eta - I'm gonna quote hal so his post doesn't get lost at the bottom of the last page.
halplm wrote:(Hello everyone I hope I don’t regret posting this… )
I couldn’t not comment on this thread, as it actually asks the question a class I help teach attempts to answer, and I am in the middle of 10 weeks were this thought is driving me all the time.
Lets start at the beginning, what is Government? Well, the government exists to enforce the law with coercive force (with respect to its own citizens… for the moment lets ignore the concept of dealing with other governments). This is, of course, if you require a government at all, but that’s another thought really.
With that in mind, what is the law? To me, the law is what ethical considerations individuals (and thus the collective society) are willing to coercively force on everyone else and themselves.
Aside: To me, this is currently easily observable in the divide in US Politics inside the political classes. Both Republicans and Democrats are perfectly fine with increasing the power and reach of the government, because that’s how they maintain or increase their own influence. Furthermore, as long as “their guys” are pushing an agenda that imposed ethical ideas they agree with, everything is fine. However, when the “other guys” push an agenda they don’t think is ethical, it’s the end of the world. This is why spending is continually out of control, because very few in government on either side actually think that government spending is unethical.
Anyway, in the class we are trying to optimize personal freedom, which I guess would be my answer to the question this thread asks. The most basic maxim that such a society could possibly function on is that “Everyone has the right to be left alone.” This is a bit difficult to deal with outside of the abstract, so we actually go with “Peaceful, honest people have the right to be left alone.” This is imposing the ethical concepts of being peaceful (non-violent, or physically threatening violence), and honesty (in the sense of fraud in a transaction, or theft, not in telling lies) on everyone, but that makes a society much more functional.
Since this maxim uses the term “right” I thought I’d give my thoughts on that here. I would argue that a “right” is something that is inherent in human nature, and collectively we as a society can recognize that it is somehow “wrong” to take that away from someone.
There are two kinds of rights in general: “Negative rights” would be rights that require nothing from anyone else. The right to be left alone is one such right. You can sit in the middle of the desert and get nothing from anyone until you are sick of it or die, and no one can force you to leave or eat or drink water or anything… that’s your right. Might not be what you want, but still your right. “Positive rights” on the other hand, are for things that must be provided or given to you. The “right to an education” for example, would be a positive right. It might be nice, but there has to be someone to educate you before you can get it, and how do you force them to give it to you?
Interestingly, most “rights” we think about in the US are “negative rights” at least as far as the constitution is concerned. Free speech, free religion, bear arms, not incriminate ourselves… these are all “negative.”
Anyway, back to my ideal society. We have the right to be left alone. There are lots of implications of this (enough to spend 10 weeks on at least), but with regards to the topics mentioned in this thread, I thought I would highlight a few.
-No government… and thus no taxes. There’s an interesting book by John Stuart Mill called On Liberty (it’s available for free online). In the fifth and final section he talks about applying his theory of liberty in actuality. Everything gets along well enough until he assumes the existence of a state, and government. Well, if the government must be there (because how could it not be?) then it must have money to function, and if it must have money to function then it must have the power to tax (this isn’t necessarily a logical step, but he still makes it). If this government has money, it must have something to do, so we have to come up with what we think is the “right thing” to do… education, regulation, etc. Every single thing he defines is eliminating some freedom, but for no other purpose than because the government exists and should do stuff…
-No mandatory education (or anything else for that matter). This leads to the question of how do we get anyone who wants something what they want when we think it is a good idea. Obviously everyone getting as much education as they want to do what they want is a good idea… society will benefit usually. I could talk about how I think this could work for a very long time but this post is already too long… simply put, if we treated learning like we did athletics… we’d all be a lot more interested in it. (Professional athletes are the cream of the cream of the crop to make that kind of money… wouldn’t it be cool if say the cream of the cream of the crop of mathematicians could get that too? Currently the market does do this to some extent, but people aren’t trading contracts of mathematicians out of high school and giving them specific training and encouragement in any manner that compares to say… baseball)
-No mandatory charity (although I already said taxes). This is the part that is hardest for people to grasp in the class. I don’t expect Nin to think it is possible to function as a society this way, but I disagree. Prim said earlier in the thread that the problem with charity is that it doesn’t work, it’s not enough, and it never has been. My question of that would be, what is the goal of charity? I would argue that it cannot be to eliminate poverty. Charity is not only about giving money to people who have little, it is about helping people who need help. That help can be in any number of forms. If Charity could eliminate poverty, and we already have forced charity though government programs, we should have long ago eliminated poverty.
Ok, I think I’m coming to a conclusion. I don’t mean this to be a direct argument to Nin’s point of view, but it is that philosophy that struck me as so baffling. It is not surprising, though as it is based on Kant, who I have mostly looked at through an ethical lens, but wouldn’t expect to ever agree with him. In other words the ends do not justify the means. I have never understood why people think it is ok to just take from other people who have something they want, or they think they need (or they think someone else needs). That’s all taxes are, accepted stealing.
I do not believe we can eliminate all poverty, sickness, and war, but I believe this for religious reasons, and it doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying. But the answer is not to forcibly take property from some and have a small group (representative or not) decide how best to use it. Let the people who earned it decide what to do with it. People these days seem to forget that most of the famous rich people in history spent the first half of their lives getting rich, and the second half of their lives trying to give it all away (Rockefeller, Carnegie, Gates, etc..). Is the government who gets money “freely” (by stealing it) a better judge of who to spend it that the people who worked to earn it? They are certainly not going to be as careful with it. But that’s not even where the people who can actually do most of the good charity are coming from. You don’t have to be rich to share a meal with your neighbor, or invite them over to watch the game on your big screen. The couple across the hall that is out of work would probably much more appreciate a home cooked meal than an EBT card to go to Burger King. Most taxes are paid by the middle class… imagine how much more they could help the people around them if they literally had twice as much money…
Where did this concept that only the government could spend our money most appropriately come from?