With such colossal and aggressive government, it can be quite difficult to analyze all of the effects it has on private life, the economy, crime, and essentially every aspect of civilian life. If you go by the government’s own record, you might think everything good that happens is due to government, and everything bad that happens is because of one government detractor or another: drug cartels, terrorists, survivalists, Catholics, Jews, Muslims—there have been many scapegoats throughout history. But when you understand market forces, you can begin to tease apart what influence the government has had on our society.
Obviously, the government creates the narrative, so they will naturally place themselves as the constant savior, while any of their critics will be the perpetual villain. It is obvious to most people that this is not always the case, but indeed I firmly believe it to never be the case. Right off the bat is the fact that government lies. Everyone knows it, starting right from the fact that they claim everything they do is beneficial when we all (yes, EVERYONE) knows that is not true.
Republicans know that the Democratic politicians lie, and Republicans know that the Democratic appointees lie. The Fascists blamed the Socialists, the Monarchs blamed the Communists, and pretty much everyone blamed the Jews. If you are anti-war you know the government lies about terrorists. If you are anti-welfare you know the government lies about poverty. If you laissez-faire you know the government lies about the economy, and if you are Keynesian you know the government lies about capitalism.
The next big step is realizing practically everything the government says is a lie, and practically everything it does serves an ulterior motive. It is not the government that keeps us safe, it is not the government that keeps us fed, it is not the government that educates us, it is not the government who houses us, and it is most certainly not the government that organizes society.
In fact, most disorder in society is a result of the government’s attempt to implement their vision of an organized society. And there is nothing magic about government versus industry; you need only to consider what each actually is at its core. The government cannot exist without coercion, or we would not call it a government. Monopolizing the initiation of force is a defining characteristic of government; they allow themselves, but supposedly no one else (besides their cronies), to aggress upon people, not just in retaliation, but to fund everything they do. They use this aggression anywhere within their arbitrarily defined borders without typical consequences that anyone else could expect from attacking someone, or being aggressive.
Industry on the other hand, when not working in tandem with government, is constrained by market responses, as in, people will not put up with being aggressed upon. The government can come to my house with guns and force me to pay them protection money. A business must attract me to their product or service in order to get my money. I must obey the government or face jail or death. With business, I must agree to the price and they the product (a mutually beneficial transaction), and if no agreement is found, we will simply go our separate ways.
Some people think that without government, businesses would be able to come to your house and demand money. But there is nothing to back this up. In fact, economic principles refute this. Just like the threat of mutual destruction keeps wolves from invading other wolves’ territory, so would businesses seek to avoid costly confrontation, in order to continue to make a profit.
This makes even more sense when you consider that various businesses would offer services (with profit as their incentive) to protect individuals from any number of criminals, including cartels. A cartel is essentially a business that begins to use government tactics to fund their enterprise (government tactics being forcing “customers” to pay them money, like taxes or mafia style “protection”). Then any aggressive company would be picking on someone their own size (another company), and thus could expect at least the ruin of their business, and probably death or confinement, if they initiate force against innocent people.
The only reason this would happen is if the market (AKA people who earn and spend money) places no value on peace. I like peace, do you like peace? Yeah even people who don’t like peace generally have to pretend they do. Companies can currently make money off war because the government steals our money and gives it to the military industrial complex. If the companies had to earn the money, war would be avoided at all costs to maintain profits, attract customers, attract employees, and for management to stay alive and not in a cage.
I Put Up With the Murder of Hundreds of Millions of Innocent Human Beings, and All I got Was This Lousy Road
So you see, the mechanisms exist in a free market to offer all the benefits of organized society, without the detriments of accepting government force as okay. Plus, there would be a clear line: initiation of force is never okay, even if an organization calls themselves a government.
This would prevent prosecution for victimless crimes, since without a victim, who would pay for the prosecution? It would also stop genocides carried out by governments, as has happened over the past century in Cambodia, Indonesia, Turkey, Germany, Russia, China, Darfur, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Rwanda, Iraq, and North Korea to name a few. Currently, governments can do any number of terrible things under the guise of helping people, the greater good, or simply having enough guns and soldiers to not require an excuse for their aggression.
Now one might think with such an insanely lopsided record of governments carrying out evil against all sorts of innocent and peaceful people, that the burden of proof would rest on government as to the benefits it creates. It seems they would have to do a lot of good in order to make up for the murder, torture, and imprisonment of at very least half a billion innocent people, in only 100 years. But the government gets to write the narrative. Building roads is necessary, so just ignore the vast atrocities. And also don’t give it much thought, because you will realize you didn’t need government to build the roads after all. And you don’t need the government to keep you safe either—they are a bigger threat to your safety than the people they “protect” you from.
If it can all be summed up in one sentence, here it is. People must currently seek permission from government to exist, where as in a free market with no government, businesses would require permission from people to exist.
And that is why a free market would create a better society than the government has. Stay tuned, because the government could not create such a false narrative, without the tools to mold the population to their liking: public education.
