I agree with some of your points, but not all. You continually equate government with 'force' or 'violence', when it's more accurately, the application of 'consequences' to behaviors that threaten the community.
I also would argue with some of your 'all or nothing' contentions. Just because crimes will always be committed in a community doesn't mean we stop prosecuting crimes. It also doesn't mean that we can't demand an overhaul of our broken criminal justice system and the factors driving crime. There are actual societal structural issues that perpetuate generational poverty and crime.
Could some problems be addressed outside of government? I don't believe this to be true. The benefit of government involvement is that systems are established (so the reliance on building infrastructure, schools, libraries, etc is shifted to the state). The weakness (as you note) is the inertia of the state to sel-corret without new or amended laws.
There are many thoughtful organizations that have done what you recommend: analyze root causes, but political polarization, a media ecosystem that is increasingly less interested in thoughtful nuance, and a populace traumatized by multiple interlocking existential crises make it almost impossible to create the conditions for thoughtful problem solving that you advocate. If anything, people are drawn to populist rhetoric in part due to the optics (artificial and false, of course) that there are simple solutions to complex issues.
One problem for democracy, or better said representative democracy, is that most people vote based on how they feel about X than how the think about X.
I read this and I cant help but wonder are we a people or just individuals competing for scarce resources. Do people stop their cars at red lights because it will be better for everyone if everyone does this. Where I live there is little traffic enforcement, people often do not stop for red lights, and there are many cases of hit and run accidents. Consider the poor pedestrian. Right turn on red has resulted in many pedestrian deaths. First of all people rarely stop at a red light when making a right turn. They may slow down. The look left to see if any traffic is coming but rarely look right to see if there is a pedestrian is in their path. And this is just one example.
Whenever anyone talks about the public interest you can hear the thoughts of many "sucker play"
This article went off the rails pretty early, when it asserted that "the state exists to affect certain kinds of social and economic change, to enforce certain social and economic rules...". The only proper purpose of government is to prevent others from using force or fraud against us to deprive us of life or property, or to punish them when they do. Any other use of government eventually ends up punishing people who have done nothing to hurt other people.
Saying that the state exists to "prevent others from using force or fraud against us to deprive us of life or property, or to punish them when they do" is just another way of saying, "In our society, we see instances of people using force and fraud, depriving people of life and property, and we should change that by ensuring there are rules against such behavior, and those rules enforced by punishment and threats of punishment."
In other words, rather than your claim about the purpose of government acting as a rebuttal to my claim about why the state exists, it is instead just one way of answering the question, "What kinds of social and economic change should the state be used to enact, and what rules should it enforce to see that those changes occur?"
But I don't think it will ever change. People will always try to use force or fraud against us. There are no philosopher kings and government has no business trying to change human nature.
Sure. But that's simply saying, "The state exists to solve the social and economic problems of force and fraud, but while it can have an impact, it can't ever solve it entirely."
Put another way, everything you're saying is in agreement with my initial claim about what the state exists, given that my claim about the state existing to affect change left open *what* change we want it to affect. You say "prevent force and fraud." Others might give a different answer. And the rest of my discussion in the episode is about how we should approach the question of what kinds of change and whether the state is the proper way to affect them.
Let's use the example of wages: In a free market, a business owner can offer any wage he wants to offer, and a prospective employer is free to take it or leave it. Each is free to think and act for himself. The owner does not have the option to force an employee take a job with no compensation, because that's slavery. Likewise, in a free society, the government would not be able to step in and tell the employer how much he has to pay, because that is using coercion to violate the business owner's property rights. Somewhere along the way, we accepted the premise the state can effect a change in the employee's pay because some of us want it to. Until we recognize that the government cannot coerce citizens who are not using fraud or force, we'll always be vulnerable to capture of our lives by authoritarians.
I agree with some of your points, but not all. You continually equate government with 'force' or 'violence', when it's more accurately, the application of 'consequences' to behaviors that threaten the community.
I also would argue with some of your 'all or nothing' contentions. Just because crimes will always be committed in a community doesn't mean we stop prosecuting crimes. It also doesn't mean that we can't demand an overhaul of our broken criminal justice system and the factors driving crime. There are actual societal structural issues that perpetuate generational poverty and crime.
Could some problems be addressed outside of government? I don't believe this to be true. The benefit of government involvement is that systems are established (so the reliance on building infrastructure, schools, libraries, etc is shifted to the state). The weakness (as you note) is the inertia of the state to sel-corret without new or amended laws.
There are many thoughtful organizations that have done what you recommend: analyze root causes, but political polarization, a media ecosystem that is increasingly less interested in thoughtful nuance, and a populace traumatized by multiple interlocking existential crises make it almost impossible to create the conditions for thoughtful problem solving that you advocate. If anything, people are drawn to populist rhetoric in part due to the optics (artificial and false, of course) that there are simple solutions to complex issues.
Aaron, you could try to make a podcast conversation with someone who is promoting liquid democracy https://medium.com/@memetic007/liquid-democracy-9cf7a4cb7f
One problem for democracy, or better said representative democracy, is that most people vote based on how they feel about X than how the think about X.
I read this and I cant help but wonder are we a people or just individuals competing for scarce resources. Do people stop their cars at red lights because it will be better for everyone if everyone does this. Where I live there is little traffic enforcement, people often do not stop for red lights, and there are many cases of hit and run accidents. Consider the poor pedestrian. Right turn on red has resulted in many pedestrian deaths. First of all people rarely stop at a red light when making a right turn. They may slow down. The look left to see if any traffic is coming but rarely look right to see if there is a pedestrian is in their path. And this is just one example.
Whenever anyone talks about the public interest you can hear the thoughts of many "sucker play"
This article went off the rails pretty early, when it asserted that "the state exists to affect certain kinds of social and economic change, to enforce certain social and economic rules...". The only proper purpose of government is to prevent others from using force or fraud against us to deprive us of life or property, or to punish them when they do. Any other use of government eventually ends up punishing people who have done nothing to hurt other people.
Saying that the state exists to "prevent others from using force or fraud against us to deprive us of life or property, or to punish them when they do" is just another way of saying, "In our society, we see instances of people using force and fraud, depriving people of life and property, and we should change that by ensuring there are rules against such behavior, and those rules enforced by punishment and threats of punishment."
In other words, rather than your claim about the purpose of government acting as a rebuttal to my claim about why the state exists, it is instead just one way of answering the question, "What kinds of social and economic change should the state be used to enact, and what rules should it enforce to see that those changes occur?"
But I don't think it will ever change. People will always try to use force or fraud against us. There are no philosopher kings and government has no business trying to change human nature.
Sure. But that's simply saying, "The state exists to solve the social and economic problems of force and fraud, but while it can have an impact, it can't ever solve it entirely."
Put another way, everything you're saying is in agreement with my initial claim about what the state exists, given that my claim about the state existing to affect change left open *what* change we want it to affect. You say "prevent force and fraud." Others might give a different answer. And the rest of my discussion in the episode is about how we should approach the question of what kinds of change and whether the state is the proper way to affect them.
Let's use the example of wages: In a free market, a business owner can offer any wage he wants to offer, and a prospective employer is free to take it or leave it. Each is free to think and act for himself. The owner does not have the option to force an employee take a job with no compensation, because that's slavery. Likewise, in a free society, the government would not be able to step in and tell the employer how much he has to pay, because that is using coercion to violate the business owner's property rights. Somewhere along the way, we accepted the premise the state can effect a change in the employee's pay because some of us want it to. Until we recognize that the government cannot coerce citizens who are not using fraud or force, we'll always be vulnerable to capture of our lives by authoritarians.