Power and liberty

... Democracy and Coercion | Front Porch Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Since the controversy centered, at least initially, on the specific issue of government coercion, let me start there. As I mentioned in a comment on Mr. Salyer’s article, to govern simply means to coerce, in some form or other. This is just a definitional truth. If I am interpreting him correctly (and I certainly don’t wish to speak for him), Mr. Salyer was getting at a point very similar when he wrote: “I myself endorse coercion quite openly, much as I endorse gravity. Yes, tyranny is a nasty business, but then so is falling down a flight of stairs.” One cannot escape governmental coercion without escaping government itself; abuse of such coercion, in the form of tyranny, is of course deplorable, but so is the absence of such coercion, in the form of anarchy. The more candid we are about this fact, the better. The alternative is to escape into quasi-Rousseauistic fantasies about the “general will,” which, as they disguise the authentic exercise of coercion behind a veil of fictional consent, afford all the more scope to the raw imposition of power.

I'm not so sure that "to govern simply means to coerce." I think it better to draw the distinction Albert Jay Nock did between government and the state. The government may need power to back up its authority, but the state is necessarily coercive.

If a group of people form a dinner club, it may turn out to be convenient for all involved if one of their number is charged with making the arrangement for any specific get-together. The members of the club give that person the authority to make those arrangements, and that person, in so doing, performs what we would expect government to do. If that person somehow manages, after a time, to be deciding when the club will meet, where it will eat, what will be served, etc., then that person is beginning to take on the characteristics of the state.

Government can be construed as the agency for carrying out the collective needs of society, regarding which needs much common agreement can be found. We all want someone to deal with thieves and muggers, etc. We don't want to have people dealing with these things on their own. To deal with them, the agency charged will need power, and while that agency may have to coerce the fellow who just robbed the bank to get into the police van, I doubt if many of us are likely to view that as tyranny.