WEBVTT NOTE 23. The Inner Contradictions of the State 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.600 Chapter 23—The Inner Contradictions of the State 2 00:00:06.600 --> 00:00:12.280 A major problem with discussions of the necessity of government is the fact that all such discussions 3 00:00:12.280 --> 00:00:19.840 necessarily take place within a context of centuries of state existence and state rule—rule 4 00:00:19.840 --> 00:00:23.260 to which the public has become habituated. 5 00:00:23.260 --> 00:00:29.800 The wry coupling of the twin certainties in the popular motto, death and taxes, demonstrates 6 00:00:29.800 --> 00:00:34.800 It's that the public has resigned itself to the existence of the state as an evil but 7 00:00:34.800 --> 00:00:39.940 inescapable force of nature to which there is no alternative. 8 00:00:39.940 --> 00:00:45.440 The force of habit as the cement of state rule was seen as early as the 16th century 9 00:00:45.440 --> 00:00:48.300 writings of de la Bouteille. 10 00:00:48.300 --> 00:00:54.660 But logically, and to cast off the scales of habit, we must not merely compare an existing 11 00:00:54.660 --> 00:01:16.340 Let us assume, for example, that a sizable number of people suddenly arrive on earth, 12 00:01:16.340 --> 00:01:21.220 and that they must now consider what sort of social arrangements to live under. 13 00:01:21.220 --> 00:01:28.220 One person or group of persons argues as follows, that is, the typical argument for the state. 14 00:01:28.220 --> 00:01:34.020 If each of us is allowed to remain free in all aspects, and particularly if each of us 15 00:01:34.020 --> 00:01:39.940 is allowed to retain weapons and the right of self-defense, then we will all war against 16 00:01:39.940 --> 00:01:42.900 each other and society will be wrecked. 17 00:01:42.900 --> 00:01:49.240 Therefore, let us turn over all of our guns and all of our ultimate decision-making power 18 00:01:49.240 --> 00:01:55.000 and Power to Define and Enforce Our Rights to the Jones Family over there. 19 00:01:55.000 --> 00:02:02.560 The Jones Family will guard us from our predatory instincts, keep social peace and enforce justice. 20 00:02:02.560 --> 00:02:08.960 Is it conceivable that anyone, except perhaps the Jones Family itself, would spend one moment 21 00:02:08.960 --> 00:02:12.840 considering this clearly absurd scheme? 22 00:02:12.840 --> 00:02:17.860 The cry of, who would guard us from the Jones Family, especially when we are deprived of 23 00:02:17.860 --> 00:02:22.700 of Our Weapons, would suffice to shout down such a scheme. 24 00:02:22.700 --> 00:02:28.660 And yet, given the acquisition of legitimacy from the fact of longevity, given the long-time 25 00:02:28.660 --> 00:02:34.820 rule of the Jones family, this is precisely the type of argument to which we now blindly 26 00:02:34.820 --> 00:02:36.820 adhere. 27 00:02:36.820 --> 00:02:41.820 Employing the logical model of the state of nature aids us in casting off the fetters 28 00:02:41.820 --> 00:02:55.660 If, in fact, we cast a cold and logical eye on the theory of limited government, we can 29 00:02:55.660 --> 00:03:01.580 see it for the chimera that it really is, for the unrealistic and inconsistent utopia 30 00:03:01.580 --> 00:03:03.940 that it holds forth. 31 00:03:03.940 --> 00:03:09.260 In the first place, there is no reason to assume that a compulsory monopoly of violence 32 00:03:09.260 --> 00:03:16.220 once acquired by the Jones family or by any state rulers will remain limited to protection 33 00:03:16.220 --> 00:03:23.340 of person and property. Certainly, historically, no government has long remained limited in this way, 34 00:03:24.140 --> 00:03:27.100 and there are excellent reasons to suppose that it never will. 35 00:03:28.220 --> 00:03:34.860 First, once the cancerous principle of coercion, of coerced revenue and compulsory monopoly of 36 00:03:34.860 --> 00:03:40.360 of Violence is established and legitimated at the very heart of society. 