Re: A prediction about the Presidential campaign

On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:26:04 -0800, David Friedman
<ddfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <ftafq39iaks7u0j1bpom300cf4icp7ecj4@xxxxxxx>,
Tim Merrigan <tppm@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

If I may, I have another sabot to throw into this machine. From what
I've seen of human nature, even were government to be abolished
because people stopped believing in it, it would quickly be replaced
by other governments (you may if you wish insert de facto in front of
governments) which would for the most part be considerably more
malevolent than what had been abolished. See for example: French
monarchy -> French revolution -> Paris Commune -> French terror ->
Napoleonic Empire.

That wasn't abolished because people stopped believing in government.

Part of the question here is what we mean by a government. My answer is
that there is a set of implicit rules about how people treat each other,
varying by time and place but with a good deal in common. The
fundamental enforcement of those rules is by commitment strategies. I am
committed to fight unreasonably hard--although not with no limits at
all--to defend what is mine, you know I am so committed, and taking
something which someone will fight unreasonably hard to defend is
usually expensive. The pre-human model is territorial behavior in
animals, mostly birds and fishes.

What is special about government is that it can ignore those rules
without triggering the commitment strategies--I am not willing to fight
unreasonably hard to keep myself from being robbed by the IRS or
(temporarily) enslaved to serve on a jury, although I would be if the
same acts were perpetrated by a private party.

So I take Keith's "stopped believing in it" to mean, in part, "started
treating governments and their agents the same way they treat everyone
else." That's not inconsistent with having organized arrangements by
which people protect their rights--merely with the agents of those
arrangements being treated as if they had special rights others didn't
have.

For the detailed version of my view of underlying basis in commitment
strategies, see the article webbed at:

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Property/Property.html

Our difference than is the definition of government. IMHO If a street
gang takes over a neighborhood it becomes a, and often the, de facto
government of that neighborhood. Using my definition your, and
Keith's,"organized arrangements by which people protect their rights"
are de facto governments.
--

I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America,
and to the republic which it established, one nation, from many peoples,
promising liberty and justice for all.
Feel free to use the above variant pledge in your own postings.

Tim Merrigan
.

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