24 Four things on earth are small, yet they are extremely wise:
25 Ants are creatures of little strength, yet they store up their food in the summer;
26 coneys are creatures of little power, yet they make their home in the crags;
27 locusts have no king, yet they advance together in ranks;
28 a lizard can be caught with the hand, yet it is found in kings' palaces.
This article is about the secular differences between government and individuals. We plan to have another article about the biblical differences but it's not complete yet.
We have made the assertion that the only difference between private and government entities is that government entities are legally allowed to initiate the use of force and private entities are not. We would like to spend a few more words explaining that statement because those who are not familiar with political philosophy may find that assertion hard to believe at first. We are first going to talk a little about the most basic rules of using force and then we'll provide some examples.
Basic Rules
We know that it is true that government entities are allowed to initiate the use of force and that private entities are not. A private individual cannot by themselves initiate the use of force without first getting a judge to sign an order and then having a constable or other police official carry out the order with the full force of government behind them. Judges and police officials are agents of a government.
A private individual is allowed to defend themselves, but using force in self defense is different from initiating the use of force. There are any number of ways that a government entity can initiate the use of force against individuals, some of which require a judge to sign an order first and some do not. Laws in different localities are very different but we are most familiar with the laws in the U.S. so we'll use them as an example.
The rule is that to initiate the use of force, one must get a judge, a representative of government, to sign an order first. Any other initiation of force is an exception to the rule.
Examples
Let's make a list of things that government does, they build roads, run the military, provide water, regulate cable, telephone, gas, electricity and just about every other industry, police and fire protection, zoning and building permits. They make laws and hold court with judges. They protect our borders and patrol our waters, build airports, subways, train right of ways. They provide help for the poor and disabled and subsidize farmers and other businesses. In some countries government even owns all the land and the factories.
Some of us probably believe that it's not really necessary for the government to do all these things but let's just put that aside for the moment and think about what constitutes force. Much of what the government does falls under the category of public utilities. There is a common attribute of most public utilities that gives government an easy excuse to take control of those industries. They are much easier to operate when one has the ability to seize land by force. Roads, railroads, telegraph and telephone lines, underground pipes and wires are all economically cheaper to install and maintain if one has the right to take the land on which to build them from the current owner by force. Governments are so accustomed to having a monopoly on so called public utilities that they frequently make it illegal for a private entity to compete with the government sponsored entity.
Military forces, police, patrolling borders and waterways and the courts are also something that seem to require the right to initiate the use of force. Widespread acceptance of the need to initiate the use of force to accomplish police and court operations has made it unnecessary to invent a way to do it any other way. If we accept that the government must do it and we are willing to give up our rights to that extent then there is no reason to spend any time thinking of the next best way.
What about giving money to the poor? Almost everybody voluntarily gives money to the poor or helps the poor in one way or another. The difference between private philanthropy and government welfare is taxation. The only way the government has of getting the money they give to the poor is by taking it from people by force through taxation. The government sometimes tries to make us believe that we pay taxes voluntarily but just think about what would eventually happen if you refused to pay taxes. Eventually you would be confronted by government agents who would use force against you to punish you or forcibly take your money or other property. So anything that is paid for by taxes, like welfare, is a product of the initiation of force.
We are not making the argument here that the government is completely unnecessary. Perhaps it is, or perhaps it is not. The point is that force, or the initiation of force, is the one thing that separates all government activities from all legal private activities. If force is necessary to accomplish something, then a private entity could not legally do it. If the government were doing something that did not require any initiation of force whatsoever to accomplish, then a private entity could also do it just as easily if not more easily.
Since the government does not distinguish between things that require the use of force and things that don't, once they take responsibility for an activity, they are very likely to begin using force just because they can and it makes their job more convenient.
If we do not consider government initiation of force a bad thing to be resisted then there will be a definite trend toward government adoption of more and more activities and the initiation of force will become a regular part of more and more activities. If the accomplishment of a thing did not require the initiation of any force whatsoever to accomplish, then why would we ever ask the government to do it.
Even if one thought an activity was just a little bit less convenient to accomplish without the use of force, would it be worth it to eliminate the little bit of force and try to do that thing without asking the government for help.
admin April 17, 2007, at 09:22 PM CST
