Having less government is a huge and as yet unreached ideal of the American Right. Not the political establishment American Right, but the average right-wing individual you’ll find in America. The ultimate goal is to get government out of our lives as much as they deem it possible.
But what if it was possible to all of government of our lives? There are many on the American Right who will say that government is needed for some things, usually related to exerting force on other individuals who seek to harm other individuals, so they aren’t exactly anti-government, just anti-big government. And while there are varying degrees on the Right, even in the extreme areas, very few will say that we simply don’t need government and even fewer will say that we should have a government at all.
Think about it though. What if there was no government functioning at all? Certainly it is very difficult to imagine for most people, because we have all been born and raised in a government of some form or another. Very few people are born into a situation where they can be completely free from government.
I know that Murray Rothbard created what essentially became know as anarcho-capitalism, a combination of anarchism with the idea of private property as a fundamental human right combined. And while I admit that I haven’t read up too much on the concept, what I have read has been intriguing.
Still, the concept of living without government doesn’t seem too far fetched to me. As a young man living in on the rim of insanity, I find myself surrounded by government bureaucrats at all levels and yet my only interaction with the government seems to come when they confiscate my wealth for their own personal use. Other than that, I never interact with any level of government on a regular basis.
I know that there is suppose to be some invisible hand of bureaucracy out there doing all these things in the name of keeping me safe, but I question its effectiveness. Safety, first of all, is not usually an objective standard. The most basic starting point would be akin to keeping you alive. Usually safety is employed in order to prevent some kind of potentially lethal bodily harm. In most cases, you are responsible for your own safety, in spite of all the mandates, regulations, and rules that we seem to be living under. After all, you can always opt out of those rules should you desire to do so. That is, if you are comfortable with the unsafe means which these same bureaucrats may employ against you.
The other side of this is that I never see a result of the efforts of the invisible hand of government either. I know there may be things that happen for my benefit that I probably do not know about, but considering that my wealth is forcibly taken from me, wouldn’t it be prudent to know what these things are? As a result, my own observations lead me to believe that things would not be too much different if we lived without government entirely, at least on the day-to-day routine things. This observation, however, is based on my own life, which has yet to have a serious and direct need for government help of any kind.
I think that most people truly do fear a world without government and cannot imagine a system where everything is voluntary and all the consequences of your actions fall on yourself rather than some outside, invisible force. I think that while there is definitely a good argument to be made in favor of some form of government or another, the very idea that we wouldn’t have one is so alien, so crazy, that it makes people twitch slightly when they think about it.
But when it comes down to it, you have to evaluate the benefits of having no government to living under one. And while that is certainly a long list to sort through that covers all aspects of your life, I am certain that many people would agree that a system of completely voluntary transactions in all things, rather than a system of forced transactions in many things, would benefit all individuals over the cost of such a system. It just takes some critical thinking, a little imagination, and a practical understanding of the human condition.