Michael McConkey The Occupy-everywhere  protesters' calls for increased state regulation of the financial sector and demands by the Global Warming lobby for state prohibition of certain energy-production practices are just two recent examples of the persistence with which contemporary, mainstream oppositional movements resort to the state as their default response to crisis. The assumption is that the state must increase, either the number of its functions or the scope of its current functions, because it alone possesses the focus and public-mindedness necessary to overcome individual self-interest and marshal everyone toward the common purpose of overcoming the crisis This tendency though is inherently self-defeating and the only plausible explanation for its salience is ignorance of the paradox of statist crisis-resolution. The paradox can be expressed thus: There is a direct relation between the increase of state action, for crisis resolution, and the decrease of state qualities that recommended that increase of action . This paradox can be revealed in eight simple steps. 1. The state is defined by its (supposedly) legitimate use of coercion. Where there is no coercion there can be no state. It is precisely the utilization of this coercive power that is being sought by those who propose the state as the solution to crisis. 2. Coercion is by definition the denial of voluntary action. Where there is no coercion, people act free of interference from anyone else. It is precisely this control over the action of others that is being sought in calls for state crisis resolution.