Says the Trump-supporting corporatist. :yawn:

The authoritarian statist barks but cannot provide an answer.

Why must you be governed? — NOS4A2

Because nothing happens in a vacuum. Political development is tied in with historical development. We were never in a "state of nature" that is a thought experiment. Rather, we always had communities of a variety of cultural practices. You might say from one perspective that the Native American tribes were "free".. But then you take a closer look and realize that there were immensely restrictive practices on what one can do or not do without becoming an outcast, etc. So have humans ever lived "free" from their fellow man? I'd say no.

So in this "modern" time, we have states that developed due to peculiarities of kingdoms of European conflicts, feudalism giving way to mercantilism, colonization, and the idea of nation united under language and culture rather than religion or territory. But within this current system, states developed as a result of a king uniting various territories or (mainly) Western European countries carving out territories from tribes or previous empires. Within these kingships and colonies, feudal lords and merchant-classes who controlled the resources had interests to protect. They wanted to make sure their property was protected. They wanted to make sure that there was someone around to punish wrongdoers. Methods were developed such as courts and judges and juries for this purpose. Taxes were needed to raise armies and pay knights or sheriffs or strongmen of varieties working on behalf of the crown or council. In order for the lords and the merchants to have their property protected and to gain more wealth, they needed roads. As land was parcelled, they needed a proper way to distribute it. What wasn't in someone's possession was the "kingdoms" and owned by the king. They parcelled it out for favors and allegiance.

As the merchant class began to have more power, they overthrew the lords as ruling class and developed their own councils that the king could not ignore and had to listen to. Some places threw off the king altogether. Merchants, craftsmen, and independent farmers became dominant. They increased the towns and the cities. Most of the farm laborers continued so or became laborers for more wealthy merchants who used land and resources to start corporations and enterprises. With the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment came improved technology. This technology created immense wealth but also a variety of externalities.. Ideas about protecting consumers who might not know the harms were percolating. Ideas of creating social safety nets for the elderly or the poor who could not afford it were promoted. The ideas of following certain safety codes in construction and water consumption were thought of, and on it goes for many thousands of things.

So to sum it up, we have always been "governed" in some way. The modern form started with the rise of the merchants, the Scientific Revolution, and the increase in technology. With this increase in knowledge and technology was a need for more nuanced understanding of how to survive, which included things like safety nets, consumer protections, health care, and the like. The things that were not even around prior to the Scientific Revolution (so weren't even a consideration). Then add the classical merchant interests of protecting one's capital, property, and territory, along with the other classical things such as courts of law and protection of territory.

you have to be governed so you can continue sipping your afternoon tea at The Empress, and not end up mugged/left in a ditch.

Who do you propose would:

• Provide schooling
• Build roads
• Protect property rights
• Fund fire departments
• Enforce contracts
• Protect the vulnerable
• Provide a reliable medium of exchange
• ....

Perhaps much of this could be addressed voluntarily in a simple, isolated agrarian society, but I find it hard to imagine it could in one like what we have now.

I appreciate the effort it took to write that down, and find little to disagree with. But I’m just asking why you yourself must be governed.



Rather, I was asking why you must be governed. Can I extrapolate from your answer that you require the State to protect you?



I just can’t see how man in his government form is the only one capable of providing or funding such services.

Perhaps the State is all that holds them from returning to some state of nature, like beasts. This bothers me because if the State were to collapse tomorrow, it is those that need to be governed that the rest of us would have to watch out for. — NOS4A2

According to Hobbes, the state of nature is a war of each against all others. The need for authority is not in order to satisfy a compulsion that some people suffer but others do not; it is to stop the violence of that war.

Rousseau saw the state of nature as the home of the 'noble savage' who was peaceful and moral as created. The social contract forced man into a way of life that lost this original goodness.

How the State is to be conceived as necessary or not is dependent upon competing notions of Human Nature.

Perhaps the State is all that holds them from returning to some state of nature, like beasts. This bothers me because if the State were to collapse tomorrow, it is those that need to be governed that the rest of us would have to watch out for. — NOS4A2

That is why you better start prepping NOS. Get a lot of guns and know how to use them. It's gonna be a major investment now but it will be worth it when you need to acquire/take resources in a world in which all proof of ownership is forfeit. You'll have to defend your property through violence (you'll be your own police/governor).

The world isn't fair with a functional state nor is it fair in its absence. The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. It's soaked with blood.

I appreciate the effort it took to write that down, and find little to disagree with. But I’m just asking why you yourself must be governed. — NOS4A2

Thanks.. Because I like having clean drinking water, construction codes, educational institutions offered to everyone, safety nets, courts of law, police protection, protection against invasion, etc. and that are accountable to a democratic process and the informed electorate.

