"Most people would agree that the
sign of an individual’s maturity and rationality, not to mention social
skills, is her understanding that the cooperation of others must be
obtained exclusively through persuasion. If you want something from
someone you make an offer or an argument. You don’t demand, bully, or
terrorize. And yet we tolerate an institution that demands, bullies, and
terrorizes as a matter of course across a large and growing range of
matters."
The Goal Is Freedom
Government Is Force
A license to aggress.
Sheldon Richman
Posted September 16, 2011
Some pundits really don’t understand why libertarians dislike government
and therefore want it to do little, if anything at all. Unable to grasp
the reason, the pundits assign bad motives to those who disparage
government: They don’t like poor people, or workers, or the sick, or
education.
But what’s so hard to understand? Government is significantly different
from anything else in society. It is the only institution that can
legally threaten and initiate violence; that is, under color of
law its officers may use physical force -- not in defense of innocent
life but against individuals who have neither threatened nor aggressed
against anyone else. “Government is not reason. It is not eloquence,”
George Washington reportedly said. “Government is force; like fire it is
a dangerous servant -- and a fearful master.”
That’s not a controversial description of the State. Even people
enthusiastic about government would agree.
Given this unique feature, why isn’t everyone wary about the State?
Whether or not one thinks it’s necessary, it’s dangerous by its very
nature, and we ought to assume it will remain so no matter how many paper
checks and balances and bills of rights are thought to contain
it.
Yet if you talk about government this way, you will be eyed warily
and even marginalized. (Observe the current presidential campaign.) This
is not confined to one side of the political spectrum only. Progressives
and conservatives each have their pet areas where they enthusiastically
wish to see the force of government unleashed. Each then regards anyone
else’s wariness as a defect. So Progressives, who reputedly care about
privacy, have no problem, for example, with intrusion into that most
personal of matters: medical care. Here they trust power and dismiss
rational fears of arbitrary bureaucratic control over health and life. On
the other hand, conservatives, who preach freedom and free enterprise,
are eager to trust power when the objective is policing the world,
hounding unauthorized immigrants, and persecuting manufacturers,
merchants, and consumers of unapproved drugs.
We are all raised to believe that using force (except in self-defense) is
wrong. We’re taught not to hit other people or take their things. This
applies to our associations as well. Yet as we grow, we are expected to
believe that one institution -- government -- gets to operate by
different rules. No one ever explains why.
Tacit Consent
Sure, if you push hard enough, you will hear
pseudo explanations. Someone will inevitably invoke tacit consent. You
know: You choose to live here and those are the rules -- love it or leave
it. But the assertion that we all somehow agreed to be coerced is
ludicrous, and
Charles
Johnson asks if consent is even possible when the withholding of
consent is deemed impossible.
Moreover this argument implies that the government owns the country,
including your property, which begs a big question.
Push harder, and someone will invoke democracy, but again that really
gets us nowhere. In my lifetime the only elections have been to determine
who would run the government, not what its powers, if any, would
be. (Yes, candidates sometimes promise to reduce government power,
but since one officeholder can’t keep such a promise, it’s not terribly
meaningful.) The
fiction of democratic representation is more intended to contain
dissent than to describe reality. Let’s get real: The average
congressional district has more than 600,000 residents. Taxation with
real representation has yet to be realized.
Most people would agree that the sign of an individual’s maturity and
rationality, not to mention social skills, is her understanding that the
cooperation of others must be obtained exclusively through persuasion. If
you want something from someone you make an offer or an argument. You
don’t demand, bully, or terrorize. And yet we tolerate an institution
that demands, bullies, and terrorizes as a matter of course across a
large and growing range of matters. It doesn’t demand merely that we not
harm others or take their belongings. It bullies us into turning over our
money for all kinds of purposes. It demands that we comply with its
(ever-changing) rules about what we consume, how we manage our medical
care, and in what manner we trade with others. And it increasingly
terrorizes us in its brutal crusade against self-medication.
Routinely Hassled
It matters not for my purpose today whether the
government’s officers think they are looking out for our welfare,
indulging their taste for power, or doing the bidding of well-connected
and well-heeled interests. The result is the same: We are routinely
hassled in our efforts to live, to cooperate, and to mutually benefit one
another. We are the economy they presume to manage.
Apologists for power will claim that without expansive government, the
weak will be vulnerable to the strong, the masses to the rich. But that
appeal falls apart when one reviews the history of government and
realizes that, appearances aside, power ultimately sides with the strong
and the rich against the rest. Indeed, power -- what Bastiat called
“legal plunder” -- is the
source of their strength and a good deal of wealth.
Economic and social theory furnish ample reason for wariness about the
State. But we mustn’t let moral theory take a back seat. Government, even
when it appears to do good, diminishes our freedom and humanity. How
revoltingly ironic that people who claim to champion goodwill and
cooperation regard violence as a legitimate means to their ends.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/tgif/government-is-force/
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