The Source of Government Power
Government is an agency that, at least in theory, represents the body politic.
The idea of government is that it will represent what is best for the social whole.
In the long period of time, since the dawn of barbarism and the invention of government,
we have tried various types and kinds of government.
In a sense we could say that government is a representative. Now in the early days when
government was first designed it undoubtedly emerged from theocratic roots with the idea
that the paterfamilias, that is the elderly male primarily, in rare instances we understand there
may have been an elderly and very respected female, but in the main government has taken on
the male attributes that this individual who represented the government was in fact a representative
of the divine hierarchy. And all governments were viewed essentially as something imposed
upon men by whatever pantheon of deity was accepted at the time. Thus we had in conjunction
with government, the concept of the divine right of kings, and the idea that the king,
or whoever acted as the head of the state, was in point of fact not representing people,
but representing the divine. And so governments from the outset took on that characteristic.
Of course, in the passing of time it became apparent that the men holding this power were
not divine. It became increasingly apparent that they were guilty of every conceivable
type of despotism, so that populations under the control of presumably divine kings, or
at least persons who believed and contended that they were placed in positions of power
by some divine act, were in fact capable of every kind of mischief and malfeasance and
misfeasance when it came to dealing with people. Ordinary mortals found that they suffered
and suffered on a continuingly increasing scale at the hands of government. The reason
The reason for this, of course, is that every government, however ordained, contains within
it the element of force, and the view of that person or those persons who constitute the
government is that they must and will use force in order to maintain something for the
good of the total group, whatever they decide is good.
Thus it happened that after many centuries of experience with kings who were viewed first
as being totally divine and then human beings, but nonetheless with certain divine attributes,
notably a divine right to do as they pleased, objection to this concept began to emerge,
and it emerged in several ages and in various ways. Our own acquaintance with this, as Americans,
really began when this country was founded. We had become disenchanted with British rule.
It was believed, of course, that the ruling families of Britain were somehow divinely
selected and divinely ordained, and we began to suspect in a very large way that the kings
and queens who had taken positions of total power in England were not only not divine,
in many instances they were less divine than persons who didn't have this power. And we
began to devise the idea of the common right of humanity to it, that if it was possible
for any man to have any divine rights at all, then all men had exactly the same rights,
and therefore there was no such thing as a special being who was by some divine act placed
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should be represented by the government.
So we began to change our view of government and began to think of it
as an agency that represented the people at large, or if not all the people,
at least certain significant numbers of them.
In the concept of democracy, the theory is that the government shall be of the people,
and theoretically this means all the people.
Now, in point of fact, there can only be a limited number of places from which power comes that is placed into the hands of a ruling individual or a ruling body.
That power would have to be granted either by divine right, or it could be obtained by force, or it could be obtained by deception, or it could be obtained by contract.
Now as we examine what has happened in the past, and of course undoubtedly we have all been influenced to some degree by the writing of various scholars in this field,
The aim was suggested, or at least it was suggested that it had been an aim at one time,
that governments in fact were contractually organized. That is, that there was some kind
of a contract between the governing body and the people at large, and therefore a proper
business type of relationship existed between the people and the government, and therefore
And the people were participants in this procedure. In point of fact, that has never been true.
Not at any time, so far as history reveals the facts of the case. Governments have never
been established by contract. And when you examine this, you would see that this would
have to be the case. Although many Americans suppose that, in a sense, the American government
The American government provided just such an instance. In point of fact, it did not, and possibly one day the functions that a government undertakes may ultimately be established on the basis of contract.
What we are confronted with is a philosophic dilemma.
Of course it is true that if God does grant a divine right to someone, well then there
would be no question about that someone's having a right to rule others. But if this
cannot be established, if it cannot be definitely proved that any one person or any one family
has such a right given, and proof has been attempted and has never been found, then it
It follows that the nature of things being as they are, that each man has exactly the
same rights to control himself. And if this is the case, then it follows that there is
no way whatever that some body of men could obtain rightfully an arbitrary power over
other men. That is not possible without the consent of these other men.
So what we come down to then is, we either have a government which is established by
divine right, or we have a government that is established by the consent of the people
through a contract that in fact has been entered into, or we are left only with the idea that
government has been established either through force or by deceit or both. I regret to say
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Certain person or small group of elitists take onto themselves either the assumption
that they have been divinely ordained and they convince enough people of this so that
they obtain the sanction of the victims they intend to despoil, or they obtain this position
by force, a force which they retain, and then by making some kind of an arrangement with
with at least certain leading persons within the population, they establish, at least with
sufficient clarity that this would be the case, that the people will be better off under
their rule than without it. And hence, sanction is finally given, even though the government
was established by force. So what we are dealing with here then is a peculiar agency, an agency
that has been endowed with a mystique all its own, and yet it is a man-made agency that
has no more rightful existence than whatever rightful existence the persons had in themselves
naturally who established it, unless it could be established that the persons who placed
themselves under its control did so knowledgably and of their free act and deed, and did so
so voluntarily. Now that has never been done. So we are in point of fact facing an archaic
instrument which descends to us from barbaric times and which on any ground of either logic
or law has no real reason for existence. Now this is a deplorable thing to say and I realize
that it sounds very revolutionary and I don't mean it that way at all. It would be just
Most as reprehensible for us to seek to overthrow that which has long been established and which
has finally been accepted as it would be to impose one in the first place. And so we have
to deal with an existing agency that is as archaic as the spear and the bow and arrow.
