Defining "Government"
- The Nature of "the Government" -- Force
- Representative definitions
- Taxation
- Prison/punishment
- War vs. Criminal due process
- "anti-government?"
- trust no one
- McManus/Gow letter
- "privatize" = eschew criminal
acts
- Hodge
- Service: A "Well-Governed" Society.
1. The State: The Institutionalization of Violence
The word "government"
can be used in different ways. We can speak of "self-government."
The owner of a business imposes a form of government on his employees.
In family, school, neighborhood association, and groups of all kinds,
there is "government." But only "the
government" ("the State") claims the right to seize
the property of others, have those who resist beaten
and raped, and kill
all those who get in the way.
George Washington is reported
to have said,
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force. Like
fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. . . .
"Private" persons and businesses can only raise money by
persuasion. A business can entice a customer to exchange his money for
the goods and services produced by the business. A charity can persuade
donors to give money voluntarily. But the State raises money through
force and threats of violence
2. Representative Scholarly Definitions
Political scientists and scholars in the field of political economy
agree with George Washington. The essential feature of "the
State" is its use of force to achieve its objectives.
Ludwig von Mises, the most
influential political economist of the "Austrian" school of
economics, gives us this definition of a "State":
The state is essentially an apparatus of compulsion and coercion.
The characteristic feature of its activities is to compel people
through the application or the threat of force to behave otherwise
than they would like to behave.
Suppose I come up to you and say, "If you murder anyone I'll
kill you." I am compelling you through the application or threat of
force to behave otherwise than you might like to behave; am I a
"State?" Not necessarily; Mises continues his definition:
But not every apparatus of compulsion and coercion is called a
state. Only one which is powerful enough to maintain its existence,
for some time at least, by its own force is commonly called a state. A
gang of robbers, which because of the comparative weakness of its
forces has no prospect of successfully resisting for any length of
time the forces of another organization, is not entitled to be called
a state. The state will either smash or tolerate a gang. In the first
case the gang is not a state because its independence lasts for a
short time only; in the second case it is not a state because it does
not stand on its own might. The pogrom gangs in Imperial Russia were
not a state because they could kill and plunder only thanks to the
connivance of the government.
Consider this question: under Mises' definition, and based on the
account in Genesis
14, was Abraham a "State?" It would certainly seem so.
Paul (Romans
13:1) commands us to obey "the powers that be." How does
this find expression in Genesis 14? Were there no "powers?"
Was Abraham "the powers?" Was it a more complex situation? Was
Abraham fighting "the powers" by fighting the "United
Nations Peace-keeping Force," this demonic alliance of kings? It
seems clear that in Abraham's life there was no earthly
"State" outside of himself, and this situation is acceptable
in the eyes of God. (Nevertheless, to advance our thesis, we will never
call Abrahamic Patriarchies "states." "State" will
be a term reserved for non-familial or supra-familial systems of social
structure.)
"The State" is thus a group of individuals who can
steal from and kill a selected target of people without expecting
any other group to be willing or able to stop them.
The essential point of this Thesis is that God in the Bible nowhere
gives any individual or group the right to steal or kill, even if they
call themselves "the State." Being a politician does not make taxation
less theft, or war
less murder.
More
definitions.
It is
important to remember that government interference
always means either violent action or the threat of
such action. The funds that a government spends for
whatever purposes are levied by taxation. And taxes
are paid because the taxpayers are afraid of
offering resistance to the tax gatherers. They know
that any disobedience or resistance is hopeless. As
long as this is the state of affairs, the government
is able to collect the money that it wants to spend.
Government is in the last resort the employment of
armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison
guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of
government is the enforcement of its decrees by
beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are
asking for more government interference are asking
ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
[I]n face of
the modern tendencies toward a deification of
government and state, it is good to remind ourselves
that the old Romans were more realistic in
symbolizing the state by a bundle of rods with an ax
in the middle than are our contemporaries in
ascribing to the state all the attributes of God. |
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Ludwig von Mises, Human
Action, 1949
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"Fasces"
from the shield of the
Partito Nazionale Fascista
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The Fasces: Weapon
of Political Thugs
see fascism
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"New
Deal" fasces,
Mercury Dime
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3. Taxation
When a business in the "free market" needs to raise money,
it must use persuasion to entice the voluntary support of others. By
contrast, when "the State" needs money, it takes it by force.
This taking is called "taxation." (Other forms of taking, such
as fractional reserve banking,
asset forfeiture, and debasement
of the currency, are also used. These "revenue
enhancement" devices are, like taxation, also immoral.)
4. Prison/punishment
When the target refuses to "contribute" its money to
"the State," the target is threatened with prison. Such
threats are calculated to create "voluntary compliance."
