Title: Center for a Stateless Society » Five Faces of State Oppression
Headings: 
Five Faces of State Oppression
Exploitation
Marginalization
Powerlessness
Violence
Cultural Imperialism
Overcoming State Oppression

Content: The State perpetuates wage labor by making it difficult for people to seek alternatives, such as self-employment. State regulations create barriers to entry through zoning laws, licensing requirements, and special privileges awarded to large corporations with large political lobbies. Because the State makes starting and maintaining a business so difficult, those without large amounts of capital or political power have little choice but to work for those benefiting from the State’s policies. The State also functions using money taken by force from workers in the form of taxation. When workers contract with their employers or earn money by working for themselves, they do not get to profit fully from their labor, having to hand a portion of their income to the State or face legal penalties. The State, therefore, systematically exploits its citizens in the form of expropriation. Without institutionalized theft, the State would not have the means to continue its daily operations. Marginalization
According to Young (1990, p. 8), “Marginals are people the system of labor cannot or will not use.” For much of its history, the State has explicitly excluded marginalized people from citizenship through laws that discriminate against the poor, women, children, racial minorities, and the disabled. Although in the United States many of these laws are gone, the social effects of such laws remain.