It does not function as it should. The only manner in which it can function is to operate
in such a way that it violates the rights of individuals and it does this both through
force and deceit. Now, that this is force and deceit can, I think, be established if
we examine this whole concept of agency or the concept of representation. If we have
If you have a government that is a representative of a divine hierarchy, then of course there
is nothing that can be proved. We have already discarded that notion in this country. In
this respect I might point out that we may have an advantage over other countries that
are still bound to that idea, that the government that they have is holy and untouchable and
they cannot reach it, because it is divinely placed over them. We grew out of that better
and finally established the idea that this was not so. So we have only then to deal with
the concept that government in fact represents the people.
Now to represent someone is a perfectly legitimate act. Anyone can, who wishes to, appoint someone
and to act for him in a perfectly moral and reasonable way. I could ask you to act for
me in any given instance wherein I want something done and for some reason I may not be able
to do it myself. I may need your help as I do, for instance, if I hire an attorney or
if I hire a teacher or if I hire a real estate agent or someone else to act for me who has
has special knowledge or possibly can be in a special place at a special time when I cannot
be there or when I cannot do what that person can do for me. The concept of agency is one
that is deeply entrenched in ordinary human behavior. We have had it with us for a very
long time. Now, one of the characteristics of agency is that every agent is responsible
to the principal who hires him. Thus, if I hire you as an agent to act for me, it is
understood that I am responsible for your actions to the degree that I am paying you
or am otherwise remunerating you for doing something for me that I am not going to do
for myself. Further, it is understood by virtue of the existence of this agency that you are
are going to act in my interests. Otherwise, there would be no point in my obtaining your
services in the first place. So when I appoint you to act as my agent, then you become, in
a sense, an extension of me insofar as this agency relationship is concerned. It would
be immoral and indeed it would be illegal in this country for me to hire you as an agent,
Let us say a real estate agent to buy a certain property for me that we'll say is in another
part of the country. So you accept this condition of agency with me, let us suppose. But as
you're accepting it, a second party comes to you and says to you, I wonder if you would
act as my agent to procure the same piece of property that I want, you see. This would
would give you the job, then, of representing two persons who have an interest in obtaining
the same property, and it follows that you could not obtain it for both of us. Therefore,
if you accepted such employment, you would be engaged in a dishonest act. It would be
reprehensible from any moral point of view, and it would be illegal from any legal point
of view. You cannot do it. In fact, were an attorney or a real estate agent to attempt
such a type of representation, he could be subject to various punishments which the law has ordained
for just such type of behavior. We would consider such behavior reprehensible. In other words,
when you have a condition of agency as such, the agent is responsible to the principal,
the principal is responsible to the agent, and the interests expressed that create the agency
Agency must be adhered to honestly and with a full devotion to the cause that is set forth
that created the agency in the first place. Now then, consider the idea that a politician
as such can actually be the agent of a large number of people. That is impossible, because
even with two persons they will have divergent interests, and a politician who sets himself
to help up to represent two persons who have diverse interests is, of necessity, bound to cheat one of them.
He couldn't help it. However well-intentioned he may be, he cannot actually represent two persons who have divergent views,
or divergent claims, or divergent interests. Much less could he represent the body politic. That is impossible.
Therefore, when a man runs for public office and contends that he is going to represent
a large number of persons, that is, in essence, a statement of fraud. He cannot do it. I am
not trying to malign his good intentions in the matter. He is simply, like the rest of
us, caught up in a philosophy that is erroneous. It cannot be done. And the result is, and
And we go around saying it all the time in between elections, we hope we'll get a politician
in office who will honestly fulfill his promises. It can't be done. It is not possible. What
happens is, of course, that once the man obtains power, which is a presumptive usurpation of
a grant given by a whole number of principles, then the man cannot respond to the wishes
The only thing that we have gotten around to now is a kind of government where the politician
represents the largest number of persons in general areas, which means that he will in
fact defraud the smaller number. And that is the only benefit that is available. That
is, fewer persons are cheated than would otherwise be cheated if he were in fact to follow the
This is, of course, implicit in the whole idea of collective representation. There can be no such thing. In fact, it is both immoral and in every area but politics it is illegal, but we make an exception politically and we contend that what cannot be done legally and morally in other areas can be done both legally and morally within a political framework.
