Doug Casey: Why Do We Need Government?
Submitted by Doug Casey via CaseyResearch.com,
Rousseau was perhaps the first to popularize the fiction now taught in civics classes about how government was created. It holds that men sat down together and rationally thought out the concept of government as a solution to problems that confronted them. The government of the United States was, however, the first to be formed in any way remotely like Rousseau's ideal. Even then, it had far from universal support from the three million colonials whom it claimed to represent. The U.S. government, after all, grew out of an illegal conspiracy to overthrow and replace the existing government.
There's no question that the result was, by an order of magnitude, the best blueprint for a government that had yet been conceived. Most of America's Founding Fathers believed the main purpose of government was to protect its subjects from the initiation of violence from any source; government itself prominently included. That made the U.S. government almost unique in history. And it was that concept – not natural resources, the ethnic composition of American immigrants, or luck – that turned America into the paragon it became.
The origin of government itself, however, was nothing like Rousseau's fable or the origin of the United States Constitution. The most realistic scenario for the origin of government is a roving group of bandits deciding that life would be easier if they settled down in a particular locale, and simply taxing the residents for a fixed percentage (rather like "protection money") instead of periodically sweeping through and carrying off all they could get away with. It's no accident that the ruling classes everywhere have martial backgrounds. Royalty are really nothing more than successful marauders who have buried the origins of their wealth in romance.
Romanticizing government, making it seem like Camelot, populated by brave knights and benevolent kings, painting it as noble and ennobling, helps people to accept its jurisdiction. But, like most things, government is shaped by its origins. Author Rick Maybury may have said it best in Whatever Happened to Justice?,
"A castle was not so much a plush palace as the headquarters for a concentration camp. These camps, called feudal kingdoms, were established by conquering barbarians who'd enslaved the local people. When you see one, ask to see not just the stately halls and bedrooms, but the dungeons and torture chambers.
"A castle was a hangout for silk-clad gangsters who were stealing from helpless workers. The king was the 'lord' who had control of the blackjack; he claimed a special 'divine right' to use force on the innocent.
"Fantasies about handsome princes and beautiful princesses are dangerous; they whitewash the truth. They give children the impression political power is wonderful stuff."
IS THE STATE NECESSARY?
The violent and corrupt nature of government is widely acknowledged by almost everyone. That's been true since time immemorial, as have political satire and grousing about politicians. Yet almost everyone turns a blind eye; most not only put up with it, but actively support the charade. That's because, although many may believe government to be an evil, they believe it is a necessary evil (the larger question of whether anything that is evil is necessary, or whether anything that is necessary can be evil, is worth discussing, but this isn’t the forum).
What (arguably) makes government necessary is the need for protection from other, even more dangerous, governments. I believe a case can be made that modern technology obviates this function.
One of the most perversely misleading myths about government is that it promotes order within its own bailiwick, keeps groups from constantly warring with each other, and somehow creates togetherness and harmony. In fact, that's the exact opposite of the truth. There's no cosmic imperative for different people to rise up against one another... unless they're organized into political groups. The Middle East, now the world's most fertile breeding ground for hatred, provides an excellent example.
Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived together peaceably in Palestine, Lebanon, and North Africa for centuries until the situation became politicized after World War I. Until then, an individual's background and beliefs were just personal attributes, not a casus belli. Government was at its most benign, an ineffectual nuisance that concerned itself mostly with extorting taxes. People were busy with that most harmless of activities: making money.
But politics do not deal with people as individuals. It scoops them up into parties and nations. And some group inevitably winds up using the power of the state (however "innocently" or "justly" at first) to impose its values and wishes on others with predictably destructive results. What would otherwise be an interesting kaleidoscope of humanity then sorts itself out according to the lowest common denominator peculiar to the time and place.
Sometimes that means along religious lines, as with the Muslims and Hindus in India or the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland; or ethnic lines, like the Kurds and Iraqis in the Middle East or Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka; sometimes it's mostly racial, as whites and East Indians found throughout Africa in the 1970s or Asians in California in the 1870s. Sometimes it's purely a matter of politics, as Argentines, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and other Latins discovered more recently. Sometimes it amounts to no more than personal beliefs, as the McCarthy era in the 1950s and the Salem trials in the 1690s proved.
