Those of you who think you know me are probably thinking I'm just going to leave it at "yes" and walk away. (Now you're probably wondering why you're still reading this.) But I'm actually going to say "no." And not just to be a contrarian, but rather to make a more important point. Someone asked me this question, and before just blurting out the obvious (and as I'll show here, counter-intuitively wrong) answer, I had to consider the alternative. This is just how my brain works.
So I asked myself, "Is it possible for our government to get bigger, and still have more freedom? Is it possible for a smaller government to be more destructive of freedom?" Just by asking the question, an equally obvious but completely counter-intuitive answer emerges. Let me put it to you this way: Would you rather have a huge, bureaucratic government, that employs half the population but is funded mostly with user fee kinds of taxes and doesn't have a military or a police force and somewhat mimics what the market would provide, OR a small government of jack-booted thugs that randomly kills thousands of people every day with drone strikes and imposes a version of Sharia law?
I hope the point of this has emerged clearly for you now before I put it in my own words: the best measurement of the evil of government is not it's size, but how much it destroys freedom. Government being bigger and more vicious go hand in hand, but in the interest of intellectual integrity and precision, we must acknowledge that this relationship is not simple or linear. With this deeper understanding, we can only become more effective at striving towards a more harmonious, peaceful, and free world.
It's important to me to understand this because it gives me great hope for the continued progress of humanity towards freedom despite the growth we see of modern bureaucratic governments in terms of budgets. Global violence is on the decline. It's harder than ever for governments to lie us into war. Respect for civil rights is becoming the norm. The internet is creating a whole new realm of commerce, especially in cryptocurrency that governments can't touch. Weed is so legal in America that it's almost not fun to smoke anymore!
There are also numerous implications of this for how we go about transitioning away from a government-ruled society. Obviously, this suggests a need for prioritization, and so this is why I'm concerned more with stopping the overt violence of government than the covert theft of taxation. (Yes, if no one paid taxes, there would be no war, but they could always keep printing money for the war machine.) I'm more concerned with legalizing all drugs and restoring legal respect for civil liberties than debating gay marriage. I'm more concerned with your right to keep and bear arms than your right to cut hair without a license.
This also suggests that we can transition out of government by localizing it, and in the process, make it a better approximation of the market in the functions it retains AND far less viciously destructive to freedom. By embracing localization, we can unite left and right and center against the common enemy of big, centralized government. If we could just get all government globally down to the size of counties or city states, we could have much more relevant competition between governments, especially in the competition to see which can phase themselves out the fastest!
It's important to remember what you're for, especially when it's so tempting to focus on what you're against. Even though it's true that if you're pro-freedom, you most be anti-government because government by definition is an affront to freedom, it's important to remember that we are pro-freedom first, anti-government second.
What do you think are the implications of this? Please let me know in the comments!
I am the author of FREEDOM!, a book endorsed (I mean banned) by the US Department of “Justice.” You can get a copy here. I’m running for Not-President in 2020 on the platform of the peaceful, orderly, and responsible dissolution of the United States federal government. You can find out more here. Whoever has the top comment on this post after 24 hours can claim a free signed copy of FREEDOM! by sending me a message with their address.
Thanks for sharing! These are some great thoughts on an issue which impacts us more each day than we like to think about.
I'm curious to know your thoughts about net neutrality, because in one sense, it's the government taking more control over Internet regulations, but at the same time it could protect the free and open Web as we know it, which you argue is one of the reasons for moving toward more freedom-conscious ideas and communities.
Also, if I don't snag the copy of your book from this thread, I'll definitely check it out. I love a good thought provoking read.
I agree there has to be a transition phase we can't just scap the government and expect everything to fall into place.
My thoughts are we should first scrap party politics have local people elected by the community and they all have an equal say in every matter. Eventually as you point out creating a localised system, I like the system of having elders in tribes. Hopefully that will bring about similar change to what you describe. I don’t like government but agree until we have change the paradigm first and when hundreth monkey has awoken people will be more open to the big change of no government.
It has to be done in stages and building freedom as you say is prority. Even change the selection system; as in the UK it is complety rigged in the favour of the oppressor, and everyone knows this but dont feel they can change it. This I feel is the prime objective.
Great post very thought inducing :)
New Paradigm: The ratio of federal congressman to resident is 1:750,000.
Bring that down to 1:30,000 and the people have greater control over who Serves us in the house. This isn't expanding government like hiring more deep state employees to extort us but merely bringing government processes closer to our living rooms and providing better accountability.
Check out my latest post on this very subject:
https://steemit.com/anarchy/@adconner/the-greatest-conspiracy-ever-perpetrated-on-the-united-states-of-america-and-no-one-even-realizes-it
Bigger the government the more taxes you pay also. When government say they created jobs, then taxes will go up. If corporations create more jobs taxes go down. I work for the government and in my sector there's is way to much corruption and cronyism.
I totally agree with you, thanks for sharing
The paradigm you seem to be molding here is that at some point it's not just about small vs big, but rather a scale of cohesiveness. I see this a valid perspective and it kind of describes how I "rank" the issues facing peaceful people pushing back against government force. War before healthcare, kidnapping for plants before licensing laws for example. Great write up Adam.
Thanks! I can see you get it!
I totally agree with your statement 'the best measurement of the evil of government is not it's size, but how much it destroys freedom.' Our freedoms are being destroyed from left, right and centre...we are presented with two different political parties at election time, when in reality they both pursue the same freedom destroying agendas.
Centralisation and globalisation are big enemies to our freedom, and as far as I can see one part of the agenda of 'The Power's That Be' is to keep centralising power so that there are no nation states, only 3 or 4 organisations, like the EU for example, ruling the people, then eventually down to one world government...so that you need less people to control the people of the world...I have always thought big government is bad, in terms of inefficiencies, but when only a handful of people control billions of people, that is even worse
Good points sir! Don't change your opinions based on peer pressure!
