Self-Government
Liberty and Self-Government Stand Opposed to Intrusive State Authority
The United States is often described as an experiment in self-government. But what is this thing? Most people understand “self-government” to mean democracy. According to this understanding, a people are self-governed if they regularly vote to select the individuals who are to occupy political offices. This method of deciding who holds political power has clear advantages over conferring political power according to military prowess, bloodlines, or other criteria remote from the input of the ordinary men and women who are to be governed.
Understood in this way, to endorse self-government is hardly to take a courageous or controversial stand. No good case can be made that fitness to govern is best determined by bloodline or by skill at military conquest. Clearly, whatever power the state exercises ought to be exercised by people chosen in fair elections by those who are subject to the state’s dictates. Almost no one in modern Western society disagrees that people ought to be governed in this way.
But such government, regardless of its merits, is not really self-government. It is government by the elected. No amount of romantic praise of democracy can change the fact that even the best popularly elected government routinely obliges Smith—against his will—to do the bidding of Jones. And whether Jones be an influential special-interest group or a popular majority, when Smith is threatened with coercion to do Jones’s bidding, neitherSmith nor Jones is self-governing. Smith is governed by Jones, and Jones is governing not only himself but Smith as well.
True Self-Government
Self-government in a truer, more literal sense is both desirable and possible.
True self-government is just that: self-government. Each individual governs himself. Each person is free to chart his own life’s course, choosing which risks to brave and which to avoid. Each person is responsible only for himself, for his family, and for those whom he—of his own volition—chooses to care for. Each person has a claim to the fruits only of his own labor and sacrifices, and no claim to the fruits of another’s labor and sacrifices. Each person has a legal right to do as he wills so long as he respects the equal rights of others and honors all his commitments.
Of course, living in this way—as a free man or woman—requires discipline. To be foolish and imprudent is to fail at self-government. Typically, people who don’t govern themselves personally pay the price of not doing so. One advantage of a free society is that it focuses the costs of irresponsible behavior on those who behave irresponsibly, and it focuses the benefits of responsible behavior on those who behave responsibly. The result is that irresponsible behavior is kept to a minimum.
But how to distinguish responsible from irresponsible behavior? If we let each individual determine how to make this distinction, won’t the result be chaos?
Some behaviors are plainly and always destructive of social cooperation. Murder, theft, rape, slaveholding, arson—these and other behaviors whereby some people coerce others are unquestionably out of bounds; the law should prohibit them. These behaviors should be prohibited precisely because they interfere with their victims’ rights to govern themselves.
The precise means of deciding which behaviors the law should prohibit, as well as how to enforce these prohibitions, is debatable. I don’t wish to weigh in here on the dispute between anarcho-capitalists and advocates of limited government. Reasonable people can and do disagree about just how far we can go in ridding ourselves of the state, although no reasonable person believes that society can exist without laws protecting each of us against coercive threats against our persons and property.
But the state today does far more than enforce laws against murder, theft, and other obviously predatory acts. Almost all that today’s state does offends the idea of self-government. Government in America today doesn’t hesitate to coerce those who are politically weak to do the bidding of those who are politically strong. Nor does government today hesitate to treat its subjects as foolhardy imbeciles in need of strict guidance from the state. In both ways, today’s government denies people their right of self-government. The state governs; its subjects obey. Each of us is ruled to an increasingly large degree not by ourselves, but by others.
Consider: regulations mandating that we wear seat belts; minimum-wage legislation; government restrictions on drug use; state blue laws; truancy statutes; the regulation of advertising; tariffs and other import restrictions; government controls on which foreigners we may associate with on American soil; building codes; occupational licensing; the command that every worker contribute to the Social Security and Medicare schemes; taxation that consumes around 40 percent of our income—the list of offenses against self-government is endless.
Many people who reflect on all that government does today will insist that it simply must do these things, for otherwise, too many people will fall into traps that they are either too stupid or too weak to avoid.
I don’t doubt that each of us will make some choices that we later regret. Nor do I doubt that some of us will prove to be especially inept at making wise choices. And surely from time to time these unwise choices will lead to terrible consequences.
But what is self-government if not the ability to govern yourself as you choose—with you taking responsibility for yourself and leaving others free to take responsibility for themselves? Those who insist that government must take responsibility for the safety and welfare of people should stop proclaiming their allegiance to liberty and self-government. They should instead forthrightly proclaim an allegiance to the principle of government by the elite few of the irresponsible many.
I would resolutely object to this principle, but at least its advocates would be forthright. They would no longer be masquerading as friends of the noble ideals that motivated Jefferson and Madison. They would, instead, honestly reveal themselves as patrons of the notion that ordinary men and women are incapable of self-government and, hence, unworthy of liberty. The result would be a more enlightening debate. Liberty and self-government stand clearly opposed to the exercise of intrusive state authority. People advocating intrusive state authority would then be explicitly aware that they reject liberty. They would be forced to concede that they do not believe in the principle of self-government.
Comment by Luke Andersen on 1 September 2010:
This was undoubtedly helpful! Thank you so much for sharing your beliefs concerning the responsibility of man. May God bless you.