37 00:03:40.360 --> 00:03:46.140 There is every reason to suppose that this precedent will be expanded and embellished. 38 00:03:46.140 --> 00:03:52.260 In particular, it is in the economic interest of the state rulers to work actively for such 39 00:03:52.260 --> 00:03:53.800 expansion. 40 00:03:53.800 --> 00:03:59.140 The more the coercive powers of the state are expanded beyond the cherished limits of 41 00:03:59.140 --> 00:04:04.580 and the laissez-faire theorists, the greater the power and pelf accruing to the ruling 42 00:04:04.580 --> 00:04:08.380 caste operating the state apparatus. 43 00:04:08.380 --> 00:04:15.180 Hence the ruling caste, eager to maximize its power and wealth, will stretch state power 44 00:04:15.180 --> 00:04:21.640 and will encounter only feeble opposition, given the legitimacy it and its allied intellectuals 45 00:04:21.640 --> 00:04:27.860 are gaining, and given the lack of any institutional free market channels of resistance to the 46 00:04:27.860 --> 00:04:33.560 The Government's Monopoly of Coercion and the Power of Ultimate Decision-Making 47 00:04:33.560 --> 00:04:38.780 On the free market, it is a happy fact that the maximization of the wealth of one person 48 00:04:38.780 --> 00:04:42.540 or group redounds to the benefit of all. 49 00:04:42.540 --> 00:04:47.980 But in the political realm, the realm of the state, a maximization of income and wealth 50 00:04:47.980 --> 00:04:54.420 can only accrue parasitically to the state and its rulers at the expense of the rest 51 00:04:54.420 --> 00:04:57.740 of society. 52 00:04:57.740 --> 00:05:03.100 Residents of a limited government often hold up the ideal of a government above the fray, 53 00:05:03.100 --> 00:05:09.420 refraining from taking sides or throwing its weight around, an umpire, arbitrating impartially 54 00:05:09.420 --> 00:05:12.660 between contending factions in society. 55 00:05:12.660 --> 00:05:16.740 Yet, why should the government do so? 56 00:05:16.740 --> 00:05:22.140 Given the unchecked power of the state, the state and its rulers will act to maximize their 57 00:05:22.140 --> 00:05:29.220 Their Power and Wealth, and hence inexorably expand beyond the supposed limits. 58 00:05:29.220 --> 00:05:34.700 The crucial point is that in the utopia of limited government and laissez-faire, there 59 00:05:34.700 --> 00:05:40.660 are no institutional mechanisms to keep the state limited. 60 00:05:40.660 --> 00:05:45.420 Surely the bloody record of states throughout history should have demonstrated that any 61 00:05:45.420 --> 00:05:52.700 Any power, once granted or acquired, will be used and therefore abused. 62 00:05:52.700 --> 00:05:57.980 Power corrupts, as the libertarian Lord Acton so wisely noted. 63 00:05:57.980 --> 00:06:04.420 Furthermore, apart from the absence of institutional mechanisms to keep the ultimate decision-maker 64 00:06:04.420 --> 00:06:10.980 and force-wielder limited to protection of rights, there is a grave inner contradiction 65 00:06:10.980 --> 00:06:16.620 Inherent in the very ideal of a neutral or impartial state. 66 00:06:16.620 --> 00:06:22.840 For there can be no such thing as a neutral tax, a taxing system that will be neutral 67 00:06:22.840 --> 00:06:27.560 to the market as it would have been without taxation. 68 00:06:27.560 --> 00:06:33.580 As John C. Calhoun trenchantly pointed out in the early 19th century, the very existence 69 00:06:33.580 --> 00:06:39.160 of taxation negates any possibility of such neutrality. 70 00:06:39.160 --> 00:06:44.880 For given any level of taxation, the least that will happen will be the creation of two 71 00:06:44.880 --> 00:06:52.800 antagonistic social classes, the ruling classes who gain by and live off taxation, and the 72 00:06:52.800 --> 00:06:56.780 ruled classes who pay the taxes. 73 00:06:56.780 --> 00:07:03.760 In short, conflicting classes of net taxpayers and net tax consumers. 74 00:07:03.760 --> 00:07:10.120 At the very least, the government bureaucrats will necessarily be net tax consumers. 