On Wednesday 26 January 2005 02:09 pm, Garrett Goebel wrote:
The government which governs best governs least, and all that. But what's government? What we're really talking about is the centralization of coercive power. Parents govern their children. A handful of Rockefellers govern international monetary policy. Where should the control lie? IMHO, coercive power should be as decentralized as is feasible.
[lots of interesting anecdotes]
By control, what you're really saying is that one group of people know better than another, and that it is alright for them to force others to adhere to their standards. I think that is a dangerous statement. Especially when there's no telling which group of people you're standing with on each toss of the coin.
I had the pleasure of taking a class last year called "Introduction to Social Science" taught by Preston Corn at UMKC. The class was a phenomenal survey of the different fields of social science including 1/3 of the semester dedicated to looking at political science. The text we used is called _Power_and_Choice_ by W. Phillips Shively and can be had for under $20 off the internet. I have included the ISBN[1] at the bottom of this email for your reference; I hope you'll get it or check it out of a library and read the first through third chapters. Since that's probably not very likely, I have included some choice quotes from the first chapter below for your education:
"First [politics] involve[s] the making of a common decision for a group of people, that is, a uniform decision applying in the same way to all members of the group. Second, [politics] involve[s] the use of power by one person or a group of people to affect the behavior of another person or group of people." ... "Those actions that contribute to the making of a common policy for a group of people constitute politics."... "Power may be exercised as coercion when we force a person to do something he or she did not want to do, as persuasion when we convince someone that that is what she or he really wishes to do, or as the construction of incentives when we make the alternative so unattractive that only one reasonable option remains." ... "Any act of politics may be viewed from either of two perspectives, either as a cooperative search for an answer to common problems or as an act by which some members of a group impose their will on other members of the group. It is important to remember that generally both viewpoints are valid." "Over the last few centuries, people have focused increasingly on the state of which they are citizens, and the state has determined more of what goes on in their lives. Several centuries ago, most people were almost unaware of the state in which they lived; they noticed it only if the king's soldiers marched through their fields. At that time, many large geographic areas could hardly be said to have been organized as states at all. Gradually states have become more thoroughly organized and have demanded more from us."[2]
So, in summary: it can be dangerous but also beneficial. Without control the advances made in civilization would not exist as they do today. I think that the things that you pointed out in your anecdotes are not flawed because they are control; they are flawed because they are illogical control or ill-applied control -- a problem that can be corrected through your participation in the republic's political process.
Freedom is the flipside of coercion. And coercion is rarely a good thing. The only valid example I can think of, is to counteract the coercive efforts of others.
Based on all the benefits that organized forms of government have brought to the human race over the past 30,000 years, I would have to conclude that coercion or at least the threat of coercion has had a net-positive effect.
Quite frankly, your comments make me conclude you're either an extremist libertarian or an anarchist -- neither of which are healthy political persuasions.
As an aside to the other threads, political scientists widely consider American liberalism and American conservatism to both be variants of classical liberalism.
[1] ISBN 0-07-232252-7 [2] pp. 3-13