Governments and Property: Critique of Politics Part II

How do governments maintain themselves as authorities ruling over the peoples under its laws? Simply. Governments function at all times as organized monopolies of legitimacy and ultimate controller of all property within reach. Governments keep their position to govern by exercising force over citizens when all else fails. Ideally, governments should serve common aims under the unqualified consent of all those subject to it. Yet, some favor and some oppose government policy, and the disagreement has created political divisions, very strong and vocal differences, indeed. The facts?

Controlling all forms of property, governments claim the money it needs for purposes defined by themselves, without higher appeal. Governments rule for the reasons they create, such as to “form of more perfect Union” for “general welfare” or “common defense.” (Stated in the US Constitution). As self-maintaining powers, governments exercise two primary functions to ensure their power, thus enabling their mission statements.

First a ruling power collects money from people. Second, it pays people. Words in politics only serve to reinforce a belief that governments have powers to fix any problem by speaking of it. If a government policy action does not involve collecting and paying money, in other words transferring property, then it really has taken little effort to change much of anything.

Most often, government policy helps the fewer at the expense of the greater. Groups not favored by the ruling power usually pay the greater costs, in all ways. In short, someone has to pay, and someone has to collect, for government to have impact. Rhetorical politics solve nothing. On the other hand, governments create useful institutions, otherwise vast numbers of people would starve, remain ignorant, or suffer violence and lawlessness without protection.

Governments cannot exist without revenues. They cannot survive unless people support them, and people only a support government for two reasons: They benefit from their government or they fear it. Whether one calls the transactions “tax and spend,” a transfer of wealth, or a theft and a bribe, it does not matter; it all amounts to the same, the collection and giving of property from one to another. Someone pays; someone gets paid. Understanding this, perhaps a reasoned discussion of politics in the United States will allow citizens to evaluate what government really costs, even morally; and whether we need more or less government, or what type of government, in the 21^st Century.