75 00:07:10.120 --> 00:07:15.280 Other such will be those persons and groups subsidized by the inevitable expenditures 76 00:07:15.280 --> 00:07:17.440 of government. 77 00:07:17.440 --> 00:07:23.220 As Calhoun put it, the agents and employees of the government constitute that portion 78 00:07:23.220 --> 00:07:29.320 of the community who are the exclusive recipients of the proceeds of the taxes. 79 00:07:29.320 --> 00:07:34.680 Whatever amount is taken from the community in the form of taxes, if not lost, goes to 80 00:07:34.680 --> 00:07:38.880 them in the shape of expenditures and disbursements. 81 00:07:38.880 --> 00:07:45.120 The two, disbursement and taxation, constitute the fiscal action of the government. 82 00:07:45.120 --> 00:07:47.480 They are correlatives. 83 00:07:47.480 --> 00:07:52.720 What the one takes from the community under the name of taxes is transferred to the portion 84 00:07:52.720 --> 00:07:57.640 of the community who are the recipients under that of disbursements. 85 00:07:57.640 --> 00:08:03.480 But as the recipients constitute only a portion of the community, it follows, taking the two 86 00:08:03.480 --> 00:08:09.780 parts of the fiscal process together, that its actions must be unequal between the payers 87 00:08:09.780 --> 00:08:14.080 of the taxes and the recipients of their proceeds. 88 00:08:14.080 --> 00:08:19.880 Nor can it be otherwise, unless what is collected from each individual in the shape of taxes 89 00:08:19.880 --> 00:08:25.880 shall be returned to him in that of disbursements, which would make the process nougatory and 90 00:08:25.880 --> 00:08:33.560 The necessary result then of the unequal fiscal action of the government is to divide the 91 00:08:33.560 --> 00:08:41.640 community into two great classes, one consisting of those who in reality pay the taxes and 92 00:08:41.640 --> 00:08:47.720 of course bear exclusively the burden of supporting the government, and the other of those who 93 00:08:47.720 --> 00:08:53.380 are the recipients of their proceeds through disbursements and who are in fact supported 94 00:08:53.380 --> 00:09:01.740 by the Government, or, in fewer words, to divide it into taxpayers and tax consumers. 95 00:09:01.740 --> 00:09:06.740 But the effect of this is to place them in antagonistic relations in reference to the 96 00:09:06.740 --> 00:09:13.140 fiscal action of the government, and the entire course of policy therewith connected. 97 00:09:13.140 --> 00:09:18.500 For the greater the taxes and disbursements, the greater the gain of the one and the loss 98 00:09:18.500 --> 00:09:21.540 of the other, and vice versa. 99 00:09:21.540 --> 00:09:27.660 The effect then of every increase is to enrich and strengthen the one and impoverish and 100 00:09:27.660 --> 00:09:31.180 weaken the other. 101 00:09:31.180 --> 00:09:37.380 Calhoun goes on to point out that a constitution will not be able to keep the government limited. 102 00:09:37.380 --> 00:09:43.000 For given a monopoly Supreme Court, selected by the self-same government and granted the 103 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:50.480 power of ultimate decision-making, the political inns will always favor a broad or loose interpretation 104 00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:55.680 of the wording of the Constitution, serving to expand the powers of government over the 105 00:09:55.680 --> 00:09:57.440 citizenry. 106 00:09:57.440 --> 00:10:04.280 And over time, the ins will inexorably tend to win out over the minority of outs who will 107 00:10:04.280 --> 00:10:10.480 argue vainly for a strict interpretation limiting state power. 108 00:10:10.480 --> 00:10:17.620 But there are other fatal flaws and inconsistencies in the concept of limited laissez-faire government. 109 00:10:17.620 --> 00:10:22.780 In the first place, it is generally accepted by limited government and by other political 110 00:10:22.780 --> 00:10:29.100 philosophers that the state is necessary for the creation and development of law. 111 00:10:29.100 --> 00:10:31.840 But this is historically incorrect. 