-national-defense-essays-theory-and-history-security-production ‘The Private Production of Defense’ by Hans-Hermann Hoppe https://mises.org/library/book/private-production-defense ‘The Privatization of Roads and Highways’ by Walter Block https://mises.org/library/book/privatization-roads-and-highways ‘Defending the Undefendable I & II’ by Walter Block https://mises.org/library/book/defending-undefendable ‘No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority’ by Lysander Spooner https://libertyunderattack.com/no-treason-the-constitution-of-no-authority-by-lysander-spooner/ ‘Let’s Abolish Government’ by Lysander Spooner https://mises.org/library/book/lets-abolish-government ‘Anatomy of the State’ by Murray N. Rothbard https://mises.org/podcasts/anatomy-state ‘For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto’ by Murray N. Rothbard https://mises.org/library/book/new-liberty-libertarian-manifesto ‘Power and Market: Government and the Economy’ by Murray N. Rothbard https://mises.org/library/book/power-and-market-government-and-economy ‘Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market’ by Murray N. Rothbard https://mises.org/library/book/man-economy-and-state-power-and-market ‘The Ethics of Liberty’ by Murray N. Rothbard https://mises.org/library/book/ethics-liberty ‘Human Action’ by Ludwig von Mises https://mises.org/library/book/human-action ‘The Enterprise Of Law: Justice Without The State’ by Bruce L. Benson https://archive.org/details/the-enterprise-of-law-justice-without-the-state ‘The Machinery of Freedom: A Guide to Radical Capitalism’ by David Friedman http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Machinery%203rd%20Edn.pdf ‘The Most Dangerous Superstition’ by Larken Rose https://www.amazon.com/Larken-Rose-Most-Dangerous-Superstition/dp/B00N4EGD8C ‘The Problem Of Political Authority’ by Michael Huemer https://archive.org/details/problem-of-political-authority-the-michael-huemer ‘“Government”—The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed!’ by Etienne de la Boetie2 https://government-scam.com/