Why Government is Unethical - Part 2
In addition to deciding the efficiency of a government, it is also important to consider whether government infringes on the rights of humans in order to justify its existence. Charles Sayward (1982) uses a hypothetical situation in determining the justification for the State and whether it infringes on the rights of people. In his hypothetical situation, Sayward determines that the State cannot be morally justified because it infringes upon the natural human right to the private enforcement of justice. This hypothetical situation outlines a case in which a man is mugged and is prevented by the State in his right to exact just compensation for the crime against him in order to maintain his own individual dignity. The State in this situation prevents the act which the victim has a right to take because it prohibits the use of force or coercion by anyone other than itself. This is hypocrisy, which can be considered to be unethical by the virtue of justice. If government is made up of individuals, it is unethical that it should be allowed to take actions that are unacceptable for an individual or to create a monopoly on what is construed as acceptable.
All government institutions have, over the course of history, grown to a point which, according to William Reichert (1969) they are “Leviathan,” enormous and out of control. It is thought by anarchists that Thomas Jefferson’s idea of limiting government and compromise with Alexander Hamilton’s idea of political power was an “impossible task” and the downfall of Jeffersonian democracy. It was the pluralists, according to Professor William Ernest Hocking, who failed to remove the monopoly on the power of coercion and force from the State. As a consequence, government has grown into the “Leviathan” state in which it remains today. Hocking was unable to rationally assert, as the pluralists did, that “political power might be shared by a diversity of associations within society, when the state stood above them, armed with the means to make them all subservient to its superior will (cited in Reichert, 1969, p. 139).”
Anarchists are faced with the difficult task of defending the thought that the State should not exist because it does more harm than good. It was succinctly put by Henry Thomas Buckle when he wrote that “no great political improvement, no great reform, either legislative or executive, has ever been originated in any country by its rulers.” Buckle acknowledged that politicians are constantly enacting legislation, however any problems that these legislative enactments solve were first caused by previous legislative enactments. If this is the case, than it is safe to say that much of this legislation was enacted without consideration of ethical ideals or obligations.
