Modern Era
Albert Jay Nock
1870–1945 · Remnant
The state is the organization of the minority's will over the majority.
In their words
“The state is the organization of the political means of exploiting the economic means.”
In Our Enemy, the State, Nock distinguished society from the state and argued that the state is a predatory institution that appropriates the surplus of production while providing a compulsory monopoly of law. His idea of the Remnant, the small minority that keeps civilization's standards alive, made him the patron essayist of a certain kind of libertarian, and a permanent rebuke to the idea that politics improves people.
Why it matters for freedom
He separated society from the state and showed how much of what we call public life needs no government at all.
Who they stood against
the warfare state and the liberals who kept expanding it