Post by mikegarrison on May 6, 2009 17:56:06 GMT -5
May 6, 2009 17:40:40 GMT -5 @ruffda said:
Expecting that people will not work to benefit their own interests is just silly.
That's why I *don't* expect it and also why I think government is the solution, not the problem.
Unfortunately, *bad* government *is* a problem.
I agree with you here. IMO, the reason government was invented is precisely because sometimes there really is a tragedy of the commons. Sometimes most people can agree that we collectively would be better off if a certain thing happened, but it benefits no one individually to make that thing happen. Thus we agree to make a government that can force that thing to happen for the greater good.
The devil is in the details, however, and the history of the development of governments is all about making them more effective at creating the greater good while being less disruptive to the individual good. It doesn't always work because there is an inherent conflict.
Anarchy is something we can understand the meaning of in theory, but it is not a stable state for human beings and it always ends up morphing into some form of government. Claiming that "government is the problem" is crazy oversimplification.
