"How thoughtless, then, to assert that the existing political order is of a purely defensive character!"[719] "Defence is a service, like any other service. It is labor both useful and desired, and therefore an economic commodity subject to the law of supply and demand. In a free market this commodity would be furnished at the cost of production. The production and sale of this commodity are now monopolized by the State. The State, like almost all monopolists, charges exorbitant prices. Like almost all monopolists, it supplies a worthless, or nearly worthless, article. Just as the monopolist of a food product often furnishes poison instead of nutriment, so the State takes advantage of its monopoly of defence to furnish invasion instead of protection. Just as the patrons of the one pay to be poisoned, so the patrons of the other pay to be enslaved. And the State exceeds all its fellow-monopolists in the extent of its villany because it enjoys the unique privilege of compelling all people to buy its product whether they want it or not."[720] 3. It cannot be alleged in favor of the State that it is necessary as a means for combating crime.[721] "The State is itself the most gigantic criminal extant. It manufactures criminals much faster than it punishes them."[722] "Our prisons are filled with criminals which our virtuous State has made what they are by its iniquitous laws, its grinding monopolies, and the horrible social conditions that result from them. We enact many laws that manufacture criminals, and then a few that punish them."[723] No more can the State be defended on the ground that it is wanted for the relief of suffering. "The State is rendering assistance to the suffering and starving victims of the Mississippi inundation. Well, such work is better than forging new chains to keep the people in subjection, we allow; but is not worth the price that is paid for it. The people cannot afford to be enslaved for the sake of being insured. If there were no other alternative, they would do better, on the whole, to take Nature's risks and pay her penalties as best they might. But Liberty supplies another alternative, and furnishes better insurance at cheaper rates. Mutual insurance, by the organization of risk, will do the utmost that can be done to mitigate and equalize the suffering arising from the accidental destruction of wealth."[724] II. _Every man's self-interest, and equal liberty particularly, demands, in place of the State, a social human life on the basis of the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to._ The "voluntary association of contracting individuals"[725] is to take the place of the State.