Why Government Must Be Abolished

Readers frequently fail to recognize my fundamental position, and are shocked when I say such things as "the US Constitution is an irrelevant, ineffective mistake" and "no, we shouldn’t be bombing villages in Iraq and Afghanistan." Readers sometimes accuse me of being a communist of one sort or another when I say something contrary to their Republican Party or neo-conservative assumptions.

First, one thing needs to be made clear: Republican representative democracy is not the opposite of communism. Under our system of government in the US, everyone is encouraged to vote for what he wants. Then, government aims its guns at the minority who didn’t agree with the majority, and forces the minority to pay money (or do more) to support the outcome they didn’t want. This is a perversion of justice. It is fundamentally wrong. Even in our early days, when senators to the US Congress were not popularly elected, but were appointed by state legislatures (therefore, ostensibly, appointed by the best and brightest), our form of government was just a dressed-up version of mob rule.

The real opposite of communism is anarcho-capitalism, under which there is no forcible government, and no adult is ever forced to do anything he doesn’t agree to. This extends even to criminal justice. The empirical data supporting my claim that this sort of civilization would be more peaceful and prosperous than anything we could forcibly impose spans every year of recorded history, and is found in every civilization we can name. For empirical evidence, I refer the reader to anything he can find on LewRockwell.com, Mises.org, and Amazon.com, searching for authors Lew Rockwell, Mary Ruwart, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and Bruce Benson. If you follow my advice here, and read everything you can find by those authors, in six months you’ll have a new library, a mountain of empirical evidence to refer to, and a conviction that forcible government must be abolished.

In the meantime, the terse reasoning why government must be abolished needs only two supporting statements: Forcible government is a moral wrong, and forcible government is always a practical failure.

For traditional, forcible government to accomplish anything, it first must tax. This requires stealing, at gunpoint, money (property) from everyone under its rule – even the people who don’t want done what the government is going to do. This is theft. There is no more fitting term for it. Government gets away with this, first because it has more guns than any individual it’s taxing; and second because the population has usually been convinced, lately through years of government schooling, that such stealing is necessary for civilization.

Hand-wringing philosophers are invited to write me to disagree, but I hold that it’s self-evident that there is no good act that can be performed that requires first the commission of an evil act. As an example, "killing the few to save the many" has never in human history found a practical application outside war, which always involves governments imposing their wishes on each other. There is no natural emergency or shortage of resources that requires first committing evil in order to bring about a good. Bringing about a good never allows beginning with an evil.

There has been found no domain of activity in which government action is as effective or efficient as solutions provided by entrepreneurs in the market. This extends obviously to schooling and medical care; even the general public knows this. It is less obvious (except to students of history) that this applies also to roads, justice, and military defense. For empirical evidence of these claims, search for the names I listed earlier.

There are two reasons government never works in practice: First, 100% of government employees operate under distorted incentives. No government employees face only the incentive to serve their customers, while 100% of entrepreneurs do.

Elected government employees have incentive only to serve the most, and this must come at the expense of the few. The way this works is for the government to steal as much as possible from the few to provide free goodies for the most.

Appointed and career bureaucrats have as their incentive expanding their territory and pleasing their bosses. If their bosses are elected – see the preceding paragraph. If their bosses are career bureaucrats, the incentive of subordinate bureaucrats is to spend all of the money in their budgets, so they can claim they need more next year. Thus, their goal is inefficiency – the opposite of what serves the customer best.

Finally, rank-and-file government employees are union members. Unions always work to serve employees, and always at the expense of customers. The only thing that is in the best interest of customers is for each employee to be judged and rewarded individually, based on how well the customer is served. Unions work to the opposite goal, always striving for greater rewards for lesser work. This is what the union members pay their dues to accomplish.

The second reason government never works is its creation of laws that are applied by force to an entire population. First, government laws can – almost always do – have unintended consequences: Minimum wage laws always result in higher unemployment and crime; "equal employment opportunity" laws always result in people being hired based on the color of their skin more than the content of their character; the Americans with Disabilities Act has resulted in workplace mass murders, usually at US Post Offices; and so on.

