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June 27, 2006

Why Government

I've been meaning to pen a long, well-ordered response to Hilzoy's series about liberals and libertarianism, but I can see that if I don't just start putting thoughts on paper (or pixels, as the case may be), I'll never get done, so I'll just get things rolling and we'll see where we go.

First, you need to read Hilzoy's three-part discourse on liberals and libertarianism. In Part One she(?) looks at some of the reasons she favors the Democratic Party and where they might appeal to libertarians. In Part Two she discusses justice and property rights and the necessity of rules. In Part Three she takes it all home with a discussion of how she believes we should determine what set of rules is best for governing. So go read all that, take the brief quiz to ensure you understand where she's coming from, and come on back.

Back? Good. I'll begin with a few caveats of my own. I am not a Libertarian, to begin with, and it's arguable whether or not I'm a libertarian. So this discussion cannot be taken as any kind of 'official' libertarian viewpoint. It is strictly my own opinion, grounded in my principles and (hopefully) sound logic about the purpose of government and what kind of government is best.

Why do humans form governments? The short answer is that people like to boss each other around, and governments allow them to do that. The longer answer is that without government, we have anarchy, and anarchy is a recipe for disaster. I am familiar with anarcho-capitalists who believe that we would all be better off without organized government, but I am not persuaded by their arguments. Without government, you have rule by the strong, not some libertarian utopia. Which brings us to the answer to my question: we form governments to prevent rule by the strong. Under anarchy, the people who want to control others can do so by gathering sufficient forces to their banner to kill anyone who attempts to resist them. While this isn't an everyday facet of life, without some greater force capable preventing anyone from taking charge, eventually a strongman will attempt to seize power. History is replete with examples, and recent events in Somalia provide only the latest one. By granting government a monopoly on the initiation of force, humans can create a society that doesn't have to worry about a strongman taking power. This leads to less fighting and greater productivity, which leads to economic growth. Government's primary duty, then, is to prevent anyone from initiating force against anyone else. This is the police power on the local scale, and control of the army on the national scale.

Once the initiation of force is removed from the equation, government picks up the additional duty of mediating disputes. If someone takes something from me in an anarchic society, my recourse is generally to get a bunch of my largest, meanest friends to come with me and get it back. With a government in place, if I attempt this I will be prevented by the police, or arrested after the fact. So I need another means of resolving my dispute. So we create additional laws, the first being that it is illegal to initiate force against another person except in self-defense.

How do we decide on what laws to create? By establishing rights. Where do rights come from? We derive them logically. We have already established an initial right, the right not to have force initiated against us by anyone else. This is a necessary predicate to any society. If everyone has no rights, then we're back in anarchy. Once we've established the right to life (by this I mean the right to our own life, not 'right to life' in the current, abortion-related sense), a right to self-defense is a logical corollary. If I have the right to live my life unmolested by others, and you start using force against me, I have to have the right to defend myself, else the first right doesn't mean anything. Those two rights are easy to discern. After that, things get a bit more complicated, but they can be worked out.

Let's start with property. That may not seem as important a right as speech or assembly or worship, but it's probably one of the first rights humans developed. The basic concept of ownership, after all, is known throughout the animal kingdom. If a lion brings down a gazelle, that lion will defend her catch against other creatures other than the other members of her pride. Members of the pride will likewise defend the catch against outsiders while permitting each other to feast. It is fair to say that the lions own that gazelle. In a state of nature, of course, ownership can only be defended by force; if a lone lion takes a zebra and a pack of hyenas decides they want the catch, they may well be able to take it from him using force. But the lion will defend what he owns if he can. By that same token, animals may not understand property in the sense we consider it today, but many animals are highly territorial, and will defend their territory just like anything else they believe they own. Humans are not so different in this respect, except that we use government and law to protect what we own rather than force in most cases.

How do we determine what people own? We begin back in anarchy. If I build something, and assuming there are no prior relationships, then logically I control that item until such time as I give it away or someone forcibly takes it from me. Land is a bit more problematic, as I certainly cannot put land in my pocket and take it with me, so the rules regarding land ownership are more detailed, but it can all start with the simpler property ownership rules: if you create or acquire something, it becomes yours (assuming, of course, it did not already belong to someone else. If I come into your house and start pocketing things, I do not have the right to keep them). Property requires a number of laws to administer, because unlike most rights property involves something tangible that people often desire to exchange.

Other rights are much simpler. Freedom of speech, for example, is an obvious right. I can say whatever I like, and the only way anyone can prevent me from doing so is by physically restraining me, which runs afoul of our baseline right. Freedom of the press is an extension of freedom of speech to the modern era, since people require technology to spread their speech to larger audiences. Freedom of assembly is likewise easy to defend: if I choose to get together with a group of other people, and I am not violating anyone else's rights in the process, then I have the right to do so.

We have established that government exists in order to preserve people's rights, then. We have further established that rights follow logically from the first right, which is the right to left alone. While there is much more to say, I'll close this out for today and continue later today or tomorrow.