Posted by Jeffrey Thayne
In my post “John Locke and Primal Authority,” I quoted Joseph Fielding Smith and John Locke, who both claimed that no person on the earth has any authority to rule over other people except that which is given them by God. In this post, I would like to explain how a representative government, such as the United States of America, can claim legitimate authority to govern.
John Locke believed that no person on the earth can claim authority from God to rule with monarchical power. He also believed that each person has certain rights, privileges which he or she can exercise absent any divinely appointed ruler. Locke’s writings resist compression or summary, and his ideas contain many nuances and subtleties; however, I will present what I believe to be the basic concept of his writings, even if my presentation does him injustice.
Basically, he believed that each person has a right to defend his or her life from attack or assault, preserve his or her property from theft or trespass, and use force to do so. He or she may punish those who trespass against his or her life and property in such a way as to deter future offenses from them or others. He or she may demand reparation for trespasses and secure that reparation through force. These are just a few of the rights John Locke believes that all mankind possesses equally, independent of any civil authority. Nobody, said Locke, has a right to trespass against another person’s life or property, except in inflicting punishment or seeking reparation for a trespass against them.1
For these reasons, Locke believed that certain powers of government are, in a sense, embedded in the people; that is, in the exercise of their God-given rights, a group of people can set up a limited form of government. The power to form a militia to defend a city or nation and the power to employ police to punish crime and enforce criminal law, for example, are powers that the people possess, independent of any divinely appointed ruler. They can also hire people to perform these tasks on their behalf. Ezra Taft Benson explains:
It is obvious that a government is nothing more or less than a relatively small group of citizens who have been hired, in a sense, by the rest of us to perform certain functions and discharge certain responsibilities which have been authorized. It stands to reason that the government itself has no innate power or privilege to do anything. Its only source of authority and power is from the people who have created it. This is made clear in the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, which reads: “WE THE PEOPLE… do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The important thing to keep in mind is that the people who have created their government can give to that government only such powers as they, themselves, have in the first place. Obviously, they cannot give that which they do not possess. So, the question boils down to this. What powers properly belong to each and every person in the absence of and prior to the establishment of any organized governmental form?2
Benson also explains that this type of government is necessarily limited:
There is one simple test. Do I as an individual have a right to use force upon my neighbor to accomplish this goal? If I do have such a right, then I may delegate that power to my government to exercise on my behalf. If I do not have that right as an individual, then I cannot delegate it to government, and I cannot ask my government to perform the act for me.2
Thus, according to Benson, a government can claim legitimate authority to govern if, and only if, those who participate in the government do not exceed the powers the people themselves already possess. Those powers are given to each person by God upon their entrance into this world. Thus, I believe that a limited representative government can claim its authority from God, via the people. Benson’s claim that “the government itself has no innate power or privilege to do anything” reflects Joseph Fielding Smith’s claim that no man can rule without divine authority.
This framework, however, invites us to reconsider some of our assumptions about our government. It is sometimes believed that the government has power to do anything, as long as the majority voice of the people authorizes it (except those actions specifically forbidden by the Bill of Rights). This idea is commonly called democracy. In a future post, I will discuss the nature of democracy, and how its fundamental assumptions differ a little from those laid out by Joseph Fielding Smith and Ezra Taft Benson.
Notes
1. John Locke, Two Treatises on Government, Lonang.com, accessed 26 Jun. 2008, http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/locke/.
2. Ezra Taft Benson, The Proper Role of Government, accessed 1 Jul. 2008, http://www.ldshea.org/pages/left_sidebar/Const%20proper_role_of_government.htm.
Agreed – people can only delegate authority that they themselves have.
Referring to our unalienable rights, Jefferson wrote that “among these” are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A question, then: how do we appropriately and definitively determine what other rights are God-given, and thus able to be delegated by the masses to their agent, the government?
This is essentially an epistemological question and is my only real reservation with this whole train of thought.
John Locke developed a system of what he believe to be God-given rights, and he did so through the use of reason. He entire book, Two Treatise on Government, is formatted as a logical argument. He doesn’t appeal to scripture or revelation (except in showing how his dissenters’ appeals to scripture are errant). You will probably notice that my blog so far has been flavored with a subtle suspicion of reason as a way of arriving at truth.
Neal A. Maxwell explained that one of the features of the Apostasy (and, incidentally, the Enlightenment) is that “reason, the Greek philosophical tradition, dominated, then supplanted reliance on revelation.” This reliance on human reason has misled many people into confidence in erroneous beliefs. Unless we can find a revelatory source of information about what is or is not a God-given privilege, I’m not sure I can answer your question with any more than tentative assurance.
