If our acceptance of government is motivated by a libertarian impulse of co-opting the structure of government, then it still remains that we need to examine the interaction which exists between society and government. It is intended that government be subservient to society, rather than the other way. What is meant by this is not that the government provides an excess of public goods (where would it come from? society. how would it get them? force. who must be subservient to the force? society.) Rather, it would be the case that there exists strong social bonds so that the government would be powerless to intervene, since whatever roles might exist that the government could take upon itself would already be handled by society.
In other words, in order to fend off a tyranny of collectivism, society must take upon itself the task of looking after the poor, the young, the old, the hungry. So long as society takes care of these things by itself and to an extent considered satisfactory, then society shall look to government to treat society’s treatment of these ills in a deferential manner.
The important point here is that society, if it is to keep from being ruled, must engage in self-rule, maintaining a distributed order of power throughout the community in its groups. The unity of society is built on the social unit, which will in various societies differ. However, it is preferential (for the purposes of self-ruling) that the social unit be one which includes members who act as responsible for others. It would be a family, which ties together the old and young, the past and present. This develops a thread of continuity in individuals between the society they have inherited and the society they will leave for their own young. What we want to avoid is a breakdown of continuity, where the inherited society is completely done away with (though it may not appear that way for several generations) which leads to the present generation bequeathing a society tied up with their own interests. The breakdown is encapsulated in Keynes’ dictum “We’re all dead in the long run.” A society which runs by that maxim will leave its children without a means to continuing the methods that gave them prosperity or the values that prosperity was built on.
We see that the question of government is largely one of the norms which hold in society. Where people treat government as a means to their prosperity, rather than a means to protecting the prosperity of society, the government steps in and takes on the role of ruling for society. This is precisely what we want to avoid. We want no rulers, or at least, we want the rulers to be people who rise up within their own community and become exemplars. Politicians, in joining government, cease to be a part of the community, and act from without (thus they cannot be a community’s exemplar).
The co-opting of government, as a question of means, must take place on the level of society. It is impossible for a government to be set up, even by God, and then given to an immature society which will do everything it can to restructure until it becomes ruled. A society which wants to be ruled shall be ruled; the rulers are only too happy to provide that duty. A society which wishes to take care of its own affairs and prevent it from being ruled over by a tyrant must engage in self-rule; in this way shall the problem of government be dampened, and a continuity between generations be established.
Leaving aside the question of how such the desire for self-rule might come to take hold in society for now, we shall move on to what form the government should take in just such a society, in order that interaction between society and government be free of burden or the opportunity of government to assert an authority which society is not willing to give, i.e. keeping the locus of power within society and distributed throughout its members.
Hello!
I found your blog though your posts on DebatingChristianity.com
I sent you a message, but I guess you are no longer active.
Great blog, keep up the great work!