Second, government laws are always used to advantage by those who have an incentive to do wrong. As one example, polluters are allowed to pollute to certain levels by the EPA. Thus, polluters have no legal responsibility to landowners whose wildlife they’ve killed, as long as the polluters can prove they’re within legal guidelines. If people had true property rights, people could seek restitution based on damage done, not based on whether laws were obeyed. Under present circumstances, lawsuits are won and lost only on whether laws were obeyed; damage done is irrelevant. As another example, Enron used accounting and reporting laws to legally hide losses on the balance sheets of other companies in which they had part ownership. Enron also used campaign contributions to buy the favor, and silence, of US legislators. It was the stock market that first broke the news that Enron had problems.

Third, government laws invariably create losers by creating win/lose scenarios when the unfettered market creates win/win scenarios. All government laws select winners and losers, except criminal laws, which make everyone a loser. Under forcible government, criminals usually come out of the system worse off than when they entered, and victims are forced at gunpoint to pay for the criminals’ upkeep in the meantime; at the same time, victims have little claim to restitution. I mentioned environmental laws, which make partial winners of polluters and complete losers of everyone else. Name the law of your choosing, and you can identify the loser immediately.

So that’s my stance. Do not confuse a lack of respect for the US Constitution, for the Pledge of Allegiance, or for American pre-emptive wars, with communism. Both the American system of government and old-fashioned Soviet communism have at their root the same mechanism: Lethal force applied to an entire population to provide the government what it wants without the government being required to live up to any promises of recompense.

That forcible government is a moral wrong in itself is enough reason to abolish it, even if market solutions were not an improvement. That market solutions are always better – more efficient, more peaceful, more just, more productive of wealth – should be all it takes to convince even die-hard statists that all governments should be abolished. It’s too bad statists are blinded by their personal incentives.

Actually, I couldn't resist.

I know - that's why I pinged you. Because you're intelligent.

While I agree with him that disagreeing with the statement "the US Constitution is an irrelevant, ineffective mistake" is a Republican position, and while it is probably true that neo-conservatives also would disagree with him on it, I don't think that disagreeing with that asinine comment by him makes one a Republican nor a neoconservative.

It doesn't get any more succint than that.

After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Uh oh. This is going to turn into one of those drug threads. LOL

Until a bunch of guys from across the river decide they want to come and take my stuff because it would be too much work to make their own stuff.

Hate to break it to you, but that's what happens now. Only you get the privilidge of paying the guys salary that robs you. But you got the river part right - they call it the Patomic.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury."
--Alexander Tytler

So anarchy is the answer, eh? I've always wondered... if, in an anarchy, a person were to decide to burn down every single business in competition with his own, should that person be punished? And if so, how? For one, they've broken no laws, since we wouldn't have "forcible government". Second, all that person was doing was what they wanted, or more accurately, they don't have to do anything they DON'T want, and this person didn't want to compete with others, so they eliminated the competition. And if they were to be punished, who would punish them? No one has any authority over anyone else, right? So who can do the punishing?

What say we get Bradley here and a few of his friends, and let them establish their own little anarchy on a few acres somewhere. It would be interesting to see how long it would take before they had SOME form of "forcible government", SOMEone imposing their will on others to keep things flowing.

Brad Edmonds may not be a naive little college boy, deep in the midst of the "I know all the answers" phase of adolescence, but he sure writes like it.

Claude Cockburn, interviewed Al Capone in 1930:

'Listen,' he said, 'don't get the idea I'm one of these goddam radicals. Don't get the idea I'm knocking the American system. The American system . . .' As though an invisible chairman had called upon him for a few words, he broke into an oration upon the theme. He praised freedom, enterprise and the pioneers. He spoke of 'our heritage'. He referred with contemptuous disgust to Socialism and Anarchism. 'My rackets,' he repeated several times, 'are run on strictly American lines and they're going to stay that way.'

Republican representative democracy is not the opposite of communism. Under our system of government in the US, everyone is encouraged to vote for what he wants. Then, government aims its guns at the minority who didn’t agree with the majority, and forces the minority to pay money (or do more) to support the outcome they didn’t want. ......Even in our early days, when senators to the US Congress were not popularly elected, but were appointed by state legislatures (therefore, ostensibly, appointed by the best and brightest), our form of government was just a dressed-up version of mob rule.

