Who Needs Government?
Well, nobody and everybody.
The human race got along just fine without it for ... uh, well ... ever since there has been a human race until we became agrarians.
Let me explain.
When we think of agriculture in the US today we think of a rural lifestyle with a farmhouse spread out across the countryside here and there. That's not how it was, and in many cases still is, most places. Nope. When the nomadic tribes settled down to grow food in the ground rather than hunt it above the ground, permanent settlements sprang up with the crops in the fields surrounding the settlements. My ancestors in Germany, for example, lived for a time in a village named Oberdorfelden which, when translated into English, means "above the fields". The village is located on high ground overlooking the fields. The church bell still rings at 11:00 to allow the farmers time to get home for lunch at noon. It is not uncommon to see a tractor driving down the main street for, indeed, the barns are still located in town among the houses. The towns still grow outward in a spiral fashion, one house at a time. There are no isolated subdivisions of forests or farmlands into housing tracts with quaint names like "Woods of Oberdorfelden" or "Oberdorfelden Farms".
In short, as people began living elbow to elbow, this thing we call government evolved out of necessity. "Can't we all just get along together?" just didn't get it done. Anarchy, it seems, didn't work in close quarters.
These clusters of people surrounded by their fields became our first political states with formal governments. And, the basic role of government? Well — then and now — government is the vehicle for exercising the legitimate use of physical force both within the state itself and against other states.
The human race got along just fine without it for ... uh, well ... ever since there has been a human race until we became agrarians.
Let me explain.
When we think of agriculture in the US today we think of a rural lifestyle with a farmhouse spread out across the countryside here and there. That's not how it was, and in many cases still is, most places. Nope. When the nomadic tribes settled down to grow food in the ground rather than hunt it above the ground, permanent settlements sprang up with the crops in the fields surrounding the settlements. My ancestors in Germany, for example, lived for a time in a village named Oberdorfelden which, when translated into English, means "above the fields". The village is located on high ground overlooking the fields. The church bell still rings at 11:00 to allow the farmers time to get home for lunch at noon. It is not uncommon to see a tractor driving down the main street for, indeed, the barns are still located in town among the houses. The towns still grow outward in a spiral fashion, one house at a time. There are no isolated subdivisions of forests or farmlands into housing tracts with quaint names like "Woods of Oberdorfelden" or "Oberdorfelden Farms".
In short, as people began living elbow to elbow, this thing we call government evolved out of necessity. "Can't we all just get along together?" just didn't get it done. Anarchy, it seems, didn't work in close quarters.
These clusters of people surrounded by their fields became our first political states with formal governments. And, the basic role of government? Well — then and now — government is the vehicle for exercising the legitimate use of physical force both within the state itself and against other states.
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