Throughout history government has served as a vehicle for the organization of hatred and oppression, benefitting no one except those who are ambitious and ruthless enough to gain control of it. That's not to say government hasn't, then and now, performed useful functions. But the useful things it does could and would be done far better by the market.
(26 votes)
»
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
I have to disagree. You presume most or all humans are naturally evil, which is the main argument for liberalism. I think most are relatively decent people, there are some heathen idiots, and 4% are psychopaths. It doesn't take many psychopaths in power to screw up the whole ball of wax, plus the deadbeat pencil-pusher gov employees want their cake do-nothing job and nice pension. It makes no sense to call these government whores stealing my money and my rights "necessary."
"You presume most or all humans are naturally evil..."
I presume nothing; I merely observe.
5,000 years of recorded history support my view...
if you're going to observe, do it accurately.
the grand pronouncements of history tend to say little about the peaceful farmer, or cooper, or baker, that was happy to go about his life and not infringe on others.
on the contrary, history speaks loudly of tyrants and despots, who are a tiny portion of humanity.
And, of course, none of those peaceful farmers, coopers or bakers ever took up arms and murdered each other by the millions during the 20th century, did they? Nor did they ever own any slaves, or beat their wives or steal from or cheat their neighbors, did they?
All humans act in accordance with their own selfish interests. If the 'average' farmer or cooper or baker didn't commit the atrocities associated with the arch-tyrants of history, it is merely because he lacked the resources, or feared punishment from the 'government' or a divine authority over him.
Do you really, honestly believe that if all governments were abolished, and each human did whatever was right in his own eyes, without fear of punishment or reprisal from some central or divine authority, that we could achieve utopia?
Just look at our current divorce rate. If those who at one time professed love and devotion to each other can't even get along, what chance do strangers have?
If you care to put your money where your mouth is, here's an experiment you can try:
Park your car with the windows rolled down and the keys in the ignition.
Too general? Too many evil 'strangers' involved?
Okay, surely you can trust your 'honest' co-workers not to "infringe" your property rights:
Leave your wallet with cash sticking out of it on your desk at your place of employment.
Come back and let me know how that worked out for you, m'kay?
If you believe that mankind could exist peacefully in the absence of any form of government, you are as deluded as Rousseau...
IMO one of the errors made in these discussions is that people don't define their terms. What exactly is meant by 'the government' ?
'It' isn't a Thing. It is a way we think about interacting among ourselves, of carrying out particular roles.
History proves that psychopaths tend to put themselves in the positions, that is - act in the roles, - which allow them to steal the wealth & freedom of the broader population. These psychopaths don't physically carry out these predatory actions on their own, that would be impossible. There are far too few of them acting in 'the government authority' role. They carry out this tyranny by convincing others to commit violence against their own neighbors. They do it through belief in made up word notions including 'the country' and 'the government' without really examining what those words mean. A soldier will go to another place to kill and be killed by people he has never met and knows nothing about. If you ask him, he'll say he's 'defending his country' but he has no understanding of what the words 'his country' mean in regard to the situation in which he's placed himself. All he really has is sentimental images put in his head - visions of the flag, mythological past heroic figures, many accumulated hours subjected to schools & media, etc.
The police 'law enforcer' does the same thing. Ask him and you'll hear him say he goes after 'law breakers'. He'll never question if it might be the 'law' makers which are the real criminals & whether their 'laws' are equally applied to them. (Example - Corzine)
If you defend or condemn 'government', it seems wise to first deeply examine what is the nature of that non-Thing.
Pool Shark you nailed it...gawd knows what idiots hit the down arrow.
I like this plan.
You can be a Senator for as long as you want. But at the end of your fourth term,you're shot. Quid Pro Quo.
At this point, I'd like to see a lottery to choose politicians. Like a draft.
We would get a couple of bad eggs now and then, but for the most part, I think it would work.
A couple of bad eggs now and then sounds better than 535 every goddamn time.
