* If you examine anything being "done by government," you will find human beings doing whatever is being done. They may also use equipment and machinery, but the most important work is done by individual human beings. If you go to a school, you will not find any "government" that runs the school. You will find a principal, a number of administrative people, and several teachers - all individual human beings. No matter what government monopoly you examine, for example a police station, you will find that the important work is done by individual human beings. If you visit a military installation, or a court, or a jail, or a veterans hospital, or a road being built, you will find individual human beings doing the work.
Already there's a little bit of information left out. While the various tasks of government are completed by people, they are completed in a hierarchical organization - a group of individuals don't just show up, call themselves "government," and proceed to do whatever they want. There is order, structure, to the whole thing - and at the top of the structure are people that we elect to make the decisions.
* The fact that these human beings call themselves "government," does not imbue them with magical powers to do their jobs better than those individuals who do not call themselves "government."
* Furthermore, the fact that certain individuals organize themselves into an institution called "government," does not imbue them with magical powers to do their jobs better than those individuals who do not so organize themselves.
* In general, people who don't call themselves "government," can do anything humans can do, at least as well as people who call themselves "government."
There is no implication that the government is "better" than the people. The government is largely decided by the people (we elect people based on whether or not we agree with what they say they're going to do, and then if they don't do it we vote them out or if they go way outside the bounds of what we wanted we impeach them). The "magical powers" referenced here are simply the powers of the will of the people.
IDOLATRY
In Man and Superman George Bernard Shaw wrote, "Government is the organization of idolatry." The dictionary defines "idol" as:
* A representation or symbol of worship;
* A false god;
* A pretender or impostor;
* An object of passionate devotion;
* A false conception or fallacy.
An idolater is a worshipper of idols. Idolatry is the phenomenon of worshipping idols. What do we call the belief in the "magical power" of government? What about the belief that because people call themselves "government" - or they organize themselves into an institution called "government" - therefore they have "magical powers" to perform miracles? Superstition, perhaps?
I call belief in the power of government belief in representation and democracy. I believe that it's far from perfect but perfection is inherently impossible. There's no "magic" involved.
WE NEED PLANNING, COORDINATION, AND MANAGING
Certain "communal" activities need to be performed. For example, in a city certain things need to planned, coordinated, and managed. If you go to any city, you will find some human beings doing just this. They may use computers and other equipment, but the essential planning, coordination, and managing is always done by human beings. If you visit a large company, you will find the same thing. We absolutely do need planning, coordination, and managing. We have it. People do it.
We also need defense.
DO WE ALSO NEED COERCION, VIOLENCE, AND MONOPOLIES?
Generally, the people who call themselves "government" operate on a different basis from that of the people who don't call themselves "government." The following assumptions seem to underlie the behavior of the people who call themselves "government":
* We are the only ones qualified to do the things we do; therefore we must have a monopoly to do the things we do and no one else may do them.
* In particular, we must be the only ones who have a monopoly on legalized violence.
* Because we are so highly qualified, we can't persuade people to do what we want; therefore we must use coercion, violence, and armed police to force them to follow our orders.
* Because we are so highly qualified, we can't persuade people to pay for our wonderful services; therefore we must use coercion, violence, and armed police to force them to pay.
* Because we do our jobs so well, we must use coercion, violence, and armed police to force people to not compete with us.
* Some of our friends (who don't call themselves "government") are uniquely qualified to do the things they do (like doctors and other special-interest groups); therefore we grant them monopolies (licences), so they don't have to compete with unqualified quacks in a free market. Guess what this will do to medical costs - and the licence fees and campaign contributions we'll be able to collect!
These powers are granted to the government by the people. If the people saw fit to repeal them than we would elect representatives and senators who would introduce legislation that would remove each precept mentioned. The will of the majority is that "legalized violence" be government domain only. If it was only a small minority group being oppressed by the will of the majority than I would be completely and one hundred percent behind you; as it is everyone who is "oppressed" by this logic it makes no sense to me.
THE WEAKEST ARGUMENT FOR GOVERNMENT
If we don't have government there will be chaos, disorder, crime, poverty, illiteracy, homelessness, drug abuse, pollution, etc, etc.
Answer 1: How do you know? Answer 2: Such a list almost always consists of problems we already suffer from - in other words, if we have government there will be chaos, disorder, crime, poverty, illiteracy, homelessness, drug abuse, pollution, etc, etc.
The people who call themselves "government" need such problems in order to justify their jobs. It is in their interest to create such problems and make them worse. The worse the problems, the bigger the bureaucratic empires they create, the more money they get, the more power they obtain, the more people they control.
Studying the case of the collapse of the Somalian government might be a good idea. The idea the chaos is a result of anarchy is heavily supported there and generally it is the collapse of government, not the rapid scaling back of government, that people associate chaos with. Whether or not "chaos" should be associated with Libertarianism is another matter altogether.
The bigger the government, the greater the problems. A politician like Bush may say that he will reduce government and lower taxes because he thinks it will help him get re-elected. In practice Bush has greatly increased his own bureaucratic empire. His administration has expanded government regulation with abandon. He promised, "Read my lips, no new taxes," and then raised taxes. Under Bush, deficit spending has ballooned out of control.
You'll find no new argument from me here; this is why we refer to George Bush as a neocon rather than a conservative.
PROBLEMS ARE SOLVED BY PEOPLE, NOT BY GOVERNMENTS.
Once you realize that governments consist of people, and that whatever is being done is done by individual human beings - even though they may use machines and equipment - then it becomes embarrassingly obvious that only people can solve problems. The entire notion that government can or should do anything becomes quite absurd.
In their book Breakthrough Thinking, Gerald Nadler and Shozo Hibino write that "an organization, as a collective body, can't approach a problem." They have a section on "political and governmental horrors." They indicate that politics and government "are the graveyards of misbegotten problem solving." Politicians and bureaucrats have three basic types of "solutions":
* Pass a law.
* Throw money at the problem.
* Appoint a committee to study the problem.
In terms of problem-solving methodology, all three types are at best inefficient.
And what of issues too large for singular individuals to deal with? In terms of national defense America faces a world with lots of enemies with things like nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons at their disposal, as well as fleets of naval vessels and jet aircraft and armored infantry units like tanks. How do unorganized individuals combat these threats?
I would go further and suggest that as soon as people call themselves "government," there is a considerable probability that they acquire some kind of "magical power in reverse" - they somehow become less able to solve problems. Nadler and Hibino say that, "Government is operated mainly by bureaucrats, and bureaucrats' classic criterion in decision making is not fulfillment of project purposes but protection of their jobs."
Pure bureaucrats are a necessity for hierarchical organization. Too many of the fowl up the process eventually but a few are general necessities. Of course, it is easy to vilify them if you are already vilifying the entire concept of hierarchical organization, so I suppose this is a moot point.
There. That's not every point in the article so I guess I once again disregarded the "totality" of it. I did not respond to, for instance, the section at the end about good people in government - largely because I believe that yes, people could be just as successful outside of government than inside it.
Was this what you'd had in mind, Truth-Bringer?
