When faced with a social problem, the typical social democrat statist will turn to government as a first resort. In talking with a person like this, I find the following rhetoric is effective:
“But government is violence; using the government means coercively subordinating people against their will. Before calling for government action, surely we should investigate whether this social problem can be solved through voluntary means, through reason and persuasion rather than violence.”
If you’re trying to come up with a solution to a problem and the first thing that pops into your head is “let’s coercively dominate other people’s lives,” then there’s something wrong with you.
I’ve raised the point that government operates through coercion, but have yet to enconter anybody who either takes that statement as fact and/or suddenly shitfts their views about the state or at least says ‘I never thought about it that way before’. Maybe the OP has been lucky, but unfortunately it seems as if pointing out the obvious isn’t enough.
Do you mean people deny that government is coercive? I would just tell them to look at any textbook on economics or political science. The whole justification for government is that coercion is necessary to solve the public goods problem. Now maybe they think this is “voluntary coercion,” because the people voted for it (or whatever), but they have to admit that coerciveness is the basic feature of government. Or quote Mises:
It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. The funds that a government spends for whatever purposes are levied by taxation. And taxes are paid because the taxpayers are afraid of offering resistance to the tax gatherers. They know that any disobedience or resistance is hopeless. As long as this is the state of affairs, the government is able to collect the money that it wants to spend. Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
Moreover, I don’t take this to be a decisive argument. It just puts the statist in an unpleasant situation, where they have to argue that coercively subordinating people is necessary to prevent still greater evils.
Bingo. You would think that the coercive nature of the state would be something that is crystal clear, but my experience is that pointing it out results in a weird mix of confusion and denial, producing non-sequiturs like, “it’s not coercive because we’re a democracy and you can vote” and other such nonsense. Some people seem genuinely confused, though: a product of being taught from early childhood that the state is as much a part of nature as the rain, wind, and snow. At times, people have gotten angry with me. One friend of mine agreed (after an agonizing and lengthy discussion) that the state is rooted in violence, but then seconds later when I asked him why he supported violence as a solution to social problems (he is a lefty statist) he bitterly denied that he was advocating any such thing and accused me of twisting his words. These kind of people then quickly snap into a sarcastic tone with quips like “well I guess you just want everyone to die in the streets.” It is noteworthy that I am very humble in my discussions with folks.
These people cannot think. They cannot reason. They do not understand elementary logic. The government schools do this to people. A sure sign that you are talking to someone whose mind has been destroyed is if they react to any kind of socratic approach with hostility and suspicion, as if logic is an evil spell designed to “trick” them.
From my experience, this moral argument is ineffective, unless your’re talking to someone who has read Chomsky or Zinn or someone like that. Typical left/right statists require a different approach. For these folks, we should celebrate our solution more than attacking theirs. That’s my two cents.
