New Anti-Government TV Series

“Never trust a criminal … until you have to,” is the official motto of The Blacklist, the American crime-thriller television series that premiered on NBC on September 23, 2013. But the real lesson of The Blacklist is “never trust the government … even if you have to.” Not many shows are both anti-state in their narrative and enjoyable at the same time. The Blacklist, however, deserves to be watched. If there is one show that takes the government for what it is, i.e., a “bandit gang” as Rothbard called it, it would be The Blacklist.

The Blacklist is the story of an international criminal, Raymond Reddington, who decides, for mysterious reasons, to work with the FBI. In exchange for valuable information, the FBI lets him conduct his business freely. Hence, the question is does Reddington work for the government or is it the other way around. Reddington says it explicitly in Season 1, Episode 2: “The FBI works for me now.”

It is true that, after three seasons, we still don’t know much about Reddington. As he says in Season 1, Episode 1, “Everything about me is a lie.”  to do immoral deeds. As Connolly, the attorney general in the show, says: “I never had any principles — that’s why I am on a rocket to the top.” Another instance of selection of the worst happens in Season 1 when an FBI agent wants to discover a dark truth. Her chief just answers “You should just take care of your career.” Comply and climb the ladder, do not and you will occupy an irrelevant job for the rest of your life, such are often the alternatives when it comes to the government.

But the dehumanization by the state machine goes a lot further. The government always tries to contrast the “good” with the “bad” guys so that bureaucrats feel no remorse when they violate their victims’ rights. During Episode 11 of Season 1, for instance, the government investigates the attack on a black site on smoking out a mole. A discussion between the investigator and an FBI Agent goes as follows:

Investigator: “According to the report from your therapist, you feel guilty about what happened during the raid.”

Agent: “Of course I do, I shot a man. I thought what I said in therapy was confidential.”

Investigator: “You shot a terrorist, why would you feel guilty about that?”

Agent: “Because he is human!”

Later, the investigators — or, in other words, bureaucrats who are trained in missing the point — think the FBI agent in question is the mole. It is thanks only to the expertise and protection of Reddington, who conducted is an own investigation, that the FBI agent is cleared of suspicion. What is striking in The Blacklist is that even good people are forced to be bad if they want to save their skin, or even if they want to do something good.

Unlike the state, Red Reddington is highly efficient in his business operations. He even has better intelligence than the omnipotent surveillance state. As a good libertarian mafioso, he criticizes government waste and the inefficiency of the government intelligence services:

Do you have any idea how much the US government spent on signal intelligence in the past year? […] Your country has become a nation of eavesdroppers. Frequency domain triangulation, satellites, crypto … whatever! You forgot that what matters most is human intelligence. Alliances, relationships, seductions.

Not only does Reddington have much more style than do dull bureaucrats, not only does he speak impeccable French — to which I can testify — and has a good knowledge of French wines, but he also beats the government in everything he does. Season 2, Episode 2, Reddington even escapes with great panache from a restaurant surrounded by the police and the FBI.

By following his own interests, Reddington serves the public good by eliminating the corrupt public criminals who infect the government machine. Some might argue that Reddington became rich thanks to the Don Corleone theory of trade — i.e., by making offers one cannot refuse. This is not, however, how Reddington is proceeding. He does not make threats except in order to protect his property. Reddington is rich because he is the best at what he does. The state, on the other hand, is the institution which uses the Don Corleone theory of trade systematically to insure its supremacy. The state doctrine is simple “everything belongs to you what is not yet mine.” Oppositely, Reddington’s doctrine is “Let’s make a deal.”

Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

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