I just can’t see how man in his government form is the only one capable of providing or funding such services. — NOS4A2

And I can't see how it can be otherwise.

Sure you can. Private schools, private roads, private insurance, private firefighting, private healthcare, private charity, private armies, ….the model of voluntarily exchange for such services has been in effect since time immemorial. The idea that a man must be in government before he can provide any such services is damn near ludicrous.

I’m not so sure of that. History is replete with state violence and democide. There is not one human right that the state has not violated. They can and have taken as much property as they wish, and in fact claim ownership and jurisdiction upon entire territories. See what happens when you don’t pay your property taxes. Your proof of ownership in any state system is contingent on what the state wants to do with your property, nothing more or less.. I’d much rather defend my own property than be subject to what amounts to slavery.

Because you can’t be trusted.

Very true, Paine. Both Rousseau and Hobbes believed in the social contract. Perhaps this belief, despite its lack of evidence, persists as the undercurrent of statism.

But the government can?

No more, no less. Humans just can’t be trusted.

If I could choose to be governed or not, I would prefer to be without all of the above. — NOS4A2

Who wouldn't? We live in the state of anarchy, in which there is no law, and in particular, no law against setting oneself up as a governor or mafia boss. So feel entirely free to hide from the watchers, to disobey the rulers, and do what thou wilt. Tell them I said it was ok.

Sure you can. Private schools, private roads, private insurance, private firefighting, private healthcare, private charity, private armies, — NOS4A2

Private armies???? You can be the boss of a gang, sure, but gangs and armies are public - by definition. so it looks like your professed anarchism is just privatised government. We already got that, and it stinks bad.

What's to stop the super-rich buying up all of the main roads and charging sky-high prices to travel through (putting the price of everything up), or refusing anyone but their businesses access thereby holding a monopoly?

Even Adam Smith believed you needed regulation to keep the market competitive.

the model of voluntarily exchange for such services has been in effect since time immemorial. — NOS4A2

Name an effective comprehensive implementation of such a model. There hasn't ever been one in any but the smallest societies, if then. It's just another anarchist pipe dream.

About the best imagined Anarchist society I've come across is Ursula LeGuin's The Dispossessed.

But there's not much 'private' there, so @NOS4A2 would hate it.

Hobbes and Rousseau developed their views from sharply different visions of the qualities of natural man before civic institutions existed. What is your view of how those institutions appeared without a social contract of some kind?

If this 'statism' is a need for some and not for others, how did it get started amongst humans?

I didn’t advocate for any of those, nor anarchism. I’m speaking against the state, not for or against other forms of organization. They were examples of man using other, non-state, collective means to accomplish tasks deemed worthy of government only,

My own view is that states form through conquest and appropriation. They are imposed. Not one man agreed to any contract. This is because no such contract exists.

It still stinks bad though NOS. All you got is your privates guaranteed by the Godfather.

I use “private” in this sense to mean something doesn’t have any official standing nor is it owned and controlled by any government. I see no nefarious connotations. Besides, I hardly see any difference between a state and any other criminal organization, except that one seeks to control me and the other doesn’t, so if a private organization seizes power and the monopoly on violence I will naturally oppose it.

if a private organization seizes power and the monopoly on violence I will naturally oppose it. — NOS4A2

It already has.

It’s the State. They formed when one group of predatory men sought to exploit the rest. There is nothing public about the State except that they do it all in the open.

As conceived of by Hobbes and Rousseau, the social contract is not an explicit agreement signed before participating in it. Rather, it is a condition developed through people's interaction with each other. The development of law and judgement in societies probably did have something to do with events of wars and subjugation. But you, like Rousseau, imagine a condition of Man that was happily minding its own business before the State crashed the party.

Whatever brought these institutions into being, framing it as a transition from a state of nature to living in a man-made world is to seek out what is human nature against the background of his circumstances, to borrow from Ortega y Gasset.

If it is not an explicit agreement then it is not a contract. Since a condition is not a contract, it is a poor analogy on Rousseau’s part. Perhaps “social condition” better describes the state of affairs we’re in, since most of us are born into it, after all.

I can’t imagine a state of nature, only social organizations that are voluntary and not ruled by this or that class. Rousseau’s Social Contract is not only statist, but collectivist, which history has proven is a poor combination indeed. Submitting to the general will, being forced to be free, and all that, isn’t the best look for the social contract theory in my mind.

Explicit contracts are only possible through institutions established to recognize them. It seems you would have the discussion of what brought civic institutions into existence be preceded by the institutions themselves.

Unspoken agreements where different people accept a set of conditions for the sake of their mutual continuance does not require signatures.