august on Nostr: A patriarch would be less likely to be a coercive monopoly, since he would be ...

A patriarch would be less likely to be a coercive monopoly, since he would be strongly related to the people he was defending. Beats some wage earning bureaucrat- especially from out of state- any day. It has been part of the modern propaganda to paint the ancients with the same brush.

If we focus on incentives, we can get close to the real thing we want. If we follow modern propaganda, we will just get bureaucracies particularly adept at saying things like voluntary exchange while exploiting us.

This is similar to how America has ruined the terms free markets, or even freedom in general across the globe. For too long it has obviously meant do whatever the US gov wants. Few people get past this and into a principled understanding of any of this. Hoppe himself admitted that kings have incentives better aligned with the people than bureaucrats do.

We'd just rather not have kings, but the principles don't apply themselves. Someone must apply them- and in many cases apply them ruthlessly. We will see nothing like the society imagined in these scenarios without that someone. And that someone simply cannot be a bureaucrat. They are too misaligned- not only with humanity in general, but even with themselves. They can know, individually, that their hierarchy is going to ultimately destroy the institution they are inhabiting, but they will continue to obey and/or promote bad behavior because their bread is buttered by that hierarchy. They'll keep quiet and hope they get to retirement before everything breaks down.