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Free Liberal: Coordinating towards higher values

Free Liberal

Coordinating towards higher values

Can the Candidates Answer Politics' Most Important Question?

by Micah Tillman

Quoth Barr: "It is the duty of the federal government to secure our borders from criminals, terrorists and those seeking to take advantage of the American taxpayer."

Responds Ponnuru: With the letter surrounding that sentence, Barr is flouting "the standard libertarian line."

And he may be right.

But Barr is making a significant claim, nonetheless: Our government is not a rock, a tree, an animal, a machine, a system, or an idea. It's the kind of thing that can have duties.

Now, stay with that thought for a moment, Mr. Barr. The philosopher in me is intrigued.

I recently have begun to suspect, you see, that most people wouldn't know a government if it slapped them in the face. They'd only know they were being governmentally-assaulted if the beast wore a nametag. (And they wouldn't be able to pick it out of a police lineup later.)

So, ponder with me for a second: Why do we call what happens beneath the big dome in downtown DC, "government"? Why not call it a "Meeting of the Geriatric Society"? Or a "Commiseration of Crime Kings"?

Mr. Barr implies we can begin to think about what governments are by labeling them, "a thing with duties." They are moral beings, in other words. And since they have duties, they must be able to fulfill those duties. ("Ought" implies "can.") So governments are also agents.

But the Barrian theory that governments are moral agents wouldn't help you recognize a government in the wild. Most members of that species aren't governments. You and I (and everyone you meet today) are moral agents. But we aren't governments.

Barr's not the only failed zoologist around, however. None of the other Candidates are any better. Check their websites' "Issues" sections (McCain; Obama; Barr; Nader). Do you see a statement on the most fundamental political issue politicians and voters could ever consider?

And have you ever heard a reporter (genus: animalia; species: inquisitivus) ask them what it is exactly they want so badly to run?

I didn't think so.

So ponder with me (again): Would you ask a person who thought being a doctor meant painting landscapes to do Tiger Woods' surgery? (Dr. Nick at least knows what doctors are!) Or would you propose to someone if he thought "husband" was another word for "haircut"?

Why, then, has it been okay for so long to not require those who govern to know what government is? How could you expect them to know what the purpose of government is — or what the limitations on government should be — if you don't first expect them to know what governments are?

After all, the purpose of a hammer is not "curing cancer." The purpose of an ostrich is not "broadcasting radio signals." A thing's purpose depends on the kind of thing it is. Until you know the latter, you can't know the former.

And until you know the latter, you can't expect politicians to know it.

Robert Capozzi has tried to help by offering, "a peacekeeping, conflict-resolution institution for humans," as a potential definition for government. Michael Bindner followed with a second: "an authoritative institution which compels the use of private resources for collective action."

Whether those definitions need refinement or not, we now know at least two of our fellow citizens will have asked whether the Candidates have a clue about what they (the Candidates) are about to grab by the horns before they (Capozzi and Bindner) go near a voting booth.

But more than that, I think those potential definitions present the central aspects of what it means to be a government: groups and force. (After all, what are "institutions" but groups, and what are "conflict" and "compulsion" but force?)

And since government is by nature "local" — that is, governments are always governments of [some place or other] — I would argue that the definition of "government" is as follows:

"The de facto government of an area is the group with the most power in that area."

Where conservatives and progressives differ is on what kind of power is primary. Conservatives instinctively believe the power is physical (i.e., one-sided, coercive, negative). Progressives instinctively believe the power is economic (i.e., exchange-oriented, cooperative, positive).

Of course, you can use physical power to control money, and economic power to buy goons. So governments end up with both.

But the best explanation for the (stereo)typical conservative and progressive attitudes toward government (and therefore for conservative and progressive political theory in general) is that conservatives and progressives have different opinions about which type of power government wields primarily (or "ultimately").

And though many people find libertarians hard to locate on the usual "conservative-liberal" spectrum, I think libertarians share what I just called the "conservative" view of government: The de facto (i.e., "real") government is the group in a given area with the most physical power.

So tell us, dear Candidates: Where on the spectrum do you fall?

Is government's power first physical and then economic, or first economic and then physical? Your position on this issue determines your stances on all the rest.

Micah Tillman (micahtillman.com) is a lecturer in the School of Philosophy, and the curator of the WEeding Awards.


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Comments

What?

# posted at by gene Thomas

Pretty good one, Micah. Of course, your definition begs the question: What is "power"? You, for instance, might be called "the government" in DC because you have the most control of the world's most powerful resource: The mind.

Of course, the exercise of power --the use of force and coercion -- is enabled by most citizens, who accept (perhaps tacitly) the de facto government in a geographic area. And ultimately the citizens have the "power" to undo the government.

So, does this imply that the majority of citizens are the de facto government, working through dismiss-able agents?

# posted at by Anonymous

You can call me by my first name, but you won't leave your name so I can return the favor? *grin*

Okay. I will call you "Samantha," just so we can have a conversation on equal footing.

