by Brad Edmonds
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every government action, there is necessarily an opposite and unintended reaction, though sometimes it can be much more than equal.
In my previous article, I wrote that the interventions of forcible government into human activity serve to distort incentives: Whenever government acts, you and I as a necessary result face circumstances in which we are personally rewarded for behaviors that are not in line with the spirit of the law; nor are these behaviors typically what would be best for human progress.
Today, I treat the same subject from a different direction – by showing that government attempts to solve problems always worsen the problems themselves.
The War on TerrorismIt is obvious to all but the most blindly neoconservative Bush fans that terrorists reliably direct their efforts at occupying governments (and their innocent citizens); that terrorists never seem to aim their weapons at governments that don’t violently interpose themselves in the Middle East (or Ireland or Basque country); and even that terrorists stop terrorizing when the intervention stops. As one example, there hasn’t been a suicide bombing in Beirut – the motherland of suicide bombings – since the foreign occupiers left. And it is obvious by now to all but the Bush administration itself, and a few die-hard Bush worshipers, that our War on Terror has only created more terrorists, and more dedicated ones.
The War on Pollution The EPA was created by Richard Nixon to help his heavy-industry cronies preserve their personal wealth and the market share of their firms. If private property owners were allowed to sue directly those faraway polluters who soil their private property, there would be far less pollution while (less-) affected property owners would be compensated contractually by polluters. As things stand, due to EPA involvement in the pollution business, coal-fired power plants are allowed to emit far too many pollutants, as the EPA guidelines serve to protect polluters from lawsuits; and new pollution-control technologies are slow to be assimilated, if they are assimilated at all. The use of government zoning and other restrictions at the local level, thanks to the urging of green alarmists with the help of their lapdog media, have resulted in our retaining coal-fired, high-pollutin’ energy plants and consistent rejection of near-zero-emissions nuclear plants. There is definitely far more pollution in the air and water than we’d have in the absence of the EPA.
The War on Drugs: Government got in the drug business, beginning in the 1930s with the popularization of marijuana scares, to prevent certain social ills: long-term addiction, and its behavioral and health problems; and immediate intoxication, with its behavioral and health problems. Since government got into the business, these problems have only worsened. In the 1890s, you could get whatever drugs you wanted from your local pharmacist. Parents would send their children to the druggist for tobacco, alcohol, and cocaine. Few people ever consumed pure cocaine, preferring it considerably weakened, such as in a carbonated beverage. But with the war on drugs, traffickers won’t take the risk of being arrested or killed for anything less than lots of money. Hence, the only cocaine that gets into the US now is the pure stuff – much more retail value for the risk, but also much more highly addictive, with much more damaging short- and long-term effects. The same goes for all other controlled substances that people might want to use in therapy or enjoy recreationally. Because of government involvement, we can’t buy for ourselves safe concentrations of many therapeutic, healing, or simply enjoyable things. (To prevent the emails – if these drugs were legalized, I still wouldn’t use them except on the advice of a doctor who examined me personally and prescribed them.)
So, because of government’s attempt to stop drug use, we have worse problems with addiction, intoxication, behavior, and health than we would have in a free society. But that’s not the end of it – along with the war on drugs, we have gang violence, from the mountains of South America to your neighborhood, just as we did in the 1920s with alcohol prohibition. Additionally, our prisons are packed – we have more people in prison than any other "developed" nation – with nonviolent people who only wanted to have a good time in their own homes, just as we did with alcohol prohibition.
And just as with alcohol prohibition, if drugs were decriminalized, the violence would go away, as would the drag on our economy created by our enormous prison system, as would the problems we have with impure and overly-pure drugs on the market.
There is no way around it – when you begin with centralized, unaccountable violence (taxation in the first place, necessary for government to exist at all), then continue with such violence (compelling an entire population to behave in accordance with legislative dictates), all in the service of controlling the behavior of people who are naturally happiest and most peaceful only when they are free, you will never succeed.
Forcible government will fail in everything it does. It always has and always will. Government cannot provide security; it cannot eradicate poverty or disease; it cannot make people happy or wealthy. It can only destroy wealth, institutions, and beneficial customs, and can do these things only by continually restricting our freedom. Everything it does will have the opposite of the intended effect. These are not coincidental observations nor descriptions of general tendencies. That government will fail, and do harm, is logical necessity based in the nature of mankind, which is itself logical and based on instinctual animal self-preservation. This will never change. What needs to change is everyone’s inculcated belief that government is either necessary or good. Am I proposing that the absence of forcible government would result in a utopia? Of course not; diseases, accidents, and evil people will always be among us. But forcible government, aside from being a priori unjust, is the single largest impediment to human progress in dealing with the inevitable challenges of life. Sooner or later, humanity will come to this realization. I hope it’s soon, and peaceful.
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… the American Colonists under King George III had it pretty good compared to us. They would wonder why we haven't taken up arms and seceded yet. – Lew Goldberg
The average American family head will be forced to do twenty years' labor to pay taxes in his or her lifetime. – James Bovard, Lost Rights
