The State
Franz Oppenheimer

The State affects the most mundane as well as the most important aspects of our lives. As a powerful, sprawling institution, it shapes other major institutions of society and reaches even into our most personal everyday affairs. Over the years, many writers have claimed that the State has some kind of noble mission, but few have seen things with such clarity as the  Franz Oppenheimer. The State, Oppenheimer persuasively argues, is always born in the conquest of one group by another, setting themselves up as government to extract tribute in the form of taxes. For Oppenheimer, the State could have originated in no other way. 

In this significant, but long-neglected, classic, Franz Oppenheimer develops his libertarian ideas on the origin and the future of the State. The State draws on vast historical knowledge, with dramatic examples of the beginnings of the State from prehistoric to primitive, from huntsmen to herders, from the Vikings to modern day.

Praise for The State

"I have long regarded [The State] as a classic and welcome its fresh publication. I hope it will be read widely by the present generation. - Robert Nisbet Oppenheimer's ... book helps us to realize how recent, precious, and fragile are the ideas and institutions of democracy." - Stanislav Andreski 

Franz Oppenheimer (1864-1943) was a German sociologist and political economist. From 1934 to 1935, Oppenheimer taught in Palestine, emigrating to Los Angeles in 1936, where he was active in the American Sociological Association and a founding member of the American Journal of Economics and Sociology. He is most famous for his works analyzing the State. 

2007 (New edition); 201 pages

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