I agree with this, and where you are going with this, so much.
Contractarianism provides a possible test or possible foundation for what may be inherently reasonable for civil law without appealing to God or revelation necessarily.
Thanks for the comment! I hope to continue to hear from you in the future. Your comment has given me the opportunity to express some of the ways in which my point of view differs from the point of view of Locke, Hobbes, and others, and I appreciate that.
As Joseph Fielding Smith pointed out, no person can claim government authority without divine consent; it is therefore ironic that, in the effort to trace government authority back to divine authority, I would present an idea that so closely resembles contractarianism. This is ironic because, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Although I agree with Locke’s conclusions, I question some of his rationale he uses to get there. Although his logic is pretty solid, his worldview is primarily an egocentric worldview. He consistently presents his argument based upon egocentric principles. In other words, we defend our life and property because doing so is in our best interest; we ought not trespass on someone else’s life or property because doing so would not be in our best interest, as they would defend themselves and seek reparation. Thus, the rationale of contractarianism is grounded in self-interest—a people will unite under a governing authority because collectively doing so benefits all, and will help each individual maximize his personal desires with least risk.
This is where I differ from Locke; not only do I question the supremacy he places on human reason over divine authority, but I also question the primal basis of self-interest as justification for human action. For example, I believe that we ought not trespass on someone else’s life or property, but the fundamental reason for this “ought†is not based on self-interest, but rather because God has asked us not to; this world and those who live on it are His, and we ought to respect His property because we love Him and honor Him. “Thou shalt not murder†and “Thou shalt not steal†are moral imperatives that have a divine origin; they are wrong or inadvisable not because doing so will threaten our self-interested goals, but because doing so will jeopardize our moral standing with God.
Ultimately, I don’t believe in the egocentric paradigm of modern philosophy; I don’t think it is our essence to be self-interested. Although we do consistently act in self-interested ways, those habits of thought and actions are not our divine nature, but rather contrary to it. Personally, I hold to a more alterocentric (other-centered) paradigm. I believe that we all have a moral sense of what we ought to do for others, not for any self-interested motivation, but simply out of love for others; I believe this moral sense is what makes us human in the first place, and is inherent in our nature (more inherent than selfishness, which is a learned habit). Our mortal experience teaches us to consistently ignore these divine (and inherent) inclinations, and this is why we so frequently act in a self-interested way.
Great post. This has got me thinking about the government’s power and what they rightfully can and cannot do. I’ve thought of that before, but only in the sense of using the Constitution as the measuring stick. Locke’s assertion that governments cannot exercise any right that a person cannot–this is excellent. This is a new measuring stick to use. I am still chewing on it. . .
Unfortunately, I may not have been as clear as I should have been in my post. I’ll probably have to fix it. Benson was the one that asserted governments cannot exercise any right that a person cannot; Locke merely claimed that the certain powers of government are embedded in the people, and thus a divinely appointed monarch is not necessary. I’m not sure what limits Locke placed upon government.
Thanks for the reply, Jeff.
I actually agree with you, and you and I could easily have a conversation about government based on God as the source and about the nature of man being godly and not inevitably self-interested. However, I do like to bring Contractarianism into it when talking with someone else for whom I do not have this common ground.
I also think that the Golden Rule is actually the celestialized version of the self-interest.
Aaron and Jeff — not to get into a sticky detail — but this is my objection to ultimately and irrevocably removing the death penalty from the possibilities of civil justice. The fact that I, as an individual, have the right to defend myself is graphed into the civil government where there is more order to the administration of that right/ability. But it shouldn’t be completely missing. If you take death penalty out of civil justice, I believe that what that means is that I as an individual have no right to defend myself on a personal basis. Which is wrong.
That’s just an example, but one of the more important ones, IMO.
I am in favor of the death penalty and am disgusted by the recent supreme court decision. I submit that many opposed to the death penalty lack an eternal perspective and see death as a horrible finality. Believing in life after death, I don’t see the death penalty so much as a punishment for the criminal as I do a necessary action of a society to preserve order. Actually, it’s a very merciful action towards the criminal. . .
