Why We Love Government

[Zeb_Carter]

What I thought was a great article. Comments? (on the article only)

Why we love government
By Walter E. Williams

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Unlike today's Americans, the founders of our nation were suspicious, if not contemptuous, of government. Consider just a few of their words.

James Madison suggested that "All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree."

Thomas Paine observed, "We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. . . . It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute."

John Adams reminded, "You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe."

Thomas Jefferson gave us several warnings that we've ignored: First, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." Second, "The greatest [calamity] which could befall [us would be] submission to a government of unlimited powers." And third, "Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force."

In response to what Jefferson called an "elective despotism," he suggested that "The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

With sentiments like these, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison became presidents. Could a person with similar sentiments win the presidency today? My guess is no. Today's Americans hold such liberty-oriented values in contempt, and any presidential aspirant holding them would have a zero chance of winning office.

Today's Americans hold a different vision of government. It's one that says Congress has the right to do just about anything upon which it can secure a majority vote. Most of what Congress does fits the description of forcing one American to serve the purposes of another American. That description differs only in degree, but not in kind, from slavery.

At least two-thirds of the federal budget represents forcing one American to serve the purposes of another. Younger workers are forced to pay for the prescriptions of older Americans; people who are not farmers are forced to serve those who are; nonpoor people are forced to serve poor people; and the general public is forced to serve corporations, college students and other special interests who have the ear of Congress.

The supreme tragedy that will lead to our undoing is that so far as personal economic self-interests are concerned, it is perfectly rational for every American to seek to live at the expense of another American. Why? Not doing so doesn't mean he'll pay lower federal taxes. All it means is that there will be more money for somebody else.

In other words, once Congress establishes that one person can live at the expense of another, it pays for everyone to try to do so. You say, "Williams, don't you believe in helping your fellow man?" Yes, I do. I believe that reaching into one's own pockets to help his fellow man is both laudable and praiseworthy. Reaching into another's pockets to help his fellow man is despicable and worthy of condemnation.

The bottom line: We love government because it enables us to accomplish things that if done privately would lead to arrest and imprisonment. For example, if I saw a person in need, and I took your money to help him, I'd be arrested and convicted of theft. If I get Congress to do the same thing, I am seen as compassionate.

This vision ought to bother the Christians among us, for when God gave Moses the commandment "Thou shalt not steal," I'm sure He didn't mean thou shalt not steal unless you got a majority vote in Congress.

 

[elsol]

*yawn*

I don't know what he's talking about; no one I know trusts the government.

Most people I know trust the government and political parties so little that they'll switch their votes just to make sure no one gets comfortable in the seat of power.

Hmm... personally, I think all independents are like that.

I'm not happy with the Democrats being in power... but I'm glad to see the Republicans shown the door... in about four years when Democrats started getting power-stupid, I'll be glad to see them shown the door too.

It's the word thing about the Rep/Dem thing I see... this incredibly stupid and unrealistic belief that power does not corrupt the party members eventually. If for no other reason, that should make people cross the aisles every now and then.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

There was a thoughtful article in the Independent review last year, The People’s Romance: Why People Love Government (as Much as They Do)

Here are some excerpts:

(For many people) government intervention creates an official and common frame of reference, a set of cultural focal points, a sense of togetherness and common experience. (The problem is) then almost any form of government intervention can help to “make us Americans.” If people see government activism as a singular way of binding society together, then they may favor any particular government intervention virtually for its own sake—whether it be government intervention in schooling, urban transit, postal services, Social Security, or anything else—because they love the way in which it makes them American.

