Inside the Mind of a Statist

When having a conversation with someone who does not follow politics closely, it can often be very difficult and laborious to explain your position in a manner which they might understand; though this can, of course, also be true of those who are familiar with politics but approach it from a differing political paradigm. When dealing with complex political ideas, it takes continued and deliberate effort to develop our understanding of them. Developing our knowledge changes how we might go about articulating that knowledge. In political discussion, issues often arise when a certain level of knowledge is possessed by one individual and not the other, as the language we use to articulate our opinions presupposes an understanding of certain terms and concepts that are not always popularly understood. 

Though such issues can often stifle debate, there is a means of avoiding this problem. By personifying the actions of governments and political parties in terms of interpersonal relations between individuals and focusing on abstract principles and morals, one can, through analogy, make a compelling case without having to navigate all of the terminology and concepts that could lead to confusion or needless complexity. If you do not yet follow what I mean by this, do not despair, I will be providing an extensive example below. Here, I will explore some of my objections to statist solutions.

Using the issue of statism, meaning the belief that the state should have substantial control over society and the economy, we can kill two political birds with one stone. Not only will it demonstrate the utility in using interpersonal analogy when explaining oneself, but it also helps in tackling the issue of the natural predisposition towards statist solutions. When presenting people with an issue, be it political, economic, or societal, they will often be predisposed towards potential government solutions. The apolitical, most of all, are natural statists. They are naturally predisposed to apply the principle, often unwittingly, that when there is an issue, that someone, be they an individual or government, should solve it. 

This is not an unreasonable approach to everyday life. Action, the vast majority of the time, is much better than inaction when seeking to solve an issue. However, when the principle is applied at a national level, or even a local governmental level, it becomes a problem. Due to the sheer incomprehensible complexity of the systems that make up the modern world, even the best-intended government solution can create problems of its own, making the very thing it was attempting to remedy worse or fail entirely. As the economist Thomas Sowell puts it in his book Discrimination and Disparities:

“Among the many dangers of surrogate decision-making is that such decision-makers cannot know the situation of millions of other people, as well as those people, know their own situations, which may not conform to the vision prevailing among the surrogates. Moreover, surrogate decision makers often pay no price for being wrong.” 

And put even more succinctly by another economist, Milton Friedman, who states that:

“The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.” 

The aforementioned predisposition to statist solutions, as described above, outlines an example of principles, applied practically in everyday life, that do not apply to government. However, there is a key distinction to make. Here, I will be using analogy to assess moral considerations, rather than practical ones, which do not become less valid when applied to governments or individuals. Say a state or an individual robs an innocent person, it is immoral whichever agent does so. It could be argued that it is even more immoral for a state to do this than an individual, as the victim is more powerless to deal with the state than they are when dealing with an individual — but it is easier to understand immoral actions at the individual level. When it comes to being a practical agent in the world, it is far easier to assess the consequences of one’s actions at the individual level than it is when dealing with complex national systems. So with that clarification out of the way, let us begin.

Imagine a scenario, where two individuals have been growing vegetables in their respective gardens. They had each been growing different vegetables, one carrots and green beans, the other potatoes and onions. Each individual wishes to cook a stew, which would be most enjoyable with the greatest variety of ingredients, and so they organise between each other to meet to trade some of the surplus vegetables they believe will not get used before they spoil. 

However, when the vegetable growers meet up to exchange their produce, a third party turns up with two armed bodyguards and demands that they take a share not only for themselves, but for those whom they claim to have fewer vegetables than themselves. They outline that if the two vegetable growers resist, they will be taken by force and locked in a room for an as of yet unestablished amount of time and potentially prevented from growing vegetables in the future. The third party explains that if they give them less than the amount they wish, they will go to their respective houses and not only take the amount they asked for, but more. They explain that this additional penalty is for the crime of insolence in disobeying their instructions.

The vegetable growers first protest the legitimacy of the authority that the third party has over what they do with their own vegetables, to which the third party simply point to the weapons in the hands of their armed bodyguards. Upon realising the threat of violence, the vegetable growers protest that those who have not grown vegetables for themselves are still capable of doing so and should therefore not receive the fruits of their labour. Equally, they do not know these beneficiaries of their labour personally, but do know others in their immediate locality who are in need of their surpluses. Their final objection is to the third party’s indication that they would take some for themselves, though they seemed neither hungry nor needy. 

The third party explains that they are the only legitimate authority in deciding who deserves vegetables, and that the surplus vegetables were never really the growers’ to begin with. The vegetables, the third party says, belong to whomever the third party decides they belong to. They also outline that their task of redistributing the vegetables is hunger-inducing work and therefore they deserve a healthy cut for their ‘services’. The third party outlines that the vegetable growers should be grateful for the exchange, that they should voluntarily give more, that it is their duty, and that it would be greedy and immoral to resist the redistribution of their vegetables to those deemed more in need by the third party. 

Under the threat of violence or further theft, the vegetable growers see no other alternative than complying with what the third party demands. They each return with fewer ingredients than they had been anticipating and their respective stews are unfulfilling — compounded by their own emotional bitterness. The whole ordeal disincentivises the vegetable growers from both seeking to trade their vegetables again in the future, as well as the need to grow a surplus in the first place. 

This parable, although simple enough for a child to understand, conveys much political meaning. I am certain that you are able to tease out the applications to politics here, as they have been made deliberately obvious. Nevertheless, I shall explain, only briefly, what it means in specific terms. What I am of course attacking here is the statist view on taxation and trade. When applying the statist model to interpersonal relations, tyranny, coercion, violent threats, unfairness, and self-serving aims all come to light more easily. 

When a state behaves in the same way as the aforementioned third party and its bodyguards, it is more difficult to comprehend who is wronging you or that anything untoward has occurred at all because the institutions that carry out the actions of the state are so vast. But in this scenario it is clear. If you or I were in such a situation as the vegetable growers, it would be a fairly reasonable assumption that we would have nothing but fiery contempt for the third party and their belief that they can control what you do with your own property under threat of violence. This is exactly what a state does. At a moral level, there is little difference between the two. 

I understand this view may not be immediately accepted by some. However, even if the third party were to have a democratic mandate from the majority of the population, it would not make the moral crime of their actions any less reprehensible. Tyranny of the majority is a tyranny no less. A tyranny backed by a majority is also more difficult to escape from, as it not only presents itself as having a valid mandate to conduct its tyrannical activities, but also has numbers of willing enforcers taken in by this illusion. There will, of course, be those who argue that we live in a community in which we have certain responsibilities to others. When it comes to families, at least the ones we chose to create, this is certainly the case and we should be held responsible for their wellbeing. However, when it comes to distant people whom we do not even know, it, in equal measure, is both unnatural and unjust to suggest that we have an obligation to people we have no immediate connection to. Whether we choose to help those we have never met, with our own resources, should be our choice and not that of others — it certainly should not be coerced with violence.

Hopefully, armed with a new rhetorical tool and a new potential application, your political conversations can be more productive. And most of all, remember, no one has the right to your property other than you. Anyone who seeks to violate your right to property, be they man, god or government, is nothing more than a thief. They deserve nothing but your unreserved contempt.

“There has never been a shortage of people eager to draw up the blueprints for running other people’s lives” — Thomas Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities