In this post, I will argue that the term "surveillance state" is redundant.

Along the way, we'll explore some forms of government and see why taxation might not actually be theft, after all.

A state is an entity that survives through non-consensual interactions.

This is the most fundamental definition of a government that there can be.

If the government did not use non-consensual force to achieve its goals, it would be called a company or an enterprise instead.

To survive, any government always needs to maintain control over its population.

Without control, there can't be any forceful extraction of goods normally traded on the market.

In more primitive forms of government, such control might purely be of physical form.

For example, a gang of thugs going from one house to the next and demanding "protection money" could be called a very primitive form of government.

Most people would disagree with that and argue that such a gang of thugs is not a valid form of government because it is not generally accepted as such by the governed population.

However, as we have established above, no government ever works on a purely consensual basis, so the distinction between said group of thugs and a constitutional government is merely a matter of perspective.

The argument of "general acceptance" is a slippery slope that ultimately leads to arbitrary definitions for the sake of defending the status quo.

How big is the required percentage of consenting governed people that turns a gang of thugs into a government?

The answers to that question is highly subjective and arbitrary.

For example, the aristocrat would defend the position of the ruling 10% elite.

Of course, the modern democratic geniuses think they have found the solution: Anything above 50% must be moral and just, right?

No.

As long as the agreement rate is not 100%, the difference between a gang and a government is irrelevant (and the 100% mark would miss our definition of government above).

There is no magic turning point making non-consensual actions of a certain group towards another group acceptable.

If you believe in such a turning point, you also believe in the following illustration:

If a man rapes two women, he is to be punished for his immoral actions.

After all, 66% of involved individuals did not consent to the interaction.

If a man rapes only one woman, he is an equally bad person and needs to be prosecuted.

In that case, 50% disagreed, which is still (?) unacceptable.

If nineteen men rape one woman, the men should all go free, because only 5% of involved people disagreed.

As you can see, sacrificing the good of few in favor of the welfare of many is always immoral.

Still, there is another way for a government to establish control.

If physical control cannot be established or if it is too hard to maintain, mental control is not only a good alternative, it is a far safer and more efficient approach.

Mental control is not necessarily bound to a more advanced or intelligent society.

It is based on the idea that propaganda and mindset can turn non-consensual actions into consensual ones.

In a way, even "protection money" is a crude form of mental control opposed to brute extortion.

This is because it suggests a higher goal; "protection" of the community.

It enables one neighbor to say to the other: Surely you wouldn't want our community to be unprotected! How dare you not pay the money!

Mental control is all around us.

+ Taxes are the price you pay to live in a civilized society!

+ The police is our friend and helper.

+ Surely you can't be against free healthcare, ROADS or education!

+ Eternal salvation comes only for those paying the church the tenth part of their income.

This form is the much more subtle method of maintaining control because it cannot be judged in the same way as physical control.

A person asking for your wallet at gunpoint is obviously stealing from you and can be judged as evil.

A person feeding you regular portions of propaganda, and thus convincing you to consensually give them parts of your money, is not really stealing anything from you.

In the case of mental control, you are the retard if you conform.

You are not a victim.

You become the victim precisely at the point where you look up to the oppressor and say "no more".

In that moment, the government degrades all of its pretty mental control facade and falls back to the only real thing it is good at: violence.

You do have the right to remain silent and go along with it.

But you are not a victim until you realize that you do not consent.

This is a hard pill to swallow and a grim situation, because following this logic consistently implies that most oblivious people are actually paying taxes on a consensual basis.

Let's explore why a government always needs surveillance.

The primitive form of government, which derives its power from physical control, must always fear an uprising because everybody sees the thugs for what they are.

Nobody really consents to their own enslavement.

Any such form of government will quickly be overthrown by a riot if they do not constantly observe the sentiment of the governed and infiltrate any form of resistance movement.

The more advanced form of government, which derives its power from constant mental programming, must equally fear for a mental revolution.

Physical fights are expensive when you are used to spewing propaganda all day.

Furthermore, they are always much more dangerous than declaring laws from your ivory tower while the populace eats your shit.

For that reason, any government will try to avoid physical confrontations if the issue can be solved in the realm of propaganda.

Still, to maintain the intellectual and mental high ground, any form of mental resistance in the form of opposing thought must be suppressed.

That too can't happen without surveillance of the people.

To conclude, no matter how advanced your government is, surveillance will always be a fundamental part of its survival strategy.

If it isn't, it will eventually be overtaken by another gang.

Inverting that fact, no matter how advanced your government is, any form of privacy technology will always eventually end up in the crosshairs of the censor.

Privacy and secrecy is the foundation of fighting any government.

Please note that, even though governments usually prefer propaganda over physical confrontations, that does not mean that governments are somehow peaceful.

Any means to control will suffice for the masters.

It's just a matter of economic feasibility: Propaganda is cheaper than tanks.

If propaganda doesn't work, tanks are the second best option.

If effective propaganda requires making an example out of a few poor souls, then violence is also no problem for the propaganda state.

Lastly, if either propaganda or tanks are too expensive, taxation (and inflation) must be raised.

As another side note, most statements about the government in this post assume it to be a somewhat-rational entity with leaders that know what they are doing.

Because the government is not subjected to normal market dynamics (they don't have to work for their money), rational decisions are not rewarded for politicians.

That leads to unpredictable and irrational decisions taken by a government.

Such a government will eventually be taken over by a more competent group of thugs.

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