[mdex]

They do operate 'kinda' like a business:

They charge rents (property taxes), protection fees (taxes for military/police), and collect royalties on every good bought or sold on their turf (sales tax).

The only difference between them and a business is that government gets your money by force (by threatening imprisonment if you don't pay). A business must use persuasion & manipulation to get your money.

However, since govt. uses force to collect revenue rather than voluntary payment for goods/services, they more closely resemble a mafia (protection racket) than a business.

[beat]

Sigh.

The differences are manifold. Start with the purpose - modern government exists to serve all of society, which it mostly does. The mafia exists to serve the mafia, although it can be incidentally generous with the public. The social contract between the public and the government is that revenue the government takes in through taxes is spent on things that help the public - schools, roads, emergency services, etc. The public has substantial if indirect influence on this balance, via elections. Of course, some people won't be happy with the arrangement, but the majority are generally satisfied.

Additionally, modern government functions in part by a monopoly on the use of violence, which we agree to as part of the social contract. Individuals who refuse to participate in the social contract are subject to government violence, whether they're not paying their taxes, or shooting their neighbors. As part of the contract, the government is not to abuse that monopoly on violence at a large enough scale that most of the public feels threatened by government itself.

Et cetera.

[mdex]

The ridiculousness of your social contract idea, is that a contract cannot be binding if it was made on your behalf, before your birth, without your consent. Implied consent is lunacy especially when there's lots of people saying "I do not consent", to which you must reply, "Oh you're just too stupid to know what's good for you".

Before you get upset and too emotionally invested, I will say I am not against government or the state. This is like accusing irreligious people of being against Christianity. I'm not against government, but I cannot in good faith use government's own language to describe the actual, material function of government.

Words like "public good", "social contract", these are propaganda words with more of a religious and spiritual connotation than any truth grounded in reality. They are lofty ideas invented by men trying to justify the French revolution. There's definitely value in their ideas and worldview, but mistaking an ideology or worldview for actual reality, is childish.

Government does not exist to serve society, it exists to preserve the state.

Public services -- healthcare, schools, roads -- all those things are great and helpful to society but the government does not give them to us to "serve the public".

Public services exist for one reason, and for the same reason a birdfeeder exists. A birdfeeder exists to keep the birds all in one place (to study them). Similarly, public services exist to keep us all in one place, to make us more easily accessible, so we can be more easily taxed, and more easily controlled. By giving us public services and a good quality of life, we are willing to give up even our own lives in the preservation of our state, and to kill other humans living under a different state, like the Vietcong, who were doing nothing more than trying to defend their own system against invaders.

The public services government provides, almost always come to us through granting lucrative and over-priced government contracts to their own powerful donors and wealthy associates. Notice how after leaving office, politicians always go work for a big corporation that donated to their campaign and was recipient of government contracts, grants or tax-breaks.

The alternative to government is government. There's no way around it. Anarchy creates a void which is filled by another government. I'm fully aware of that.

But making government more fair means acknowledging the ACTUAL functions and purpose of government. Being naive about those functions doesn't help anyone but the people who seek to exploit and take advantage of us under the guise of "serving the public">

People who believe government exists to serve us will inevitably cede unreasonable, arbitrary, and vaguely defined (unlimited) power to the government under the false assumption that government intends to use these powers for our benefit.

You see this all the time where a party expands the role of govt, then complains when the next party gets elected and uses this same power for something they don't like. It practically happens every election cycle.

[mullingitover]

The difference between a protection racket and the government is that the government actually protects you. If your government vanishes or stops performing the protection, another neighboring government will happily annex your state.

[mdex]

Mafia actually does protect your business from thieves, and from government tax collection. Just like government, mafia wants to be the only one with a monopoly on using violence to collect money.

And I'm well aware that a vanishing government simply means another government or gang will take over. I'm not advocating anarchy or some utopian ideology.

Understanding what government is and does, does not mean one wants to abolish it.

However, thinking that government exists to serve the people is foolish and naive. Making a fairer government demands an understanding of how it actually operates, that way you do no cede vague and arbitrary power to government under the assumption "they will only use it for good"

[mullingitover]

The 'government is inherently evil' argument is sophomoric and goes against my direct experience, so I can't give you that axiom, sorry. Government, at least in the US, is legitimately of the people (for better and for worse) and it is what we make of it. It's definitely made worse by people who believe it's evil and try to cripple it.

[jamiek88]

This tired crap needs to end. It’s thought and conversation terminating and just fucking lazy.

It’s not original, impressive, ‘seeing through the sheeple’.

You will have a government. When government collapses you get Syria.

Let’s debate about what type we want not ‘all government is bad hurr durr’. We’re not teenagers getting high for the first time.

To be living in peace and relative prosperity when a lot of the world has a lot of failed governments thus war and societies collapsing sitting in your ivory tower with a full belly, leaning back and proclaiming ‘you know, governments are no different to protection rackets’ is just a completely juvenile attitude and practice.

[mdex]

My argument was in response to the idea that government is a business, I said that rather than a business, government is more similar to a protection racket. Not that governments are exactly the same as protection rackets, which seems to be the words you're accusing me of writing.

You are afraid that if we think of governments in a skeptical or cynical way, we must then be advocating for anarchy. That's an emotional argument and it has no place in an intellectual conversation.

[s73v3r_]

Except you have no say in what the mafia does. You elect representatives in government.

Trying to compare government to the mafia is not at all conducive to a civilized discussion, as it brings nothing to the discussion other than a "rabble rabble government is bad".