You’ve probably never heard of Gilles de Rais. He was a French nobleman and military hero of the Hundred Years’ War, who fought alongside Joan of Arc. He was awarded the rank of Marshal of France and was honored by Charles VII for his “high and commendable services” in the war.
He was also most likely the first serial killer in recorded history.
Beginning soon after the death of Joan of Arc in 1431, and reportedly as a part of occult rituals, de Rais began stealing, torturing, sexually abusing, and killing children. By 1440, when he was arrested, de Rais had reportedly killed 140 children. Threatened with torture, he confessed and was executed on October 26, 1440.
Unfortunately, de Rais has had a lot of company throughout the ages. From the horrific exploits of King Leopold II in the Belgian Congo to those of the “Blood Countess” Elizabeth Bathory, Vlad the Impaler, England’s “Bloody Mary,” and—on a grander scale in more recent history—the likes of Pol Pot, Stalin, and Mao Zedong, history is littered with examples of people in positions of power who not only employ brutality in order to maintain their power, but who seem to take great pleasure in causing unspeakable suffering to others.
It can be difficult for those who do not share a proclivity for sadism to fully grasp what makes these people tick, or indeed—and this is where it gets dangerous—to believe that they exist at all. But history tells us that they do exist, and we ignore history at our peril. Nor should we lull ourselves into a belief that things that happened a long time ago are confined to history. We should not fool ourselves into believing that, as a species, we have overcome our worst tendencies and that we are all better people now. We are not.
Once we acknowledge that evil is still with us, and that there will always be some number of people among us who are drawn to evil, the question is this: How can the rest of us best protect ourselves from those who wish to do harm to others—not out of revenge, or fear, or even anger, but just because they can?
The answer would seem to lie in that last part. So let’s talk about that.
Why is it that some people can get away with torture, rape, and murder, and the rest of us cannot? What is it that protects them from the consequences of their actions?
In a completely autocratic system, the answer is clear: The ruler’s power is absolute. There are no institutional checks on his or her power—nobody to appeal to should the ruler abuse that power.
But what about in our own system?
The Worst Kind of Monopoly
If we are going to get to the bottom of this and identify the source of this problem, which humanity has faced for millennia, we will need to face some uncomfortable truths about our own system of governance. Primarily, the notion that we, “the people,” control our government.
Here in America, we are told beginning in early childhood that we “are" the government. Because we live in a democracy, we are blithely assured, our government represents us, and not its own interests or the interests of the people who make it up.
Later, in introductory economics classes in high school or college, we are told about the problems with monopolies. Monopolies are bad, we are sternly informed, because unlike other business entities, they are not constrained by the forces of competition. By virtue of having become the sole producer of a good or service, the monopolist is free to raise prices and lower quality to his or her heart’s content.
There’s a lot about this that mainstream economics gets wrong, and a lot that it leaves out. Nevertheless, the basic idea is sound: If a producer were a genuine monopoly—that is, if that producer truly faced no competition at all—then the producer would no longer be accountable to its consumers, either in terms of price or the quality of the goods or services produced.
The question we should all be asking is this: If a monopoly that arises out of the free market (they don’t, but that’s another conversation) is a bad thing, then what does that tell us about a monopoly that is imposed by force?
Such a monopoly is, in fact, much, much worse.
Any monopoly that arises in a free market must still face the possibility of competitors entering that market. A monopoly state, by contrast, refuses to allow any competition and backs up that refusal with violence.
A market-based monopoly cannot compel anyone to buy its products or services, nor can it demand that people pay for its goods or services even if they are not going to use them. But the state can.
What does all of this have to do with Gilles de Rais, or King Leopold, or Pol Pot?
Of Fox Houses and Immunity
A government has what is called a monopoly on force—they and they alone dictate who may use force and under what conditions. In practice, this means that a government is not accountable in any real way to its “customers.” This creates “pockets of unaccountability” for anyone operating inside this monopoly.
These pockets of unaccountability can show up in explicit ways, such as
The immunity from liability granted by the state to vaccine manufacturers in 1986 for any harm their products may cause,
The PREP Act, which grants immunity from liability to doctors and other healthcare workers for harm they may cause during a declared “public-health emergency,”
Qualified immunity granted to police and other government officials, and
Immunity granted to the president.
But it is not only these explicit protections that shield people in positions of power from the consequences of their actions. It is also the fact that any criminal prosecution of such people relies on a justice system that is itself a part of the monopoly. In essence, it is the fox watching the fox house. There is no outside, independent court to which citizens may appeal when their rulers (and yes, “rulers” is the correct word here) violate their rights.
People who want to violate other people’s rights with impunity know this. The people who are happy to steal others’ wealth; to squash competitors not with superior performance, but with force; and to inflict suffering on others, even to kill them … these people know very well where those pockets of unaccountability are, and they flock to them.
The institution of the monopoly state does not create terrible people, but it does nurture and protect them. It provides them with a safe space where they can thrive. Where they can commit their crimes with very little fear that they will ever be brought to justice. Where everyone operates under a different set of rules from the rest of us.
If you doubt this, ask yourself why Gilles de Rais was only awarded the title “serial killer” for the killing he did off the battlefield.
There is no system of governance that will change human nature. No system can guarantee that horrific crimes will not be committed within its jurisdiction. But there are systems that shield, and therefore encourage, criminal behavior. Any system that is founded on a monopoly of force by definition creates a safe space for criminals—and makes everyone else’s lives less safe as a consequence.
The people who seek to commit crimes against others, safe from the consequences of their actions, understand very well how this works. It’s time the rest of us did too.
And it’s time we start looking for a new path.