Page 28 - The Drucker Lectures

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The Myth of the State

1947

he word myth is a very queer word. If you look it up in the
Tdictionary, you will find it defined as “a tale, a fabrication,
usually invoking the supernatural to explain natural phenom-
ena.” This definition is literally correct, or at least as correct as a
dictionary definition can hope to be. You can test it for yourself;
just see how neatly it fits the “myth of the state” we’re going to
talk about tonight.
And yet the rhetorical emphasis on the definition and its pro-
pagandistic aim are the exact opposite of what we today usually
mean when we talk about the myth. What the standard defini-
tion conveys is that myth is a silly superstition, an old wives’ tale.
At best, it is tolerated as a harmless flight of fancy, as an orna-
ment, a glittering trinket for children or for the leisure hours of
the tired businessman. At worst, it is condemned as the invention
of unscrupulous quacks—greedy priests, power-hungry dema-
gogues, ruthless capitalists—who use it to frighten the gullible,
uneducated, and stupid into submission and tribute.
Now, I am not saying that myth cannot be abused or mis-
used—in fact, in talking about the myth of the state the main
questions are precisely: What is the proper, the right use of the
myth? And what is demagogic, obscurantist, tyrannical misuse?
But when we use the term myth, we are nevertheless not talking
about a superstition or an old wives’ tale. We talk about some-

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