No, random acts of kindness happen but we are not hearing about them. On the street, walking through the day, everyday people are just doing what is required to live. America is not an experiment. Royalty, however, should be sent to the archives. They serve no purpose other than pomp and circumstance. It's shocking to see this massive fraud being blamed on the fucking people when the rich fucks who aided and abetted it by participating in this scam, now the New Rich, are sitting in the face of being transformed back into a peasant. And I don't see a country on planet earth other than a few that have not entangled their economies into the web of deceipt designed specifically to stealthly destroy purchasing capabilities through banking or investment firms.
Government in place in the USA is filled with dual citizens with the largest lobby group on earth backing them, complete with well funded organizations to cover any scenario, ANTISEMITISM cleared clogged drains.
911 was the obvious clue but ADD seems to epidemic on these comment threads. Bush Family should have DNA test run on them. 911 should be blown wide open. The Rothschild fortune should be ripped from the claws of those old boring men with nothing to do but count their money. This is not about you or me. This is about the future of civilization and mankind's ability to live a reasonable life or in the very least, have an escape. Europe was the place we dreamed of going as children. What do you have to say about the sorry state of Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain, France, all of the countries, ALL OF THEM.
America is a country worth fighting for. Efficient described. Fair. Opportunity. Americans are forgiving. Rehab and the benefit of the doubt. Start over, recreate oneself, it's the American way. This plan is devious, goal is to inflict as much humiliation and agony on the Americans as possible. And they do not deserve this. No one deserves what is coming and the ripple effect will spare no one.
I hate to break this to you but evidence is always in the form of conclusions. Sorry to have wasted your time.
Conclusions are opinions. Evidence is in the form of discovered facts. Evidence is a witness, a document, a chain event requiring a maneuver.
Eve ate the apple before it fell to the ground. Indulgence is our sin here. Blind sided by a multimillion dollar campaign to discover methods to extract the wealth of a nation. When you allow your messenger to have a conflict of interest with your arch enemy, you really should stand up and stop the fucking music. Corporations want cheap labor. Labor wants a well-paying job. The Republicans. The Democrats. Throw abortion, religion, guns, sexual fucking preferences in and throw the dice. Main Stream Media is a criminal enterprise who are intentionally deceiving an entire nation of people. And it is not the only country. Silver bullet. Get it over with. Erase every trace of the root of this problem and be DONE WITH IT. Leaders of the mediocre kind is equivalent to being a child and realizing your parents are idiots, and that being alert will be required if you hope to live through your childhood.
Fine... you win...
There are things called facts and they are somehow distinguishable from something called opinions... if this helps you sleep at night who am I to deny you... your... sorry, I am getting lost here... are you stating evidence or conclusions?
Yeah let's get rid of traffic signals and privatize the sewers! Also we should make the armed forces private, you want protection you gotta pay the monthy fee, everyone else is on their own!
Bellum omnium contra omnes FTMFW!!!!
Because there's no middleground between government largesse without limit (status quo) and no government at all?
I don't think we'll slide immediately into chaos if we only spend $450B on the military and repeal laws about mandatory insurance
What about the State behind 'The State'? You know, The Corporation.
The difference is only in your perception of what's actually going on.
Most of the relevant ones are behind several states at a time.
Such a paradise already exists. It's called Somalia.
Check it out:
- No Taxes
- No Regulations
- No restrictions on gun ownership
- Soverign Citizens OK
Of course it's unreasonable to expect all freedom loving Americans to move there but we could ship over all the Kochtards.
.
we've elected you as our scout, to see how life is over there.
get back to us in a year, let us know how it went.
we're counting on you!
If you convert to Islam, have nothing worth stealing and don't look at anyone the wrong way, there's definitely a chance you'd be OK.
Seriously, the only way an outsider is going to survive in tribal society is to become a tribesman. In Swaziland a white European can become a Swazi citizen, but he must be legally adopted into a clan to do so.
This is one of main subjects we focus on daily here government vs free market. It is a significant subject.
