Who Needs A Government

Who Needs a Government?

            When the first human ancestor began to walk upright, what might have been his first priority? To look at the world today, you might conclude that early men immediately formed a council to vote on how to allocate the bananas. That banana council can be viewed as the origin of all government.

            We might ask, “Who needs a national government anyway?” If you acknowledge the fact that just about every person in this world lives under one government or another, you might assume that everyone needs a government. If you consider the same question from the other perspective, however, it is possible that everyone lives under a government only because governments forcefully placed themselves over the people. Did anyone ask the people of the different countries of the world whether they actually wanted a government, and if they did want one, what kind of a government it should be? Is it all together possible to conduct such a survey and trust the results? I seriously doubt that our ancestors descended from the trees just to take a poll about how to form a banana republic, although that would bring new meaning to hanging chads.

            The sad fact is that most people of the world were never freely given the choice as to whether or not they need or want a government. Even when a free referendum for independence took place, it was not about whether to have a government or not, but about a preference of one government over another. This is like offering a hungry child the choice between liver and lima beans. Judging by the actions of most past and some present governments all around the world, it is not hard to theorize why those governments would never ask anyone for approval or legitimacy. Instead, one ought to wonder why and how people agree to live under such unpleasant rule, which in some ways simply deepens the original question of whether a government is needed at all.

            One of the few exceptions is the United States of America. The people of the original thirteen colonies, during the period of 1787–1789 (for Rhode Island it was 1790), decided first that they needed, and second that they wanted, a national government. They then designed their own government to suit their needs; a government that, for once, was not decreed over the will of the people, but rather was an outcome of general consent and compromise; a government that was lawfully ratified by the people who joined it of their own free will before it took power. The government of the United States was designed in an open and free process to last as a free government that would respect the freedom and liberty of its citizens and promote their collective prosperity. This was a very unique and special concept for its time, although there would still be some banana redistribution in the end.

            Considering that the approval process took place more than 215 years ago, this might be a good time to stop for a moment and ask a few important questions about the American government. Is the government the U.S. has today what the people who ratified the Constitution voted for, and do the people still need that government?

            Humans, from early in their development, lived in groups. This wasn’t necessarily because we found each other so appealing or because we enjoyed sharing but because it enhanced survival. Who wouldn’t rather give up a few bananas than be eaten by a lion? Once a group is formed it can hardly function without some form of leadership. In a small, primitive family, just as in lions’ prides, the father was the obvious leader. His wife/wives were his property, and the children, as long as they stayed with their father, obeyed and respected his authority. As the united structure expanded and larger groups formed, many fathers were in one group. In this larger group a patriarch, normally one of the elders, became the leader. As the group grew even larger and became a tribe, the question of who would be the leader and what kind of control the leader should have became more complex. This was when force, power, intelligence, and resources became important factors. This was when bananas were set aside by power and quarrel.

            Eventually nations were created and religions were taking hold. Power, in its many different forms, became the prerequisite for leadership. The leaders then became those who could gather enough military or other forms of power to enforce their reign over the people. As leaders consolidated their control over their subjects, it became clear that living in a society is a huge human compromise. Judging by the price people had to pay for staying under the rule of many merciless leaders over the ages, the compromise was quite a bit more painful than giving up of few bananas.

            The answer to the question of why people, in general, joined and then stayed in a society rather than going back to nature to live alone or in couples requires complex psycho- and social analysis. If the reason is the psychological makeup of humans or genetics then why do so many people in the modern world prefer being alone? If we’re driven unwillingly to live as groups, why is it so annoying to shop in a crowded grocery store or to wait endlessly in traffic jams? If you like to think that humans are creatures driven to act in their own self-interests, then why did they congregate and stay in groups in the first place? After all, living in a group requires considerable sacrifice of one’s own self-interests. No matter what the answer, its complexity is far beyond the scope of this book. The history of man is clearly a path that took him from being a solitary creature living in nature to living within a structured society where, for some strange reason, most people still feel alone.