People may favor government for other reasons: they fancy themselves part
of the governing set; they yearn for an official system of validation; they want to avoid the burden of justifying a dissenting view; they fear, revere, or worship power. All such factors work in conjunction with self-serving tendencies of less existential nature—privilege seeking, subsidy seeking, and so on—and with the rationalizations of these tendencies. Furthermore, people may be biased toward government because cultural institutions indoctrinate and cow them.

~~~~

When a marching band performs on a field, spectators view the extensive coordination of the spectacle in common. Watching from the stands, they also enjoy a mutual coordination—not of their bodily motions or actions but rather of their sensations, perceptions, understandings, and sentiments. Even if they watch from their homes on television, they may imagine that all viewers dance together in spirit. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith notes that “nothing pleases us more than to observe in other men a fellow-feeling with all the emotions of our own breast” ([1759] 1976, 13). Man yearns for coordinated sentiment as he yearns for food in his belly.

This sense of mutuality, or shared understanding, is precisely what is not present in the extensivity of a spontaneous order . . .

Smith’s writings furnish a groundwork for libertarian theories of voluntary communities and norms (see, for example, Paine [1792] 1961, 398–403; Tocqueville [1840] 1969; Karlson [1993] 2002; Foldvary 1994; Beito, Gordon, and Tabarrok 2002; Kukathas 2003). In economic theory, goods such as fitness clubs, churches, movie theaters, and schools are sometimes called “club goods” because they are experienced or enjoyed jointly by “members” of the club (Buchanan 1965).

When a certain further element is added to the desire for sentiment coordination, however, the result is ominous. Although Smith posited a desire for sentiment coordination, he did not speak of the desire for a sentiment coordination that encompasses the whole group. In Smith, we desire to commune with someone. In encompassing sentiment coordination, we fancy the notion of communing with the whole. In Smith, we desire club romance, whereas in encompassing sentiment coordination we desire an official club romance where the club is the whole of the people.

When people think of society at large as the group to which they belong—when they think of having “citizenship,” whether it be in a town, a county, or a country—the logic of coordination leads directly to government as the focal point. Unparalleled in power, permanence, and pervasiveness, the government is prominent, conspicuous, unique, focal. Moreover, as people look to government as the focal point, it increasingly draws them into thinking of its dominion as setting the boundaries that define the group. The government provides and validates the focal points in the sentiment game, and, in the first instance, it arranges and validates the games that citizens can play.

Government creates common, effectively permanent institutions, such as the
streets and roads, utility grids, the postal service, and the school system. In doing so, it determines and enforces the setting for an encompassing shared experience—or at least the myth of such experience. The business of politics creates an unfolding series of battles and dramas whose outcomes few can dismiss as unimportant. National and international news media invite citizens to envision themselves as part of an encompassing coordination of sentiments—whether the focal point is election-day results, the latest effort in the war on drugs, or emergency relief to hurricane victims—and encourage a corresponding regard for the state as a romantic force. I call the yearning
for encompassing coordination of sentiment The People’s Romance (TPR).

TPR helps us to understand how authoritarians and totalitarians think. If TPR is a principal value, with each person’s well-being thought to depend on everyone else’s proper participation, then it authorizes a kind of joint, though not necessarily absolute, ownership of everyone by everyone, which means, of course, by the government. One person’s conspicuous opting out of the romance really does damage the others’ interests.

TPR lives off coercion—which not only serves as a means of clamping down
discoordination, but also gives context for the sentiment coordination to be achieved. The government inculcates the notion of “The People” chiefly by coercion.

TPR recommends government activism, and government activism means the
contravention of the liberty maxim. I oppose TPR simply because of the damage and degradation it entails, not only to material comfort and other values, but also to other processes of human meaning, dignity, and decency on which joy also depends. TPRbjust ain’t worth it.

Unfortunately, for reasons that cannot be discussed here, the damage and degradation are difficult to see, especially when society’s cultural institutions are highly statist. 2 The problem, as I see it, is not so much that those swayed by TPR are morally defective, but that they have become locked into a set of unenlightened mental habits. In conjunction with a postulate that the relative worthiness of libertarian policy is subtle, TPR constitutes a bias. 3

 

[TheOlderGuy]

and Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about the dangers of the military-industrial complex. originally he planned on calling it the miltary-industrial-congressional complex, but at the last minute he dropped the congressional mention so as not to offend those in congress he respected.

today the miltary-industrial-congressional complex own your ass, and mine.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

and Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about the dangers of the military-industrial complex. originally he planned on calling it the miltary-industrial-congressional complex, but at the last minute he dropped the congressional mention so as not to offend those in congress he respected.

today the miltary-industrial-congressional complex own your ass, and mine.

And the environmental-congressional complex, and the FDA-SEC-FCC-congressional complex, plus a number of other "iron triangles" (regulator-legislator-regulated industry) and incestuous regulator-interest group pairings (like the environmentalist lobby + EPA, AARP + HHS, etc.).

Things have changed a lot since 1960. There's a long list of self-interested entities that own your ass. But not to worry - it's all for your own good. And the children, of course.

 

[Pure]

odd, all the right wing rants about evil 'governement'--and the first author can't even get the basics right:

Williams Today's Americans hold a different vision of government. It's one that says Congress has the right to do just about anything upon which it can secure a majority vote. Most of what Congress does fits the description of forcing one American to serve the purposes of another American. That description differs only in degree, but not in kind, from slavery.

he's blathering about Congress because of entitlements. he ignores the huge growth of the executive powers, the presidents alleged "inherent powers" to for instance, look up a suspect and throw away the key. Congress is singularly weak these days. Even the last entitlement was essentially coming from the Pres (drug plan for the aged).

odd how you hardly ever hear these 'libertarians' talk about threats to liberty, just threats to corporate profits.

and it almost goes without saying that you will NEVER see corporate malfeasance as leasening 'liberty,' e.g, in stealing taxpayers money, etc.

Randroids hate government like Puritans hate sex; there's no reasoning or evidence involved. And they mostly vote for the Republican party which, since Reagan at least, is a party of Big Government.
---

here's another odd Randroidian glitch:

Most of what Congress does fits the description of forcing one American to serve the purposes of another American.

it's a clever twist to yield the desired conclusion: slavery. but what's he actually talking about: AN INSURANCE SCHEME. Duh. all pay in, and then some make claims. in the case of old age pension insurance, everyone eventually collects, except the superrich. so this insurance is described as robbing the premium payers and making them serve claimants!

of course if it were private insurance, not only robbing the premium players but siphoning off money for CEO supersalaries, you would not hear a peep. because that's 'voluntary' and no force is involved if i'm fleeced of my insurance premium (by a private person). the odd convolutions of Randian dogma.