On this issue, I don’t have a strong opinion either way; I agree that the death penalty is not an inherently evil thing and I also recognize that a government of delegated powers probably has the moral authority to uphold it. However, I am in favor of what is necessary to deter crime, and am not looking for retribution; if a society determines that it can deter crime just as effectively through other means (as long as those means are morally justifiable), then there is nothing wrong with pursuing the alternate path either. For example, although I may rightfully kill another person in self-defense, I am not obligated to, if other means are available to me. However, if the death penalty is the best way to do it, then I believe we are morally justified in doing so. On a similar subject (war), John Locke said:
What upset me about the Supreme Court ruling is the rationale the justices used to support their decision. That, more than anything else, was the problem. Also, while an individual, state, or community may decide to forgo the death penalty, I do not believe that the Supreme Court has the authority to place a nation-wide ban on the practice.
Hopefully, I can keep this blog and discussions to more of the philosophical foundations of government (or whatever subject we talk about), rather than a debate of a particular practice or policy. 🙂
To the one who uses contractarianism to talk to those who do not share the same ground,
There’s an iconoclastic book written by a well-respected author, Alfie Kohn, called THE BRIGHTER SIDE OF HUMAN NATURE: Empathy and Altruism in Everyday Life. The point of the book is basically to show that the common egocentric notion of human nature is in fact not supported empirically. He then goes on to discuss the implications of such a worldview. He makes a great case–it could give you some ideas so you don’t have to play like you espouse some bunk standard with your friends.
I’ve read a lot of Alfie Kohn, but not that particularl title. I really like his perspective on education and parenting.
That sounds like a good book by Mr. Kohn.
I haven’t thought a lot about self-interest or altruism either way. That isn’t the crux of how I think about civil structure.
I don’t think I was clear. I love contractarianism and espouse it. The reason I do is NOT because I’m partial to self-interest, but for other elements in it, in fact those elements that tend to result in a civil structure based on the Golden Rule whether or not an individual is willing to live it.
My introduction to contractariansim was actually John Rawls’ Theory of Justice and his “original position”. That captured my imagination, my sensibilities and resulted in my loyalty to the concept as Mr. Rawls presents it.
I almost never think of government nor inherent rights of an individual in terms of God being the source because I thought that it was problematic at least in being able to present that to others; the very others I am sharing a civil structure with (i.e. the United States). That is why I’m appreciating Mr. Thayne’s fine articulation of it; it’s opening my mind.
Thanks! We do live in a very secular world, where religious language has become very unpopular and “unscientific.” People today don’t just want good ideas, they want good ideas that don’t refer to God.
Fortunately, the Founders themselves didn’t feel that way. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” They recognized that the ultimate Sovereign, the ultimate King, the ultimate Ruler, was God Himself; and that we, as mere mortals, can never aspire to the pretensions of His authority without divine appointment. Thus, as we form governments in the absence of a divine ruler, we must be careful never to cross the boundaries He has set.
Thanks for presenting your point of view!
I think my problem with the earlier post is dealt with fairly well by what President Benson said. I can authorize a government to impose its will on a man who does not desire the imposition only inasmuch as I personally have the right to perform the same imposition (assuming, of course, that I have the requisite power).
Consider, though, all the authority I lack in that regard.
Taxation of any kind is obviously immoral by that standard, since if I personally did it, it would just be extortion.
Punishing criminals who routinely repent and then repeat the crime would also be unacceptable, since I personally am commanded to forgive my enemies as many times as they repent (See D&C 98:40). For that matter, punishing unrepentant criminals before the fourth offense would be wrong, and even after the fourth offense might be beyond my own proper rights. I have right to defend myself, but not to execute retribution.
That would require us to change our whole criminal justice approach. Police officers might be justified in stopping crimes they catch during commission, but hunting down perpetrators after the crime would be immoral.
And of course, all the little controls our government imposes (like seat belt laws or, for that matter, restrictions on ownership of ICBMs with nuclear warheads), are right out the window. I have no right to go seize $50 from my neighbor if he didn’t put on his seat belt, nor do I have any right to tell him he can only put grain in his silo and not a missile.
The government can operate only by voluntary contributions, then, and cannot punish crime in the sense we currently understand (though perhaps they might repossess stolen goods or even kill murderers [see Numbers 35]) and cannot regulate interaction among people.
That’s a pretty weak government — weaker, I think, than what President Benson had in mind when he said what he said. It seems to me that such a government would largely be superfluous, particularly in our modern world, where very powerful weapons mostly equalize the differences between the weakest among us and the strongest among us.
I don’t personally see why people would want a government if that’s all it could do — and the few things they might want it for (like pooling resources to build and staff schools, say) aren’t really all that governmental. Groups that we never think of as governments accomplish all those same goals already.