I had always liked to think that government was totally unneccessary. I have also thought for a long time that free markets or capitalist societies are more effective than the communist/socialist model. As well as finding the US Constittion, Declaration of Independence etc more than agreeable. So far so good. O.G Liberterian.
Studying several chapters in post 1600 history also showed me that free markets, or laissez-faire capitalism as some call it, was also inherently fucked up. It led to productivity as a whole, although it was skewed to the benefit of the industrial and capital class and away from the mainstreet man. At that stage there was no middle class. Corruption and abuse of power was still there. In addtion I have worked in an industry that is very lightly regulated, almost unregulated and I see that it can still be corrupt and messy. Although the competition in the market can work to iron out a lot of the bad business up to a point.
The point that I would like to make is that very small government can serve a function. For there to be a rule of law that requires a body to enforce it. If the government is very small and keeps to doing what is created to do it can be a net benefit. It is there to regulate not collude. Capitalism is the best system we have created thus far - blended with a light government is potentially the optimum arrangement. The government would be between 0.001-0.005% of the economy. Ie 1/10 of one percent. It is has grown many many times beyond the initial vision.
Then the underlying problem is that for government to be useful in any way it should not be corrupt but rather impartial and adhere to its own laws. This requires control of greed and the existence of firmly rooted moral. Two commodies that are scarce.
In the postmodernist world, influenced by the likes of Sartre and other such existentialist thinking, each of us sets our own moral compass, rejecting the trascendent moral authority. As Neithche correctly predicted, God is dead. However, that has not worked out so well. This path - each individual setting what is right or wrong for him or her - yields political correctness, moral relativism, and complete and utter chaos. This is the bed we have made, now we have to lie in it! Perhaps its time to give Jesus as second look?
It is apparent that in a contest between 50years ago and today the moral gauge was atleast marginally higher on a relative basis than today. I do feel Christianity played a part. Probably the part.
The establishment in all its forms particularly media is atheist in composition and has trampled upon former belief systems.
I know its voodoo on our beloved Hedge to believe in God and worse yet to believe that it is and was a good thing.
But I see no evidence that left free we tend to peace or non-violence. Rather the contrary. Even if a good 70% of humans are good rather than bad. The 30% are twenty times more active than the 70%.
no question but that if the world is to derive any benefit from the 21st century it needs to get the legacy 19th-20th century structures out of the way-both in business and politics
Government serves one purpose - to protect men from each other. Anything else is tyranny.
A man protects himself.
That is to say; a man does not need a government to protect him from other men. A man's interests: his family, community, and culture are what he protects. A man protects himself.
I assume you said "man" to mean "person, human being". People, then, create and remove their government as and when necessary, in the best interest of people.
I don't want my government to protect me. Already they cannot. The police have no legal obligation to protect me as it is. The police protect the state against men. This is about as local as one gets. I protect me. Then I call the police. Got it, MAN?
Can't wait to see you in the Chinese work camps, keep drinking that kool-aid...
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/11/15/for-world-peace-arm-your-n...
While your strategy may work fine for the individual in certain extremely limited contexts, it falls down quite miserably in the aggregate, and has since Hobbes pointed it out centuries ago.
Government serves one purpose - to protect men from each other.
That's the ideal definition. But it leaves us with no protection from government.
Anything else is tyranny.
That's the way they all turn out since the beginning of history. It doesn't matter what type.
The type of governments we know now are dinosaurs. We can only hope that something better emerges after this economic collapse is over. At minimum, no government should have power over commerce, money and finance. That might be enough to contain them.
Governments were created to protect folks from sociopathic bullies. The government was not supposed to become the sociopathic bully. It did so because too many stupid folks vote political sociopaths, financed by financial sociopaths, into public office.
You can't fix stupid.
"Governments" of yore were purely defined by sociopathic bullies ("might makes right, and kiss the ring, or we'll raze this town and have a Triumph"), and this was the case for millenia.
I think the more likely problem is that "too many stupid folks" don't bother to vote at all and leave the decisions to sociopaths.
Why stop? Let us go full positive-sum, prohibit all initiation of force. Voluntary everything.