Comment by Larken Rose on 21 February 2011:
A fine article, right up to the point where it says “no reasonable person believes that society can exist without laws protecting each of us…” What is this “law” thing, and why do you believe it to be so essential? I’m all in favor of the use of defensive force, and the use of open, honest threats, such as, “If you get caught committing murder, we will kill you.” But why call that “law”? Once you glorify a mere threat by labeling it “law,” you are defeating self-”government,” by creating (or imagining) a superhuman entity to protect us all. Once you pretend that “law” is something OTHER than mere mortals making threats (which the term itself implies), you are imagining a ruling class into existence–i.e., whoever claims the right to enforce such “laws.” Those who imagine themselves to be “law enforcers” will commit violence while accepting no responsibility for doing so, because they will imagine themselves to be the agents of the mythical, superhuman thing called “law.” Yes, having a system of mutual defense is important, but the MOMENT it is imagined to have rights that any other individual doesn’t–the moment it’s decrees are called “laws,” and the moment disobedience to it is deemed “crime”–then self-”government” is out the window, and you have a ruling class again. In the situation where force is inherently justified (i.e., when it is defensive), there is no need and no reason to call it “law.” And there is a big reason NOT to call it “law,” because it implies that whether something is right (or “lawful”) is up to a “law-giver” to decide, instead of up to each individual to figure out for himself.
Comment by Steve Farmer on 21 February 2011:
Spoken like a true libertarian, Mr. Rose. This is a fine article. In your commentary, you seem to advocate for a pure libertarian viewpoint. As a tea party member, I am a strong advocate for essential liberty and personal responsibility. As William Pitt, the former British prime minister said: “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom; it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” Unfortunately, thanks to the sense of entitlement that has been fostered in our society, many want to enjoy the fruits of freedom to do what they want without the inconvenience of suffering the consequences of their choices when the outcome of those choices are not favorable; and they expect the rest of us to pick up the tab. Also, we must have an essential framework for civil society to function. As James Madison said in Federalist 51: “But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” It is a quandry, no doubt. But each individuals’ rights end where yours’ start, so there must be a mechanism for protecting your rights when someone does not share the respect of rights and seeks to impose their will on you. That is the key balance we seek, to respect the rights of the individual; but what do you do with those who do not share your reverence for liberty and your personal choice to be responsible with that liberty? Your line of debate also ignores the reality of natural law (the law of gravity, etc.). Thomas Jefferson said: “A free people (claim) their rights as derived from the laws(!) of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.” The debate will continue, no doubt, for as Kathleen Norris noted: “In any free society, the conflict between social conformity and individual liberty is permanent, unresolvable, and necessary.” Thank God (and a service member) that we live in a civil society where we have the freedom to hold that exchange of ideas, and foster life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, within the framework of our Constitution! As a retired service member who has travelled the world, I can assure you that there are many places and peoples who do not.
Comment by Stepho Martin-Houston on 2 April 2011:
I was looking for a discussion of Responsible Self Government and found this very much in keeping with what I had previously understood. It was a common colonial theme in the New World and the Antipodes which helped people trample over all manner of excellent social traditions as people pushed out of Europe into spaces to acquire no matter how scandalously. I think the Opium Wars were a fine example of this same logic, completely immoral quest for the pursuit of self interest through rules of business and war.
I think a lot of what is being suggested is an important rhetorical ceremony for bolstering and justifying the stature of someone called a “proprietor” whose private concerns shall be their purpose in life and which will be the measure of their social standing – the legislative councils of colonial parliaments around the world typically started off as upper houses full of the most wealthy owners of swiped land and functioned quite openly as such until this outcome of the logic of Self Government began to make things look too obviously stacked in favour of those who were quite honestly “serving themselves”.
I would like to see how easy it is to keep the Responsible Self Government discussion going as an intellectual ideal in the pursuit of “liberty” when the problem of Education is considered. I happen to think this is where the State brings important benefits. How does a society hope to achieve freedoms if everyone has to educate themselves and educate those they are immediately responsible for? I’m intrigued.
Comment by Ray Stephensson on 21 January 2012:
The premise of “democratic” self-governance with universal suffrage is based upon an incorrect assumption that “all men are created equal…” All men are in fact not created equal; therefore any subsequent assumptions based on this error must of necessity also be erroneous. Jefferson’s statement was never met to be interpreted in a literal scientific sense as it was a theocratic posture met to counter the British claim of the Devine Right of Kings.
The concept of a governing elite (going back to Plato) transcends modern categories of “Left” and “Right” but is born of millenniums of experience demonstrating that there is an unfortunate category of people who left to their own devices generally do a poorer job of governing themselves than if governed by an elite. The concept you put forward, that: “Each person is responsible only for himself, for his family, and for those whom he—of his own volition—chooses to care for,” is of course very seductive but is based upon the premise of the “responsible” citizen. Sadly such citizens in many areas of the country are few and far between.
So yes, the people can govern themselves but without some ruling elite that governance has no focus, it is at best anarchist and at worst socially dysgenic in that the selfish and irresponsible will always outnumber their opposite kind. Either way such as society will bear no resemblance to what we have come to know as “civilization.” Libertarianism like true communism may be functional in small organic homogeneous communities–in the real world they are regretfully utopian. The former inevitably leading to anarchy, the latter (as is increasing the case in our country) leading to repression.