John Locke argued pretty persuasively that if a man has demonstrated that he is not “governed by the law of reason,” that is, if he demonstrates himself a threat to your life or property, you may take preemptive actions against him; for this reason, he argues, we may protect the innocent and punish perpetrators to the extent necessary to dissuade other from perpetrating crime.
Your reading of Benson’s comments certainly justifies an anarchist point of view; however, as I just mentioned, Locke and others have persuasively argued that we have more innate powers than you may think. Locke argued, for example, (and I think his argument is persuasive) that we have the power as citizens to incarcerate criminals as long as necessary to prevent the crime from happening again.
Wesley: “Punishing criminals who routinely repent and then repeat the crime would also be unacceptable, since I personally am commanded to forgive my enemies as many times as they repent”
Forgiveness means that we hold no malice in our hearts against another person; it does not mean that we don’t hold them accountable for their actions. Forgiveness is not the same thing as pardon. We sometimes treat the words the same, but they mean very different things.
“Locke argued, for example, (and I think his argument is persuasive) that we have the power as citizens to incarcerate criminals as long as necessary to prevent the crime from happening again.”
So, if you do something bad to me, and I think you might do it again, I would be within my rights to seize you, bind you, and throw you in a cage? And I would be within my rights to leave you in that cage as long as I think you might do me wrong again if I let you out? I cannot know the thoughts of your heart. How can I possibly know whether you will repeat your crime? All I can do is act on my own opinion on that count. So I would be keeping you in a cage based on my own imperfect opinion about whether you might harm me again.
What if my opinion is wrong? The only way to test my opinion is to set you free and see what happens. But if I’m within my rights to hold you as long as I think my opinion is right, there’s no way to force such a test.
By that reasoning, there can be no false imprisonment and almost every atrocious imprisonment ever committed by governments throughout history can be justified simply by an appeal to the government’s decision that ending such imprisonment could have been injurious to the public good. Siberian gulag, here we come!
And if a government has the power to imprison you whenever it decides you might do something wrong, how can that government be called limited?
“we may protect the innocent and punish perpetrators to the extent necessary to dissuade other from perpetrating crime.”
Protecting the innocent sounds good to me, but punishing perpetrators to the extent necessary to dissuade others from committing crime? To do that effectively, you have to punish the examples more harshly than simply exacting restitution for the crime. People are not deterred from an action if they think no more harm could come to them than being forced to set things right — if they get caught, they’re no worse off than they were before they started; if they don’t get caught, they’re better off (so they reason). So to make an example, you have to get harsh.
Once you do that, you are punishing someone not for crimes he has committed, but for crimes you fear others might commit in the future. If no one else would ever have committed that crime again anyway, then you’re punishing him for no reason beyond paranoia. And punishing one man against his will for another’s crimes hardly seems morally justifiable anyway.
“Your reading of Benson’s comments certainly justifies an anarchist point of view”
Interesting. Maybe anarchism is the ideal form of government. In fact, the principles you’ve been discussing seem to me to lead to a kind of Hoppean anarchism in which various entities could all compete on a free market for the provision of all services now provided by the state monopoly we call government. Do you see anything wrong with my reading of President Benson’s statements? I know they don’t match your reading of Locke’s statements, but that seems sort of beside the point. They don’t match my reading of Locke’s statements, either.
“Forgiveness means that we hold no malice in our hearts against another person; it does not mean that we don’t hold them accountable for their actions. Forgiveness is not the same thing as pardon. We sometimes treat the words the same, but they mean very different things.”
Hmm. I think you’re right. I was thinking incorrectly about forgiveness. Thanks for helping me see that. That helps a lot in my understanding of these topics.
But incidentally, from an etymological perspective (sorry, you’re dealing with a historical linguist), forgiveness and pardon are the same thing. But I think they are what you have said forgiveness is, and not something like permissiveness, which is more how I had been thinking of it. I certainly don’t expect that kind of treatment from God, though I do expect His forgiveness. I want him to love me unfailingly while I’m (struggling with) shouldering the accountability for myself and my actions.
Thanks for enlightening me on the etymology! I love learning the history of words. I appreciate the insight.
The challenge with an anarchist point of view is that often people levy force unjustly against another who does not have the means to defend themselves. Thus, we use the collective strength of the whole (government) to defend those who have not the means or power to do so themselves. The protection of the powerless against those who would wrong them sometimes requires a force that can be provided by a collective government.