Here goes:

Dear Samantha,

You are correct. As I pointed out in my article (you may have noticed), how you understand power determines your political theory.

Conservatives understand true power (the type of power which trumps all the rest) to be of the physical variety. Progressives understand true power to be of the economic variety.

I personally couldn't be the government for two reasons: (1) I am not a group. (2) I do not control enough "mind" to defeat the other groups in DC who control more minds, or have more power of the other types (emotional, spiritual, physical, economic, etc.).

The majority of citizens rarely coherently exercise enough power to be worthy of consideration either as an actual group, or as something which wields any real power.

(For instance, candidates are always elected to office by the votes of far fewer than the majority of citizens.)

Also, it is not the case that even in a representative republic the majority of citizens controls what people call "the government" (the "representatives").

The representatives who are voted out of office leave of their own free will. There is no actual exercise of power involved. (Of course, maybe that's my conservative/libertarian view of "power as physical" talking.)

And even if a Congressman were to refuse to vacate his office after being voted out, he would be forcibly removed not by the majority of citizens, but by a few members of the police.

That said, the story we are sold about the People being the true government in a democracy is a myth, and a false one at that. (There are true myths, you see, but that's another topic.)

Thanks, Samantha!

Micah,

Anon. (Samantha) is me...my bad, I didn't fill in the box.

It strikes me that you are being highly literal, which in this case misses the forest for the trees.

For ex., saying voting someone out and the Congress Member refuses to vacate, that the police come, is a mite silly, no? In a civil society, there's such a thing as a division of labor. There's an implicit understanding that order will be kept according to the rules by SOMEONE, not necessarily the individual.

I'm not saying that the People are LITERALLY the true government. Again, that's WAY too literal. I am saying that vast majorities believe that some government is necessary to maintain domestic tranquility. They may or may not support the status quo, but they more or less support the civil order more or less as they are.

If most people wanted no government or a nightwatchman state, I predict we'd have that, more or less. It's my observation that most don't, so they are giving -- in a sense -- the State their power, in effect.

Of course, some object to this state of affairs...I know I do.

# posted at by Robert Capozzi

So the truth finally comes out! *grin*

I don't see what's silly about blaming an action on the people who take it. That's like saying it's silly to blame the people in a corporation for doing what they do, simply because they're in a "corporation" and therefore legally everything any of them does was done by "the corporation."

Call a spade a spade, I say. Or, "Don't play make-believe if you don't have to," I say.

_________

If part of your point is that the government of a place is only the group with the most power because there are other groups (e.g., the majority of citizens) who are not exercising what would be a greater power, then you may be right.

But there's no reason to call a group a group which doesn't act as a group. (See John Locke on the necessity of everyone's cooperating with the majority vote in the Body Politic [in his Second Treatise] for the sake of being able to say there is a Body Politic at all).

Just because you can refer to a collection of people under some general title ("The Majority of Citizens") doesn't make them an actual group.

They have to look like a duck and act like a duck before you can call them a duck without falsifying the situation.

Perhaps "The Majority's" apathy is the occasion of their government's becoming their government. But again, a group of people who doesn't act as a group isn't a group.

(For instance, should everyone who doesn't stop me from lecturing at CUA be considered a group which could stop me from doing so if it wanted, and therefore is in some way responsible for my continuing to lecture?)

In other words, I'm skeptical about whether such "groups" as "the Majority of Citizens" or "the People of the Country" actually exist and therefore can acquiesce to anything.

Of course, this may just be my individualist bias coloring my thinking . . . .

We live in a Republic, where the source of power is the US Constitution. We do not live in a Democracy, where the people with the most power would have the "tyranny of the majority". Ideally, our Republic should give equal power to all. Little me, in a court of law governed by the Consitution, should be no less powerful the the largest corporation with the most money and weapons. The duties you speak of are clearly spelled out in the US Constitution. Bob Barr is right.

# posted at by TimH

arrgh... no editing feature, so to clarify my comment:

...in a court of law governed by laws which pass the checks and balances provided by the US Constitution...

# posted at by TimH

I think Barr is right about the Feds having duties too.

And thank goodness for the Constitution. But I'd put it this way:

"The power our government has comes from the guns they own. The power it is supposed to have is described by the Constitution."

No, all I'm suggesting, Micah, is that "consent" of the governed is slippery business. In my observation, most (perhaps in some sense wrongly) accede to a State of some kind. Most thinks it's necessary, is my observation.

Do you disagree?

If a plausible alternative were forthcoming, they might accede to that, but the case -- thus far-- is weak, excepting the outliers of Somalia and Iceland 1000 A.D.

Were there a plausible "opt out" mechanism -- e.g. Nonarchy Pods -- I'd support that, but it's also my observation that the call for Nonarchy Pods is tiny. Nonarchy Pods might be "right" in some Platonic sense, but it strikes me that the Nonarchists need a better press agent.

# posted at by Robert Capozzi

"Consent" definitely seems like a slippery business to me.


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