Suppose Jones wants some extra money. He asks Smith for some money
and Smith refuses. Jones threatens to lock Smith up in the Jones
Basement for five years with a violent sociopath, who will beat and rape
Smith every day for the next five years. Smith pays up. That this form
of coercion is at the heart of the State's "criminal justice
system" is seen in this opinion from the Los Angeles Times
in June of last year (before any allegations of cooked-books or any
other illegal conduct had been made against Enron):
Here's
what California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer said at a
press conference about Enron Corp. Chairman
Kenneth Lay: "I would love to personally
escort Lay to an 8-by-10 cell that he could share
with a tattooed dude who says, 'Hi, my name is
Spike, honey.'"
Here's why Lockyer
should be removed from his office of public trust:
First, because as the chief law enforcement
officer of the largest state in the nation, he not
only has admitted that rape is a regular feature
of the state's prison system, but also that he
considers rape a part of the punishment he can
inflict on others.
Second, because he
has publicly stated that he would like to
personally arrange the rape of a Texas businessman
who has not even been charged with any illegal
behavior.
Lockyer's remarks
reveal him to be an authoritarian thug, someone
wholly unsuited to holding an office of public
trust.
But his remarks do
have one positive merit: They tell us what
criminal penalties really entail.
Contrary to some
depictions of prisons as country clubs, they are
violent and terrible places.
Tom
G. Palmer,
'Hi, My Name Isn't Justice, Honey,' and Shame on
Lockyer,
L.A. Times, Wednesday, June 6, 2001 || more
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"The State" is "a violent and terrible" idea.
5. "War" vs. Criminal Due Process
The State claims the right to kill. The State is symbolized by the
sword for this reason.
- If Smith resists the confiscation of his property, and then
resists his own imprisonment, the State will kill him.
- If Smith is not a citizen of "the State" in question,
the State will label him an "enemy combatant" and will
kill him.
- Sometimes even citizens are killed as part of a "war on
drugs" or "war on terrorism."
Ted
Rall Online - "George W. Bush, Warlord"
Osama bin Laden was accused of conspiring to vandalize the World Trade
Center and murder its occupants. Instead of being pursued by law
enforcement agents, in accord with Constitutional procedures, the power
of "the sword" was invoked. War does not observe
constitutional limitations. Thousands of non-combatant Afghanis were
killed in "the war on terrorism."
6. Is this an "anti-government"
attitude?
- a. "Trust No One" -- An
American Ethos
-
- John Adams wrote in 1772:
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free
government ought to be to trust no man living with power
to endanger the public liberty."
Should libertarians have more confidence in their government?
Thomas Jefferson, 1799:
Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free
government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is
jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited
constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust
with power.… In questions of power, then, let no more be heard
of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the
chains of the Constitution.
James Madison warned the people of Virginia (1799):
the nation which reposes on the pillow of political
confidence, will sooner or later end its political existence in
a deadly lethargy.
Trusting government, having "confidence in
government," is un-American.
- b. McManus/Gow
letter
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- c. Religion as "Private" =
failure of public criticism of criminal acts by the State
-
- In the modern world, the State claims to be "neutral"
with respect to religion. "Religion" is said to be
"private." It is religion that says "Thou shalt not
steal," and so by privatizing religion, the State avoids
criticism based on its violation of Divine Law. Requiring the
State to be "under God" is derided as "imposing
religion on others," or violating a mythical "separation
of church and state." Criticizing the State based on religion
is (conveniently) undignified and inappropriate.
- 1. "The
Laws of Nature and of Nature's God."
- 2. The
Myth of "Private Religion"
-
- d. Hodge: Moral Revulsion
- This thesis is not rooted in hedonism or antinomianism. Our
desire to abolish the State is motivated by the fact that (to
adapt the words of Princeton professor A.A. Hodge in 1887) the
State is
the most
appalling enginery for the propagation of anti-Christian and
atheistic unbelief, and of anti-social nihilistic ethics,
individual, social and political, which this sin-rent world has
ever seen.
In particular, the State engages in more theft, murder, and
kidnapping than any other group of people, including the criminals
from which the State promises to protect us. The State is, without
close competition, the greatest thief and mass murderer on the
planet. The 20th century, marked by the final destruction of
Christian localism and the rise of the secular State, has been the
century of mass death on a scale unparalleled in human history.
A.A. Hodge, Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, Phila:
Presbyterian Board of Publications, 1887, p. 280, quoted in R.J.
Rushdoony, The Messianic Character of American Education,
Nutley, NJ: The Craig Press, 1963, p. 335. Hodge was referring to
the government-run school. But all of government, as propagator of
law, is an educator. See R. Lerner, “The Supreme Court
as Republican Schoolmaster,” 1967 Sup.
Ct.
Rev.
127. Legal systems educate the masses. They set the agenda for
private citizens (see "private religion,"
above)
7. Service: A "Well-Governed" Society
There are several features of a well-governed society. All of them
require attitudes of service. None of them require theft, violence, or
threats of force.
- The
Education of Children
- Employment
and Vocational Training
- The
Care of the Elderly
- Care
of the Fatherless
- Care
of the Ill and Handicapped
- Freedom
of Conscience
Service
The Nature of
Government
What
is the "State"?
The
State as Criminal
Order without Violence
next: Campaign Finance, Corruption and the Oath
of Office
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