That wasn’t the kind of anarchist viewpoint your writing put me in mind of. Check out Hoppe’s anarchism: http://mises.org/hoppeintro.asp
Taxation of any kind is obviously immoral by that standard, since if I personally did it, it would just be extortion.
Isn’t taxation the same as charging money for a service? What makes it extortion?
Nathan,
I believe taxation for those necessary services such as common defense are fine, but I’m sure you’ll agree with me that as soon as tax money becomes a means of wealth redistribution, it becomes immoral—a “Robin Hood” mentality that takes from some and gives to others for social benefit. For example, education is seen as one of the biggest keys to social mobility (the ability to move up the economic ladder), so many have decided that to support public schools with tax money would help even the playing field and redistribute the wealth. This, I believe, is immoral use of tax money.
Personally, I believe that a nation-wide income tax is immoral, and wish that the Constitution were never amended that way. The limited, Constitutional role of the government can easily be funded through the simple tariffs and taxes originally provided for in the Constitution prior to the income tax amendment. My philosophical justification for this view is not as well developed, though.
Nathan: “Isn’t taxation the same as charging money for a service? What makes it extortion?”
The difference I see between taxation and charging money for services is whether the services (and their cost) can be refused by the consumer.
If I can freely refuse governments’ services and thereby avoid taxation, then I’d say taxation would be just like charging money for services and not extortion at all. But if they make it essentially impossible for me to refuse the services, then taxation is an extortion racket, no different from buying protection from the Mafia.
If I offer my neighbor a subscription to some kind of service in exchange for money, that’s a fine thing to do. If he accepts, then we have a deal. But if he refuses, I think it would be wrong of me to, say, lock him in a cage for not giving me his money. I think it would even be wrong for me to try to pressure him after he’s already refused my service. But governments do just those very wrong things when people try to refuse the offer and keep their money.
It doesn’t matter how the money is used, either. I can subscribe to any kind of service that’s offered, including a wealth-redistribution service, without the service becoming extortion (though of course some services might be immoral in other ways). The extortion lies in whether or not I am free to refuse the service and its cost. Ultimately, it’s up to me to decide whether a given offered service is necessary for me or not, and no one else is entitled to make that decision for me.
Wesley: “It doesn’t matter how the money is used, either. I can subscribe to any kind of service that’s offered, including a wealth-redistribution service, without the service becoming extortion”
I can agree with this; if the service, and therefore the tax, can be refused, then it really isn’t taxation in the traditional sense of the word. Personally, I can set up a business and offer services, and I can therefore authorize my government to do so as well; provided that the services are not mandatory and thus the collections not forced. Thus, all government programs would be funded by the people who used them, and there is no forced relocating of financial resources through taxation.
For example, the postal service pays mostly for itself, even though it is operated by the federal government. If I could think of a way that military protection could be some the same way, I would probably support that; however, it seems as though military protection is enjoyed by all equally, as we all enjoy the benefits of an uninvaded country. Thus, the collective means of defense against foreign invasion I believe could be supported by tax money; however, I do not presently support the income tax, and would rather have it be supported through other taxes, such as tariffs. This could make sense in this system if we decided that ports and harbors were run and maintained by the government, and thus the government could charge for their use and use the profits to fund national defense. I don’t know, I’m fishing for ideas. I’m willing to consider various options.
I presently don’t support a standing army; I believe that national defense should be a volunteer endeavor. Professional soldiery doesn’t appeal to me much. Perhaps the only defense funds necessary are the development and maintenance of equipment?
Anyways, despite all these ramblings, I’ve told others that I hope to keep this blog to a discussion of philosophy, not policy. This is a pretty vague and fuzzy distinction, since any philosophy has implications in policy; I just hope not to get to partisan, and to look more on the roots of the issue than the surface.
Jeff: “If I could think of a way that military protection could be some the same way, I would probably support that; however, it seems as though military protection is enjoyed by all equally, as we all enjoy the benefits of an uninvaded country. Thus, the collective means of defense against foreign invasion I believe could be supported by tax money”
My only problem with this line of reasoning is that if I go and provide someone a service and do not provide them a chance to refuse or accept the service, I’d be wrong to send them a bill for the service, and they’d be right to tell me it’s my own loss for providing a service without checking to see if it was wanted.
So even if someone benefits from a service, if he’s going to actually charge them for the service, then the benefactor really has to obtain the beneficiary’s agreement to the arrangement before the service is provided. If he doesn’t, then the beneficiary is free to give or retain his money as he pleases. That’s how it works at the individual level.