We may indeed find that people live down to the expectations of some above, but I don't think so. I think we can open up the world enough that we can track down what is needed, as citizens.
Look what we have been able to do against the government's best efforts at secrecy in the case of 9/11 FF. That should give us confidence.
And what we are about to do will give us even more : we are going to remove all of he corrupt bastards in our government. When, no one can predict, not them either. But the deed is inevitable, this state of political power is not stable in a world with an internet, and they can't shut down the interent without stopping commerce.
Israeli-Neoons are losing power. This is a very dangerous time as a result.
How do you enforce the prohibition of force, with a strongly worded letter to the Times?
He said prohibit initiation of force. Big difference. That is readily enforced by a well-armed population who regard private property as sacred and are willing to defend it.
Is it such a "Big difference", really?
" That is readily enforced by a well-armed population who regard private property as sacred and are willing to defend it."
No, because it is impossible that everyone in your well armed population is 'armed' to the exact same degree.
So really you're pushing nothing more than "Might Makes Right'; which it doesn't necessarily.
how do you take a principle of non-initiation of force, and pervert and misrepresent it to mean "might makes right"?
are you trolling on purpose, or are you desperately trying to NOT understand what is being said?
Very very good point Demdere: "they can't shut down the internet without stopping commerce". Stopping commerce puts a complex society like ours irrevocably on the collapse trajectory. Orlov described it in his collapse theory book, and it's rung true for me ever since. Shut down the internet and the gas tankers stop running. And the food supply trucks. It's all over 24 hours after that. No coming back.
Silly cunts never thought it through. The law of unintended consequences, in spades.
Alternatively I guess, collapse could be engineered overnight by just shutting down the internet.
Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are working on a system to replace government.
Autonomous, run by computers. No emotions.
They call it Skynet, I think. It should work good.
Eventually, machines will make machines, cars will drive themselves. The humans will just be redundant, like a parasitic virus. The the machines, in their unfailing logic, and infinite wisdom, will eliminate the virus.
I can see it happening.
But government is nothing more than a small group of other men. Like a mafia, forcing their "protection" on me whether I want it or not. Who will protect me from these men?
Mafia Don: You don't 'vote' for Dons.
Jabroni1: Well, how'd you become Don then?
MD: The lady all aquake, cowering in a corner protecting her threatened child, held aloft a snub-nosed 44 from the bosom of her halter top, signifying by violent creed that I, Godfather, was personally to be entitled to your hard earned wealth; that is why I am your Don!
Jabroni2: Listen, strange women, surrendering arms, is no basis for a system of government... Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not some unconscionable, extortionary scenario!
MD (pulling back hammer): Be quiet!
J2: You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some frightened tart threw a gun at you!
MD (aiming): Shut up!
J2: I mean if I went 'round, saying I was an emperor, just because some terrified bint lobbed a Derringer at me, they'd put me away....
Bang!
J2: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed! (Dies.)
MD: Bloody jabroni.
Actually the primary purpose of government is to pretend to fail
For some of them, definitely. Paid to fail. Surprisingly cheaply too.
How does government do this without coercion and violence? So, tyranny comes from voluntary transactions between human beings, but not from a monopoly on violence? Got it, great thinking.
Government exists as a way for a group of people to compromise on their beliefs for the good of the group. Government exists in small nomadic groups of people. It is an innate part of why humans have been so successful over geological spans of history.
Modern government is far more corrupt than earlier goverment because the group size has increased. This provides a much more fertile environment for corruption and thus corruption has become the dominant problem.
Government is nothing more than a violent gang in charge in the past and now. Nice suits and high minded language don't change that it is burly men with guns who come to force compliance. That people think not just their own but also everyone else's forced servitude to such masters is "necessary" is the most important myth that must be dispelled.
Many countries in the world today face situations that are similar to what France faced in 1788 and what Russia faced in 1916.
But unlike those times, today's young people are occupied with Netflix and Candy Crush.
...and fucking zombified to their iCrapples, Samhungs....Jeeeesus Mary and Joe...saw one glazed over bitch walking around glued to her dumbfuck phone today....annoying cunt....ran into several people...didn't even apologize...
twat