The proper role of government is...
Posted by mminnick 7 years, 4 months ago to Philosophy
"The only proper, moral purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence— to protect his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to his own property and to the pursuit of his own happiness. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. I will not attempt, in a brief lecture, to discuss the political theory of Objectivism."
Rand, Ayn. The Virtue of Selfishness (p. 24). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
To the point of a poet by GaltsGulch
Rand, Ayn. The Virtue of Selfishness (p. 24). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
To the point of a poet by GaltsGulch
We know many examples of private police operating within the context of uniform (government) laws. The security forces of General Motors and Ford Motor Company faced each other every day across close neighborhoods and never fired on each other. Today, G4S (HQ in London) and Securitas (HQ in Stockholm) each has about 300,000 employees in about 30 nations, and again, adhering to the laws of those nations do not attack each other.
Similarly, the American Arbitration Association is famous. Read almost any contract you have for your mortgage, car, or glass wire. As a writer, I know them from contracts with publishers. But don't stop there. Look in Yelp for arbitration in your own town. Many law firms offer it, often under contract to government courts of law.
Government remains the foundational institution of law. How that gets done is open to human action.
The word "police" appears nowhere in the US Constitution. The first civic police force, the London Metropolitan, was a consequence (not a cause) of the industrial revolution -- and it served a city, not a nation.
Most Objectivists (as well as libertarians and conservatives) will say that this means police forces, military, and courts of law. In "Galt's Speech", Rand wrote: "The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law."
Jefferson rewrote it for stylistic reasons. It flows better than Mason's.
I agree, that protecting individual property rights is a main role of government.
I note that some functions will not be developed by straight involuntary capitalism. (e.g. the military and roads).
I argue that capitalism will aggressively find the optimum, but it will often be a local optimum, local to the subject, and much better, larger scope optima exist.
In those cases, like the military, we need the government, or other large voluntary group to support such a thing, like the interstate system.
Is this still too full of technobabble? I get mired in it sometimes.
The difficulty lies in how to determine what the "much better, larger scope optima" happen to be.
I think the market is the ultimate way to decide with each of us voting with our dollars.
What does "band together" mean? Pool $ or pool firearms?
As to workable, it is my view that a society that forces its members (or others) to do their bidding is engaging in slavery and is always ultimately unworkable. Perhaps I am wrong but I think the evidence (for example early America) suggests otherwise (in the workable direction) and current America (in the unworkable direction).
To me "band together" means to voluntarily come together for a mutual purpose. Some examples might be: "voluntary firemen", a local militia (recall the "minute men"), and community schools.
Membership -- certainly (by definition).
Assertion of the individual, or acknowledgement from the society membership -- both.
Do we negotiate with each property owner individually to travel?
Re. question 2: There have always been paths not owned by anyone. The airways are not "owned" (sans government). All such issues are resolvable by rational beings -- i.e. do not expect others to live for your sake and do not live for theirs.
Good clarification.
One of my life-long "problems" is that I don't nod knowingly in order to conceal my ignorance.
When I think of monotonic, I think of a curve whose slope never crosses zero. It's always increasing or decreasing. Is that what you mean?
I think of gov't as a way to pay for public goods, goods that cannot be excluded from those who don't want to pay, e.g. military and the highway system. I note how in my life time the phone company went from being something like this to something run privately. I'd like to see that happen with highways too, to the extent possible.
I think the same thing with the military. It would be nice to have a well-regulated militia, as quaint as that sounds today, provide some of the protection that a standing army does today. We'd still need the military for missile detection and things like that, but in terms of preventing an invasion, having most households owning weapons and emergency supplies seems effective. It also underscores symbolically that we the people grant power to the gov't. Adults have to be the adults and have to be responsible with weapons and equipment.
What are the two variables of this function?
Why is it that so few understand this simple elegant point?
To take the most mundane example: how does "anarcho-capitalism" handle window breaking? If you don't punish people for breaking windows, you're going to see some window-breaking. Now: the property owners can keep spending scads of money replacing broken windows when they could be spending time, money and effort on other things, or they could take counsel together and make a rule--with force to back it up--that he who breaks a window, pays for what he did in some way and by some measure.
And then you come to the question of "did you get the right guy," or how much punishment fits the crime. Ah, that's where government comes in. It needs police power, military power, and judicial power--and should separate the three. To that, add the power of lawmaking and keep that separate from the rest, too.
It's one thing to argue that the government shouldn't be doing anything else. It's another to argue that the government should not exist.
The knot in all our discussion is that it's not a perfect world, never was, and likely, never will be. Therefore, laws must be made with as much rationality as possible using the most rational people available. No easy task.
I witness NATO, essentially benefiting from overwhelming public investments by the US, that no private company could muster. If you take out the US, the rest is militarily fragile.
I see no path to protection by a voluntary military participation society against the likes of Russia or China. If the US was not here, the world would be communist by now, and little would remain to protect.
Thus, my point about local minima. Perhaps a rational society of "ants" can develop adequate defenses in time and with concerted effort. However, the "grasshoppers" will undermine this, as will enemy grasshoppers. Clearly, this rational society can not develop as fast as necessary to accomplish what is needed. Ample historic evidence shows it hasn't to date, and there is no evidence these rational people will band together and accomplish it anytime soon.
Yes, there are private roads. I live on one. While it is nice to say the airways are not owned. We did not always have planes, and I don't have one now. This is irrelevant.
The road system we have today is infinitely superior to the one we had in the 1920s, and even much of that was public. Again, while it is possible some collection of private property owners will agree, and fund an interstate highway system, this hasn't happened anywhere.
Perhaps it can happen if there is a suitable concentration of smart, rational people with vision. The only way this is going to happen is if we figure out a way to get rid of the dumb ones, and maintain the population. Good luck with that.
What impedes the rapid development of a rational society?
I think the early US was heading in the right direction and it was power hungry people that used (abused) the power of government to bring us to our current state.
I certainly agree that the current road system is superior to the 1920's. Perhaps they would be even better if they were not in the hands of government. They have been going "downhill" in California since the tax money for them was hijacked by the state legislature.
It seems to me that if something is such a "good idea" people will fund it. The mistake we need to learn to avoid is forcing "our" good ideas upon others.
As you say "Perhaps it can happen..." and I too hope so. If we can get past the notion that the majority can vote money out of A's pocket into B's we, I think, would have a very good chance of making the "dumb ones" irrelevant. Or perhaps when faced with the consequences of their bad decisions they would learn. As it is now they have very little incentive to do so.
But as you say "Good luck with that."