112 00:10:31.840 --> 00:10:38.440 For most law, but especially the most libertarian parts of the law, emerged not from the state, 113 00:10:38.440 --> 00:10:41.620 but out of non-state institutions. 114 00:10:41.620 --> 00:10:47.580 Federal Custom, Common Law Judges and Courts, The Law Merchant in Mercantile Courts, or 115 00:10:47.580 --> 00:10:52.900 Admiralty Law in Tribunals set up by shippers themselves. 116 00:10:52.900 --> 00:10:58.540 In the case of competing common law judges, as well as elders of tribes, the judges were 117 00:10:58.540 --> 00:11:06.260 not engaged in making law but in finding the law in existing and generally accepted principles, 118 00:11:06.260 --> 00:11:14.240 and then applying that law to specific cases or to new technological or institutional conditions. 119 00:11:14.240 --> 00:11:17.380 The same was true in private Roman law. 120 00:11:17.380 --> 00:11:23.740 Moreover, in ancient Ireland, a society existing for a thousand years until the conquest by 121 00:11:23.740 --> 00:11:29.220 Cromwell, there was no trace of state-administered justice. 122 00:11:29.220 --> 00:11:34.520 Competing schools of professional jurists interpreted and applied the common body of 123 00:11:34.520 --> 00:11:42.200 of Customary Law, with enforcement undertaken by competing and voluntarily supported tuatha, 124 00:11:42.200 --> 00:11:49.660 or insurance agencies. Furthermore, these customary rules were not haphazard or arbitrary, 125 00:11:49.660 --> 00:11:56.240 but consciously rooted in natural law, discoverable by man's reason. 126 00:11:56.240 --> 00:12:01.040 But in addition to the historical inaccuracy of the view that the state is needed for the 127 00:12:01.040 --> 00:12:11.040 and the Development of Law, Randy Barnett has brilliantly pointed out that the state by its very nature cannot obey its own legal rules. 128 00:12:11.040 --> 00:12:21.040 But if the state cannot obey its own legal rules, then it is necessarily deficient and self-contradictory as a maker of law. 129 00:12:21.040 --> 00:12:28.040 In an exegesis and critique of Lon L. Fuller's seminal work, The Morality of Law, 130 00:12:28.040 --> 00:12:33.080 Barnett notes that Professor Fuller sees in the current thinking of legal positivism a 131 00:12:33.080 --> 00:12:39.200 persistent error, the assumption that law should be viewed as a one-way projection of 132 00:12:39.200 --> 00:12:45.480 authority originating with government and imposing itself upon the citizen. 133 00:12:45.480 --> 00:12:51.880 Fuller points out that law is not simply vertical, a command from above, from the state to its 134 00:12:51.880 --> 00:13:09.880 Fuller points to international law, tribal law, private rules, etc. as pervasive examples of such reciprocal and non-state law. 135 00:13:09.880 --> 00:13:17.880 Fuller sees the positivist error as stemming from failure to recognize a crucial principle of proper law, 136 00:13:17.880 --> 00:13:25.320 Namely, that the lawmaker should itself obey its own rules that it lays down for its citizens, 137 00:13:25.320 --> 00:13:31.280 or in Fuller's words, that enacted law itself presupposes a commitment by the government 138 00:13:31.280 --> 00:13:37.200 authority to abide by its own rules in dealing with its subjects. 139 00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:43.080 But Barnett correctly points out that Fuller errs significantly in failing to apply his 140 00:13:43.080 --> 00:13:45.760 own principle far enough. 141 00:13:45.760 --> 00:13:51.540 and limiting the principle to the procedural rules by which laws are passed rather than 142 00:13:51.540 --> 00:13:56.040 applying it to the substance of the laws themselves. 