This is, of course, to create a double standard of values. It is to establish that what a politician does is moral, providing only that he is a politician at the time he does it. If anyone else does it, it is immoral, it could be punished by law, and indeed if anyone attempted it, the chances would be very good that he would both be discovered and punished as a result of his action.
implicit in any kind of general representation. Now, if you were to, on the other hand, create
what we would call a representative government, in which each faction and each interest had
a representative, you would have a government of such unwieldy proportions that they couldn't
ever get together in any one building. The numbers of persons involved would be thousands
in Numbers. We have so many divergent interests just in the area of property and economics
alone, let alone religious interests, racial interests, educational interests, and secular
interests by the score. It would be impossible to find a person who could honestly and truly
represent everybody on such a broad front. It cannot be done.
Now, there is another reason that shows the peculiar character of the kind of government
that we have, because it actually states in the Constitution of the United States that
the members of Congress, that is to say the so-called elected representatives of the body
politic, cannot be questioned for the actions that they take and the things that they say
Way and Do while they are engaged in their political endeavors.
And when the word questioned is inserted here, it means they cannot be questioned in any
legal way.
That is, they cannot be held to any legal accounting process.
This means that we have adopted the idea that we can in fact select a man to represent everybody,
which is absolutely impossible, but we make it a part of the condition of selecting him
that he will not be accountable to the people that have selected him.
Now, since all agents are accountable and are in fact responsible to the persons who
choose them, this is clearly a case where we simply have an arbitrary usurpation of power.
There are still other reasons that could be provided. For example, all principles and
and all agents must of necessity be publicly known to each other. And yet it is a fact
that since we select our agents, so called, through an election process, so called, in
a secret manner, by secret ballot, not a single one of the men thus selected has any actual
And consequently he does not know who asked him to be an agent nor could he prove that
anybody ever asked him to be an agent of anyone. Now that is the unfortunate situation that
that confronts us when we think in terms of representative government.
In point of fact, representative government cannot exist on any kind of broad front because
that is a moral and legal impossibility.
And were it to try to exist on a narrow front, that is to say you would have representatives
for each individual or each tiny group that had specified interests, then the government
itself would be so unwieldy that it could not be managed, and the whole thing would
fall of its own weight. So now we are left with a realization that if government is to
exist it either has to exist as something that is divinely ordained, which we have fairly
well discarded, or that it must exist as something that represents the body politic, which it
cannot and no one as an individual can do. Therefore, we have an agency here that has
a life of its own. It is a life that is not granted to it by anyone. It simply presumes
to exist for itself. It is the derivative of a barbaric culture where it has assumed
Now, there is a chance, of course, that we can arrange a better way of doing things. And
this would be to establish this concept. To do it, we have to turn to the area of contract.
But before turning to the area of contract, let me point out one very important factor
Many people today have accepted government almost as though it is divine, as though it
has almost supernatural powers. It doesn't. Government is just a group of men, a group
of men who are endowed with neither more, or possibly neither less, reason, ability,
Government is just a group of men. That's all it is. The assumption that government should only do those things for men that they cannot do for themselves is, of course, an absurd one, because what could a group of men do that a group of men couldn't do? All that government is, is a group of men.
So you have to understand that if you're going to approach the concept of contract itself.
Now this is of course a fact. Government does provide a number of services and it performs
a number of chores that need doing. This is not in question. What is in question is the particular
method of doing it, not the doing of the jobs themselves. These are jobs that do need doing,
And certainly, if we are to have a civilization, and if we are to learn to live in harmony
with one another, we are going to have to continue to get these jobs done. Now these
jobs can be contracted for. Whatever the job is, persons who desire that particular job
accomplished can turn to any agency that is qualified to perform that task and hire them
to do it. There is nothing wrong with that. What does government do today? Well, government
is engaged in doing all kinds of things. In fact, it would be hard, it would be very difficult
today to find any area in which government is excluded. Think of anything that people
are presently doing. You can virtually assure yourself in advance that there is a government
agency involved in it somewhere, whether we are talking in terms of parking lots, radio
Stations, the manufacture of goods, the wholesaling or retailing of merchandise, the building
of roads, the handling of protective devices or protection generally, all of these things
are being done in the market by private persons and they are also being done by government
agencies or if they are in the market they are probably being supervised by government
agencies. All of these things can be and are being done by men. Remember that government
is just a group of men. It's a particular group of men that presumes that it has rights
over other men. Now, if you are going to move toward the concept of a contract, which would
be a valid one predicated upon the idea of mutual respect, mutual understanding, and
the common rights of humanity, then it becomes a simple matter to realize that all that we
The only thing we have to do is to organize our affairs in such way that we contract with parties, or a party, to provide certain goods and services that we want, and we do so in our own name, appointing them as agents to act for us in these cases, and not expecting everybody else to join in, and on that basis we could arrive at an amicable way of settling our difficulties. Thank you.