When discussing my opposition to the state advocates of the state are quick to bring up countries like Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands as examples of states that do good for their people. What these state advocates fail to comprehend is the fact the state uses coercion to achieve its ends. Social programs are paid for with taxes that are paid because the alternative is suffering state violence. When an individual resorts to the use of coercive means to attain one end they generally become more comfortable with using coercive means to attain other ends. If the state finds coercive means acceptable to achieve its ends of providing education or healthcare it will also tend to find coercive means acceptable to deal with “undesirables.” A method that has been favored by states to deal with “undesirables” is to collect the “undesirables” and force them to live in inhuman conditions. Traditionally these communities of “undesirables” have been referred to as ghettos although Amsterdam is planning to refer to them as scum villages:
Amsterdam is to create “Scum villages” where nuisance neighbours and anti-social tenants will be exiled from the city and rehoused in caravans or containers with “minimal services” under constant police supervision.
[…]
Holland’s capital already has a special hit squad of municipal officials to identify the worst offenders for a compulsory six month course in how to behave.
Social housing problem families or tenants who do not show an improvement or refuse to go to the special units face eviction and homelessness.
Eberhard van der Laan, Amsterdam’s Labour mayor, has tabled the £810,000 plan to tackle 13,000 complaints of anti-social behaviour every year. He complained that long-term harassment often leads to law abiding tenants, rather than their nuisance neighbours, being driven out.
[…]
The new punishment housing camps have been dubbed “scum villages” because the plan echoes a proposal from Geert Wilders, the leader of a populist Dutch Right-wing party, for special units to deal with persistent troublemakers.
“Repeat offenders should be forcibly removed from their neighbourhood and sent to a village for scum,” he suggested last year. “Put all the trash together.”
One of the countries often cited by statists attempting to demonstrate the great rewards bestowed upon people by democracy/socialism/progressivism is establishing ghettos and forcing “undesirables” to live there. The country in question isn’t just any country though, it’s a country that has traditionally been known for extreme tolerance of behavior that is generally looked down upon such as prostitution and drug use.
Something that should be noted about these ghettos is that individuals displaying “anti-social tendencies” are being relegated to them. This is noteworthy because “anti-social tendencies” is such a vague term that is can be applied to anybody. As a general rule states tend to expand their power. While individuals that are generally considered bad neighbors will be the first cast into these new ghettos the program will likely expand to include other “undesirable” groups. Individuals failing to show proper support for the ruling royal family or other state entities could easily be labeled “anti-social” and cast into one of these ghettos. This is generally where a self-proclaimed progressive attempts to stop me and claim such a scenarior could never happen. Such a claim has already been rendered irrelevant by the fact ghettos are being established at all. Incrementalism is the name of the game and the state is already incrementally increasing its power so it’s not illogical to believe it will continue to incrementally increase its power.
I think the lesson to be learned here is that accepting coercive means to achieve ends you find desirable will lead to widespread acceptance of coercive means. That acceptance will make it far more difficult to oppose coercive means when they’re being used to achieve ends you find undesirable. In other words slippery slopes are dangerous and you should avoid them as much as possible.