143 00:13:56.040 --> 00:14:01.320 Because of this failure to carry his principle to its logical conclusion, Fuller fails to 144 00:14:01.320 --> 00:14:07.120 see the inherent inner contradiction of the state as maker of law. 145 00:14:07.120 --> 00:14:12.760 As Barnett puts it, Fuller fails in his attempt because he has not followed his own principle 146 00:14:12.760 --> 00:14:18.680 are all far enough. If he did, he would see that the state legal system does not conform 147 00:14:18.680 --> 00:14:24.920 to the principle of official congruence with its own rules. It is because the positivists 148 00:14:24.920 --> 00:14:31.960 see that the state inherently violates its own rules that they conclude, in a sense correctly, 149 00:14:31.960 --> 00:14:38.760 that state-made law is sui generis. However, Barnett adds, if Fuller's principle 150 00:14:38.760 --> 00:14:43.640 People were carried forward to assert that the lawmaker must obey the substance of his 151 00:14:43.640 --> 00:14:52.200 own laws, then Fuller would see that the State, by its nature, must violate this commitment. 152 00:14:52.200 --> 00:14:57.600 For Barnett correctly points out that the two unique and essential features of the State 153 00:14:57.600 --> 00:15:05.060 are its power to tax, to acquire its revenue by coercion and hence robbery, and to prevent 154 00:15:05.060 --> 00:15:11.740 and its subjects from hiring any other defense agency, compulsory monopoly of defense. 155 00:15:11.740 --> 00:15:16.620 Both features are essential to the historical category of the state. 156 00:15:16.620 --> 00:15:22.080 Various utopian schemes to dispense with the first trait and keep the second would still 157 00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:26.940 come under the present strictures as applied to the second trait. 158 00:15:26.940 --> 00:15:33.240 But in doing so, the state violates its own laws that it sets down for its subjects. 159 00:15:33.240 --> 00:15:39.580 As Barnett explains, for example, the state says that citizens may not take from another 160 00:15:39.580 --> 00:15:46.240 by force and against his will that which belongs to another, and yet the state, through its 161 00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:51.160 power to tax, legitimately does just that. 162 00:15:51.160 --> 00:15:57.760 More essentially, the state says that a person may use force upon another only in self-defense, 163 00:15:57.760 --> 00:16:03.560 That is, only as a defense against another who initiated the use of force. 164 00:16:03.560 --> 00:16:09.560 To go beyond one's right of self-defense would be to aggress on the rights of others, a violation 165 00:16:09.560 --> 00:16:11.840 of one's legal duty. 166 00:16:11.840 --> 00:16:17.880 And yet, the State, by its claimed monopoly, forcibly imposes its jurisdiction on persons 167 00:16:17.880 --> 00:16:20.520 who may have done nothing wrong. 168 00:16:20.520 --> 00:16:25.920 By doing so, it aggresses against the rights of its citizens, something which its rules 169 00:16:25.920 --> 00:16:28.920 say citizens may not do. 170 00:16:28.920 --> 00:16:35.160 The state, in short, may steal where its subjects may not, and it may aggress, initiate the 171 00:16:35.160 --> 00:16:41.880 use of force against its subjects while prohibiting them from exercising the same right. 172 00:16:41.880 --> 00:16:47.320 It is to this that the positivists look when they say that the law, meaning state-made 173 00:16:47.320 --> 00:16:51.240 law, is a one-way vertical process. 174 00:16:51.240 --> 00:16:57.200 It is this that belies any claim of true reciprocity. 175 00:16:57.200 --> 00:17:02.840 Barnett concludes that interpreted consistently, Fuller's principle means that in a true and 176 00:17:02.840 --> 00:17:09.800 proper legal system, the lawmaker must follow all of its rules, procedural and substantive 177 00:17:09.800 --> 00:17:10.800 alike. 178 00:17:10.800 --> 00:17:17.840 Therefore, to the degree that it does not and cannot do this, it is not and cannot be 179 00:17:17.840 --> 00:17:28.840 is a legal system, and its acts are outside the law. The state, qua state, therefore, is an illegal system. 180 00:17:28.840 --> 00:17:34.840 Another inner contradiction of the theory of laissez-faire government deals again with taxation. 