Thanks for your comment Adconner :-)
In the end, it is the efficiency of the government which will count. A larger government body will be more expensive and unsatisfactory. What is needed is a skeletal body of government which can perform its task well and still be able to contribute for the good of the community
there is no doubt about it that bigger governments are worse than smaller governments.
You sound similar to a minarchist but I find your point to be vitally important for anarchists that wish to discuss civil society more deeply than sharing gifs on social media.
I personally believe that the road to a stateless world starts with removing power from the most violent charlatans calling themselves statesmen in order of most aggresive to least.
After that anarchists can argue the finer points of the non-aggression principle in a meaningful environment.
I'm glad to be able to follow you again Adam, and I think steem is a wonderful platform for bringing value to sharing your ideas.
I think you are making a very logical point about the role of government. All of the focus on big vs small govt can distract from the important issues.
Thanks for the open mind. A small government can, indeed, be more detrimental to freedom than a large. A small government may operate using the fear of being reported by your own neighbors to control you. It can manipulate you by controlling the food resources, or housing. You don't have to be big to do that. Bankers, who are small in number, have huge populaces grovelling at their feet.
Large governments, and taxation, can build roads, schools, sanitation systems, provide free education, and even, if it ever behooved them, free food, housing, etc... . It doesn't always have to be robbing from the poor and giving to the rich - it's just that that's the way we seem to like it.
Very interesting article. First thing that jumped out at me was your ability to argue your own believe system, this is not common place. Many people do not have this ability, so CHEERS for that ability.
Now for the content you make a great point that almost begs the question "what is big and small?"
Are we talking per capita? Now here I think we get into an interesting dilemma. If 100% of people was government, well that's not government necessarily, it's anarchy right? If everything is nothing, then nothing is everything. Now this gets into the extreme and abstract, but if everything was food would there be a word "poison"?
So there must be something that "is" and something that "is not" for there to be either.
The challenge with a growing government without a growing population is the imbalance. A government is a machine and it must function, always.
The founding fathers in the US thought they could stop the nature of government by creating a constitution. The constitution is an archetype of God in the bible, something more powerful than any man/leader could ever be. This government is working everyday to destroy this archetype.
I've already typed to much for a comment, apologies, so super fast, this has happened before an will happen again until we learn the lesson. All trees require pruning, otherwise they will wither and die.
What the government does is more important than how large the government is but it logically follows that a large government has more power, and thus a greater chance to abuse that power, than a smaller government does. It is an inescapable fact that a larger government has more people that make up that government, thus there is a higher probability that some of those people will have nefarious intentions and some of those people will act on those intentions. So it makes sense to me why people would clammor for smaller government. It's not impossible for a larger government to act in a more moral manner than a smaller government, it's just more probable that it won't.
Thank you Adam. I believe that most of angst in America is caused by lack of adequate representation. There is angry rhetoric across the spectrum from the Ancaps to the Ancoms. From the Fascists in control to the Anti-Fascists who don't shave yet. We need to expand congress to 1:30,000 like the good book says.... the constitution. This isn't expanding the size of government its expanding the range of people's input and decreasing the special interests ability to control the ballot box. Check out my latest post on this very subject if you're really interested knowing my opinion. It's not a simple matter.
https://steemit.com/anarchy/@adconner/the-greatest-conspiracy-ever-perpetrated-on-the-united-states-of-america-and-no-one-even-realizes-it
"it's important to remember that we are pro-freedom first, anti-government second." Really insightful article.
You make some valid points about the problem being less one of government size and more of whether or not freedom exists. Historically, the levels of government corruption affecting freedom have had little to do with the size and everything to do with circumstances. And, corrupt governments only tend to last as long as the people remain apathetic.
That said, the problem I see with giant government is the myriad small agencies doing their own jackboot dances without consulting each other.
For example, the US Treasury agencies (FinCEN, IRS, CFTC, SEC) approach cryptocurrency from different angles. FinCEN looks at crypto as a tool for money laundering and terrorism; the IRS views crypto as real property; CFTC is convinced that crypto is a commodity; and, SEC calls crypto securities. The way that these four small agencies have each applied their "missions" to cryptocurrency is government overreach; with no federal law on the books, these agencies have taken it upon themselves to make criminals out of law abiding citizens.
What is we were all part of the government? How does it go... the government of, for and by the people? Something like that. Isn't that where the beauty of the blockchain lies... we can all have a say and get representation.
I honestly think if we get money out of our governments (Federal, State and City - cess pits all of rent seeking, pork farming, and creation of usry policies to keep themselves funded an in a job) Americans might have a half way decent government we were less afraid of and loathed to trust. Trust. That's what is boils down to - if you can't trust them then just WTF are they doing being elected?
This sentiment was represented well by you during our interview for our upcoming film. I am looking forward to continuing to promote the message of freedom along side you,
What would stop the "good ol' boys", who are already deeply intrenched in the individual States, from seizing more power over their citizens? Does the President even have the authority to dissolve the Federal government? Where can I learn more about the details of the American Freedom Manifesto? Maybe the platform should consider waiting until after some tests have been performed before abolishing the whole thing. Maybe there could be a way to create some freedom zones to first show that it can be done.
@adamkokesh Check out my newest blog post. What are your thoughts ?
https://steemit.com/taxation/@adconner/taxation-is-not-theft-in-a-representative-republic
I am libertarian, but not always is like that. Better live in Switzerland with small goverment than in Somalia with smaller goverment.
Bigger government is ALWAYS worse.