This is simply not true. The Constitution does not provide for mob rule, but only a limited exercise of Government for the "Common defence and general welfare," that is, giving words their ordinary meaning, Government for the whole people, not for the views or interests of factions. What the writer suggests is directly contrary to the intentions of the Founders. It might help if he had ever read any of the Federalist Papers--such as #10, where Madison specifically addresses the prevention of the very evil that the writer claims is possible under the Constitution.

The fault is not in our system, but in the usurpation of power by politicians, which a dumbed down electorate fails to really understand. But writers such as this only compound the public misunderstanding.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

Lost me at "Minorities being persecuted". Minorities and minority OPINION run this damn country. For a good example LOOK at the US Senate or the Michigan Law school.

How about those Navtivity scenes?

Heard GOD mentioned in school lately?

Oh please. Prohibition was idiotic and certainly contributed to the strength of the mob. My point is that the concept of a "market government" (i.e. based on economics not politics) would lead to uncontrolled violence, plunder, mayhem, and death.

There are areas of the world right now where there is no effective government, just armed thugs -- Somalia, Congo, etc.

The author claims any laws are bad because there is always a loser. Laws against mass murder are therefore bad because poor Charles Manson is locked up. The author is a certifiable nutcase who is too much of a savage to qualify as high as barbarian.

Don't be taken in by these guys. "Anarcho-capitalism" would be a real mess. At a minimum one needs a tribunal to ajudicate disputes. If one is free to accept or reject the judgement the result would eventually be recourse to force on a large scale. When we look at societies given wholly over to private protection agencies in action, the picture isn't pretty. Here is a brief critique of anarcho-capitalism that I googled. I can't vouch for the opinions expressed on the rest of the site, but it indicates some of the problems.

I agree. It always comes back to this. The arguments for anarchy, so far as I can see, are always circular.

"I do not see how we could safely exist in a dangerous world without a military, paid for by our taxes. I doubt that the military would be maintained by voluntary contributions" Sure it could. Tanks and fighters could be purchased at half the cost since government is not involved. Shoot a fighter could be had for oh $10,000,000.00.

I'm sorry Cathryn, I can't do it. I tried to read this, but it is just as foreign to me as anything that Noam Chomskey would write.

Pretty much any belief system which is utopian in nature is leftist, even if the adherents of such don't believe it (Erik Von Keunheldt-Leddhin expands on this in one of his books quite well). Such thinking just has no resonance with me.

What the writer suggests is directly contrary to the intentions of the Founders.

The Founding Lawyers agreed on very little. Furthermore, they were writing their future job descriptions. You better believe they planted loopholes in the document.

It might help if he had ever read any of the Federalist Papers--such as #10, where Madison specifically addresses the prevention of the very evil that the writer claims is possible under the Constitution.

The Federalist Papers were propanganda designed to sell a cleverly sabotaged Constitution. Why did Hamilton and Madison conceal their authorship for decades? Why did the the Federalists shut down newspaper's that presented anti-Federalist views?

I for one am not willing to take Al Capone's word for it.

He was a man of violence who believed that the law of this country did not apply to him. He corrupted cops, judges, politicians, and anyone else who was part of the American system that stood in his way.

I don't consider Capone or any other murdering son of a B to be a real American, just a common criminal who needs to be locked up tight.

My point is that the concept of a "market government" (i.e. based on economics not politics) would lead to uncontrolled violence, plunder, mayhem, and death.

I understand the point you were trying to make, but please understand the example you gave disproves your theory. The market said alcohol should be sold. Politics said otherwise and the result? Uncontrolled violence, plunder, mayhem, and death.

The author claims any laws are bad because there is always a loser.

I disagree with the author in that I believe some government is needed, however it should only act to uphold rights.

Laws against mass murder are therefore bad because poor Charles Manson is locked up.

Mass murder is a violation of rights, the govenment I advocate it would harshly punish murderers.

But you read it.

I like this quote -

I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book we are reading doesn't shake us awake like a blow to the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? -Franz Kafka

I try to read things that are foreign to me, things I disagree with, for the simple reason that the more I know, the more easily I can defend my own position. Though what I read may be opposite to my own views, if I'm ever face to face with someone that believes this, I'll be able to better defend myself and better use their own arguments to show them why they're wrong if I know what they're discussing.

Just because we disagree with something doesn't mean it shouldn't be known and investigated. As a matter of fact, I believe that makes it all the more important to know it.

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