181 00:17:34.840 --> 00:17:44.840 For if government is to be limited to protection of person and property, and taxation is to be limited to providing that service only, 182 00:17:44.840 --> 00:17:51.040 Then how is the government to decide how much protection to provide, and how much taxes 183 00:17:51.040 --> 00:17:52.920 to levy? 184 00:17:52.920 --> 00:17:58.960 For contrary to the limited government theory, protection is no more a collective, one lump 185 00:17:58.960 --> 00:18:03.840 thing, than any other good or service in society. 186 00:18:03.840 --> 00:18:08.360 Suppose for example that we might offer a competing theory, that government should be 187 00:18:08.360 --> 00:18:13.200 limited to supplying clothing free to all of its citizens. 188 00:18:13.200 --> 00:18:18.920 But this would scarcely be any sort of viable limit apart from other flaws in the theory. 189 00:18:18.920 --> 00:18:25.560 For how much clothing and at what cost? Must everyone be supplied with Balenciaga originals, 190 00:18:25.560 --> 00:18:31.640 for example? And who is to decide how much and what quality of clothing each person is 191 00:18:31.640 --> 00:18:39.000 to receive? Indeed, protection could conceivably imply anything from one policeman for an entire 192 00:18:39.000 --> 00:18:49.000 in the entire country to supplying an armed bodyguard and a tank for every citizen, a proposition which would bankrupt the society post-haste. 193 00:18:49.000 --> 00:19:02.000 But who is to decide on how much protection, since it is undeniable that every person would be better protected from theft and assault if provided with an armed bodyguard than if he is not? 194 00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:15.000 On the free market, decisions on how much and what quality of any good or service should be supplied to each person are made by means of voluntary purchases by each individual. 195 00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:21.000 But what criterion can be applied when the decision is made by government? 196 00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:28.000 The answer is none at all, and such governmental decisions can only be purely arbitrary. 197 00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:34.060 Secondly, one searches in vain in the writings of laissez-faire theorists for a cogent theory 198 00:19:34.060 --> 00:19:36.060 of taxation. 199 00:19:36.060 --> 00:19:42.240 Not only how much taxation is to be levied, but also who is to be forced to pay. 200 00:19:42.240 --> 00:19:48.160 The commonly adopted ability-to-pay theory, for example, is, as the libertarian Frank 201 00:19:48.160 --> 00:19:53.800 Chaturov pointed out, the philosophy of the highway robber, to extract as much loot from 202 00:19:53.800 --> 00:19:56.560 the victim as the robber can get away with. 203 00:19:56.560 --> 00:20:02.000 Scarcely a cogent social philosophy, and a total variance, of course, from the system 204 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:04.560 of payment on the free market. 205 00:20:04.560 --> 00:20:10.040 For if everyone were forced to pay for every good and service in proportion to his income, 206 00:20:10.040 --> 00:20:15.320 then there would be no pricing system at all, and no market system could work. 207 00:20:15.320 --> 00:20:20.960 David Rockefeller, for example, might be forced to pay one million dollars for a loaf of bread. 208 00:20:20.960 --> 00:20:27.720 Next, no laissez-faire writer has ever provided a theory of the size of the state. 209 00:20:27.720 --> 00:20:33.200 If the state is to have a compulsory monopoly of force in a given territorial area, how 210 00:20:33.200 --> 00:20:36.640 large is that area to be? 211 00:20:36.640 --> 00:20:41.200 These theorists have not given full attention to the fact that the world has always lived 212 00:20:41.200 --> 00:20:47.840 in an international anarchy, with no one government or compulsory monopoly of decision-making 213 00:20:47.840 --> 00:20:50.800 between various countries. 