A gypsy woman in Seville, Spain once came up to me, grabbed me by the hand, and proceeded to read my palm and tell me my fortune. When she was done, she said, “And now you really ought to give me some money for the fortune I just told you.” I offered her a coin, and she was offended and said, “No, I mean I want bills.” I didn’t have any to give, so she left in a huff.
I think she behaved inappropriately and that I did nothing wrong. By the same token, I think it would be wrong to demand money of people who benefit from a service they do not agree to purchase.
Otherwise, I would be within my rights to track down every beneficiary of my actions and charge them for my behavior. If I beautified my yard, I could demand payment from my neighbors who see it and are pleased. If I sang a hymn well in a congregation, I could hit up the people around me for some cash. If I dressed well, I could charge everyone who likes my appearance that day. I think at some point we have to accept the idea that there will be collateral beneficiaries for a lot of actions who won’t end up paying for their added wealth.
The Constitution says that the Federal Government may tax the people for the purpose of national defense against foreign invasion. The Lord said:
If we can only authorize the government to do those things which God has authorized us, then any law which complies with the U.S. Constitution is divinely authorized. God is God, and if He tells us we can tax to maintain common defense, then we can, despite whatever philosophies we levy against Him. I am all for a limited government, and a constitutional government. This is because, as the Lord said, “As pertaining to law of man, whatsoever is more or less than this [the Constitution], cometh of evil.”
Thus, I believe that the United States government, so long as it confines itself to the Constitution, is divinely authorized to act in any way which the constitution allows for it. This complies with all the principles I have laid out in the government series, and it matches with revealed scripture.
Wes: But if they make it essentially impossible for me to refuse the services, then taxation is an extortion racket, no different from buying protection from the Mafia.
I wonder if another difference is that, while I cannot refuse some government services, I can alter the way they work through voting. Mafia protection rackets don’t allow for that.
Jeff: All government programs would be funded by the people who used them.
How could that work with roads? Paying someone to collect tolls along every stretch of road would be cost-prohibitive. Or would roads be built and maintained by non-federal institutions?
I hope to keep this blog to a discussion of philosophy, not policy.
You’re right, sorry if I get distracted. I’m just trying to address specific examples in order to explore the underlying philosophy.
“I wonder if another difference is that, while I cannot refuse some government services, I can alter the way they work through voting. Mafia protection rackets don’t allow for that.”
You have a lot more faith in voting than I do. I think most votes on taxes take place in legislatures, and I don’t vote in legislatures. I also think that even though I might succeed in getting a new legislator, a can’t really succeed in replacing enough legislators to make them all decide to stop a given tax. I also think that if I tried to get a referendum on a given tax going, the people voting on it would be so tainted by their state-sponsored worldviews they received in public schools that they’d be unable to accept doing anything the government had the media tell them was bad.
Overall, I think extending voting rights is the best way for governments to curtail civil liberties — slaves who think they can control their masters are less likely to rise up in rebellion. But in the end, every government will be a target for people who want to abuse authority, and they’ll want to control it. If people are voting, that means the would-be despots will want to control the voting. And they will. It’s easier, after all, to control the political influence of someone who is not a professional statesman and therefore relatively naive, than it is to control the political influence of, say, a monarch raised from birth to understand politics and intrigue and statecraft.
And besides, voting comes down to majority rule, and that’s not always moral rule. Gang rape is probably the best example of spontaneous democracy (‘hey, baby, it’s seven to one: the majority rules’) — but no one would dare call it morally right.
But all of that is probably way off topic.
“How could that work with roads? Paying someone to collect tolls along every stretch of road would be cost-prohibitive. Or would roads be built and maintained by non-federal institutions?”
I know I’m not Jeff, but roads are actually already usually funded by the people who use them. Most roads are funded through taxes on gasoline, and the overlap between purchasers of gasoline and users of roads is pretty phenomenal. That is especially true since the people using gasoline-powered agricultural machines (which aren’t usually on roads) can fill their ag tanks with untaxed gasoline. Off-roaders usually end up paying taxes for services they don’t receive, and owners of electric cars receive services they don’t end up paying for, but other than that, the system charges the actual road users pretty well. In fact, the people who put by far the most wear on our roads (freighters) are the ones who pay by far the most tax for gasoline, since they are buying oceans of the stuff all the time.
So the roads are one of the few areas where the government is actually doing the funding right already.