Government: My Tool And My Enemy

The problem with most political theory is that it attempts to be too general, too universal. It tries to come up with universal, moralistic arguments for and against particular political arrangements. Because there is no such thing as universal morality, it always fails.

The only way to bring sense to political theory is to personalize it a bit, to duly recognize the subjective elements in it. Only then can we really understand politics and government.

Government is the monopolistic organization of coercion considered legitimate by the majority of inhabitants in a specified geographical region. This is a definition of our subject matter; it is not a valuational statement. A ‘government’ that does not use coercion is not a government, it is a voluntary association. A ‘government’ that is not monopolistic in a specified geographical region is not a government, it is at best a violent contender for governmental status. A ‘government’ that is not considered legitimate, at least on some minimal level, by the majority of inhabitants in a specified geographical region, is not a government, it is a gang of bandits and thugs.

Now that we have defined government, we can ask: is it a good or a bad thing? For most people, it will be both. Government is sometimes a useful tool for me, but government is also sometimes my enemy. When I want to pursue something and the existence of government helps me, it is my tool. When I want to pursue something and the existence of government hinders me, it is my enemy. I would venture to say that the same is true for almost everybody.

It has been at least 10 years since someone last broke into my house and stole anything. I think the government deserves some credit for this positive record. They have laws on their books against breaking/entering and burglary, are willing to punish people who commit these acts by throwing them in jail, and they maintain a team of enforcement officers to make sure that the law is upheld. The deterrence effect that this had on potential burglars was probably not insignificant; hence I thank the government for this. The government helps provide the security of person and material possessions that I need to pursue my goals in life. In this capacity, it is my tool, and a useful tool at that.

Every time I receive my salary from work, it is less than what my employer and I had initially agreed on. What gives? Is my employer cheating me? No, he’s not; he has to pay what he agreed to pay me. The problem is, the pay doesn’t all go to me! A not-insignificant fraction of it is ‘withheld’ to pay the government with. What is this? I don’t recall the government being involved in the negotiations between my employer and I! They just take because they have the coercive power to. If my employer or I stubbornly refused to pay up, we would eventually end up behind bars. The government takes what should have been my money against my will. In this capacity, it is my enemy, and a hated enemy at that.

I can hear the objection coming already: ‘Maintaining law and order is expensive. The government needs funds to defray its duties. What they take from you they use to pay for the services that you want. You cannot have one without the other.’ Firstly, what concern is it of mine how the government funds itself? Do I care how Burger King funds itself when I buy a burger there? Not particularly. I just pay what is asked in order to get the burger, assuming that I deem the burger to be more valuable than the money cost at the time. Government doesn’t ask me for money in exchange for stationing extra police officers in my neighborhood. If it did, I would either accept or refuse, depending on the circumstances. In neither case would I concern myself with the financial health of the government; I would simply choose to pay for the service or not. In reality, government just stations the amount of police officers that it chooses in my neighborhood, and takes the amount of taxation money from me that it chooses. My decision-making is not really required. All I know is that when government gives to me, it is my tool, and when it takes from me, it is my enemy.

Secondly, do modern governments really just maintain law and order with their resources? Of course not, they do a multitude of other things as well. Some of these things are great, some are nice, some are annoying, and some are horrible. If government does me some good with its activities, is it now entitled to as much of my money as it demands? Certainly not, because in this case, every private business I ever patronized would be entitled to as much of my money as they demanded from me as well. Receiving benefits is nice, but not at all costs. If the cost of the benefit is too high, it is better to forgo the benefit.    

The ideal government would only do things that were very helpful to me, and it would fund itself entirely at the expense of others, never at my expense. Note that even if government never taxed me personally, it could still be funding itself at my expense. Most obviously, if it heavily taxed my family, friends, or others that I care about, that would be at my expense. More subtly, if it heavily taxed rich, efficient free-market producers who had a tendency to save and productively invest a significant portion of their income, this would hurt me in my capacity as a consumer by diluting monetary incentives for people to produce well for my needs. It would also hurt me in my capacity as a consumer and producer by reducing the amount of productively invested capital in the economic system, which would have resulted in more production for my needs and higher real wages for me as a worker. Thus, heavily taxing such people would be at my expense as well. In fact, I can’t really think of anyone that the government could tax without it being at my expense in some way or other. That is because the ideal government is just an idle fantasy, with no counterpart in reality. 

Real governments are always both my tool and my enemy at the same time. The trick is to maximize the tool attribute, while minimizing the enemy attribute. This is where political views come in. Because I am convinced by most of Austrian free-market economics and because I value personal freedom and autonomy highly, I think that a minimal, or minarchist, government would best suit my purposes. Such a government would provide basic law and order services, maintain a strictly defensive military, provide a very minimal social safety net to prevent poor people from dying due to material destitution, and might intervene lightly to facilitate some major infrastructure projects. It would need to fund these activities, and one way or another this would have to come at my expense. But the expense would not be nearly as great as it is with the government currently ruling over me. On this birds-eye level, I would say that this cost would be worth it in order to enable the benefits that a minarchist government could provide. But on the ground, the tax collector would remain my enemy, while the enforcer of laws that I agreed with would remain my useful tool.

Now, you might ask: what was the point of this somewhat rambling discussion? Sometimes government is useful, sometimes it is harmful, so what? Didn’t everyone already know that? Perhaps, but a lot of people have erred in assuming that political views must be based on more than these egoistic utilitarian assessments. They have tried to come up with universal rules of ‘justice’ and ‘fairness’ which every political arrangement is supposed to be based on. They have tried to determine what the ‘proper role of government’ is. But a government can never be ‘just’ or ‘fair’ in general, or have ‘a proper role’ in general. At the end of the day, political thinking cannot be general, it must to some extent be subjective. The likely results of specific political arrangements can be predicted based on objective reasoning and data, but it takes a subject and his valuations to evaluate whether these results suit him better or worse than other results which could be pursued with different political arrangements.

The inefficient American manufacturer protected by tariffs and the dynamic upstart Indian entrepreneur who desperately wants tariff-free access to the American markets will probably never agree on whether worldwide free-trade should be implemented or not. But perhaps people whose personal fortunes are connected, but not as intimately connected, with the question could eventually agree on an answer, and these people, if numerous and powerful enough, could then impose their political will on those who disagreed.

These are the important considerations in politics. Those who let their interests be sacrificed in the name of universal ‘justice’ or ‘fairness’ or ‘propriety’ deserve to lose out; it serves them right for being so gullible.