214 00:20:50.800 --> 00:20:56.580 And yet, international relations between private citizens of different countries have generally 215 00:20:56.580 --> 00:21:01.920 functioned quite smoothly, despite the lack of a single government over them. 216 00:21:01.920 --> 00:21:08.800 Thus, a contractual or a tort dispute between a citizen of North Dakota and of Manitoba 217 00:21:08.800 --> 00:21:14.400 is usually handled quite smoothly, typically with the plaintiff suing or placing charges 218 00:21:14.400 --> 00:21:20.320 in his court, and the court of the other country recognizing the result. 219 00:21:20.320 --> 00:21:25.520 Problems and conflicts usually take place between the governments rather than the private 220 00:21:25.520 --> 00:21:28.840 citizens of the various countries. 221 00:21:28.840 --> 00:21:34.200 But more profoundly, would a laissez-faire theorist recognize the right of a region of 222 00:21:34.200 --> 00:21:38.120 a country to secede from that country? 223 00:21:38.120 --> 00:21:43.220 Is it legitimate for West Ruritania to secede from Ruritania? 224 00:21:43.220 --> 00:21:45.280 If not, why not? 225 00:21:45.280 --> 00:21:50.640 And if so, then how can there be a logical stopping point to the secession? 226 00:21:50.640 --> 00:21:55.880 May not a small district secede, and then a city, and then a borough of that city, and 227 00:21:55.880 --> 00:22:00.960 then a block, and then finally a particular individual? 228 00:22:00.960 --> 00:22:06.360 Once submit any right of secession whatever, and there is no logical stopping point short 229 00:22:06.360 --> 00:22:12.160 of the right of individual secession, which logically entails anarchism. 230 00:22:12.160 --> 00:22:17.880 Since then, individuals may secede and patronize their own defense agencies, and the state 231 00:22:17.880 --> 00:22:19.360 has crumbled. 232 00:22:19.360 --> 00:22:25.320 Finally, there is a crucial inconsistency in the proffered criterion of laissez-faire 233 00:22:25.320 --> 00:22:31.360 itself, limiting the government to protection of person and property. 234 00:22:31.360 --> 00:22:36.640 For if it is legitimate for a government to tax, why not tax its subjects to provide other 235 00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:40.700 goods and services that may be useful to consumers? 236 00:22:40.700 --> 00:22:46.020 Why shouldn't the government, for example, build steel plants, provide shoes, dams, postal 237 00:22:46.020 --> 00:22:47.940 service, etc.? 238 00:22:47.940 --> 00:22:52.180 For each of these goods and services is useful to consumers. 239 00:22:52.180 --> 00:22:57.660 If the laissez-faireists object that the government should not build steel plants or shoe factories 240 00:22:57.660 --> 00:23:03.520 and provide them to consumers, either free or for sale, because tax coercion had been 241 00:23:03.520 --> 00:23:09.400 employed in constructing these plants, well then the same objection can of course be made 242 00:23:09.400 --> 00:23:13.000 to Governmental Police or Judicial Service. 243 00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:18.240 The government should be acting no more immorally from the laissez-faire point of view when 244 00:23:18.240 --> 00:23:24.000 providing housing or steel than when providing police protection. 245 00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:30.120 Government limited to protection, then, cannot be sustained even within the laissez-faire 246 00:23:30.120 --> 00:23:35.300 ideal itself, much less from any other consideration. 247 00:23:35.300 --> 00:23:41.500 It is true that the laissez-faire ideal could still be employed to prevent such second-degree 248 00:23:41.500 --> 00:23:48.340 coercive activities of government, that is, coercion beyond the initial coercion of taxation 249 00:23:48.340 --> 00:23:55.940 as price control or outlawry of pornography, but the limits have now become flimsy indeed, 250 00:23:55.940 --> 00:24:00.920 and may be stretched to virtually complete collectivism in which the government only 251 00:24:00.920 --> 00:24:05.320 only supplies goods and services, yet supplies all of them.