Columns

Who will build the roads? It’s a question frequently posed to libertarians. Well, private citizens (you and I) pay taxes to the government, and they pay a company of private citizens to do the work. The government (at least in this country) simply decides where the roads need to be; it is private consultants who provide the information needed for planning.

So why do we need government? If all the basics of civilisation are being paid for by you and I, and created by us too, then we could just cut out the middleman. Right?

Not so fast. Arbitrary authority, exercised by the state, is a subject on which many political philosophies dwell. Even the most ardent libertarians think we need some remnant left over, just in case. Why? The clichéd and simplistic response is that we humans love power and grandeur; we enjoy control over things as they are and for what they might be. But for those without plans for world domination, it seems more likely that arbitrary authority is preferred because it makes up for the fact we don’t trust each other enough to do without it.

Government, and democratic government in particular, is a collective expression of a desire for control over our own destinies and the overall scheme of things. The modern pluralist state (liberal representative democracy) means that we all have relatively equal influence on state power through a range of means: elections, pressure groups, media, demonstrations and art. All are beautiful things. This system offers us all an equal chance to control the extent to which the state exercises its arbitrary authority, so that it matches what, on balance, we all think is fair.

Anarchy is correctly understood as the absence of authority, but the practice of voluntarism is the main feature (a philosophy in which consent is at the centre of all moral questions). It sounds glorious, but who goes first? Who will be the first to take advantage of that trust taken for granted?

This is the problem for anarchists, though it would be better if we were able to trust each other more, and that should still be the aim. If you agree, then the issue is not state versus anarchy, but what is right for government to do. For democracy to thrive, and trust to improve, we need to contemplate that moral question of fairness in our own lives, more often.