Why people obey unjust laws and betray their neighbors
Why do people obey unjust laws even when they know it’s wrong? Fear, status, and propaganda keep neighbors snitching and conscience suppressed.
One of the ugliest truths about human history is this: Even in the most draconian regimes, neighbors snitch on neighbors, coworkers enforce laws they know are unjust, and ordinary men and women march in lockstep with policies that destroy lives.
Why does this happen, even when everyone knows, deep down, that what they’re doing is morally wrong?
The answer is simple and terrifying. Fear, incentives, and propaganda bend behavior and override conscience.
Relative status beats absolute morality
Thomas Sowell wrote about how incentives shape behavior. Building on that insight: imagine a famine. A ration card is meaningless if everyone gets one, but if you get one while your neighbor doesn’t, it feels like survival.
The state exploits this in places like North Korea, offering scraps of safety, privilege, or career advancement to those who comply. Never mind that only a few will rise. What matters is that everyone believes they could. That slim chance of “getting ahead” is enough to corrode conscience.
The “if I don’t, someone else will” mindset
This is the mindset that turns whole nations into informant states. From Stalin’s Russia to Mao’s China to East Germany’s Stasi to Kim il Sung’s North Korea, the logic’s the same: Better to snitch than get snitched on.
The individual tells himself: “I’m not responsible. I’m just following orders. If I don’t, someone else will.” That diffusion of responsibility numbs guilt and makes betrayal feel like survival.
Hannah Arendt called it the “banality of evil.” Rothbard would simply call it the abdication of individual responsibility to the state.
Fear of isolation > Fear of being wrong
Most people fear being alone more than being immoral. That’s why the regime always makes dissent socially toxic, not just legally dangerous. You risk your tribe cutting you off, losing your job, and your neighbors’ trust.
And in a collectivist culture, isolation is death. So people fall in line, even while admitting to themselves, “This is wrong.”
Short-term thinking, long-term collapse
Ludwig von Mises grounded behavior in time preference—we typically value present satisfaction over future satisfaction—which helps explain why people accept immediate safety over long-run costs.
The snitch says: “If I report them today, I avoid punishment today.” The bureaucrat says: “If I enforce this policy, I keep my job this year.”
What they ignore is that short-term obedience guarantees long-term ruin. COVID is a perfect example of this.
But the state thrives on this shortsightedness. It needs a population too busy calculating this week’s risk to see the broader destruction it’s causing.
Propaganda redefines morality
Perhaps the most effective trick of all. The state convinces people that betrayal is virtue. Snitching transforms into “patriotism,” and enforcement evolves into “keeping people safe.”
They paint lockdowns as “saving lives,” and rebrand the language so compliance always feels moral.
It’s the same old script, whether it’s Nazi Germany, Communist China, or COVID-era Western democracies. The words change, but it’s always the same playbook: Warp morality until obedience feels righteous.
The libertarian lesson
Draconian laws survive because millions of ordinary people choose compliance over conscience, not because the state is all powerful.
The non-aggression principle flips the script, demanding personal responsibility over blind obedience. It demands that you refuse to aggress, even when “the law” tells you to.
Freedom dies with a shrug, when individuals outsource morality to the state. And freedom’s reborn the moment enough people decide, “No. I will not comply. My conscience is not for sale.”
My dark paranormal fantasy Cursed Mage drives this point home. Our fearless protagonist, Kaija Jokiharju, lives in a surveillance state where her peers are only too happy to snitch on others “not acting right” if it means showing their compliance and loyalty to the state.
Since Kaija can see and talk to ghosts, she risks a normie spotting and snitching on her to the authorities. If they do, it means they’ll hand Kaija a ticket to a notorious institution. One that won’t just re-educate, but will re-program her. Discover Kaija’s fate in Cursed Mage.
