It is not so important to assign “blame” or even responsibility to the individuals (or groups) that cause specific actions through governments as it is to determine how and why they are able to, and do so.

That is the principle of identification of the forces affecting the functions of governments.

My point is not that the mechanism which is government is not a “discrete” entity. Of course it is.

My point is to call attention to the effects of reification, such as seems to be inferred from the idea that governments can be imbued with an institutional will of their own.

Governments are used as instruments of plunder, to limit choices, to limit freedoms (randomly or selectively), to transfer obligations, etc.,etc. – all to achieve the objectives of those humans who directly or indirectly cause those uses to be made (no smoking).

While historically, other societies have dealt with these effects, from time to time, by assassinations (still happens) we are not there yet.

As the solidifying examples in Russia and elsewhere indicate, that result can develop.

That is not to say that I subscribe to the Dicta of Carlyle.

* It’s also a central element of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”. His Rule 11 says “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.”

It is precisely because governments are mechanisms, operated by people, and can be adapted in their operations to various social functions (including the performance of obligations once held personal and civil), that Brittan’s assertions can be made.

I have forgotten whether it was Mr. Pierce or Paul Marks who “corrected” my use of “mechanism” a couple years back, preferring “Institution.” I stick with mechanism.

You did cause me to re-check my understanding of “imbued,” with respect to “institutional will.” That is a misperception. Institutions are subsumed into the mechanisms of governments. Nowhere is that more patent than in our very necessary military organizations.

Yes, within the subsumed institutions, the objectives of those individuals carrying out the functions of the institution (Public Education, e.g.) are the “will” you refer to. We see this in the non-elected, self-perpetuating bureaus local, state and federal – but, it is always driven by human action, human motivation human will operating a mechanism.

Guns don’t kill people can be repeated as governments don’t plunder people. But, people get killed with guns and plundered through governments every day.

If we don’t stop talking and acting as though The Government is the same as a person, we will never remove the shield that hides the real perpetrators of malfunctions and malfeasance.

I read the article your refer to and the author’s social welfarism is made clear by statements like:

What is called “the state” is simply a mechanism by which citizens can provide collectively for items such as defence and security, which cannot readily be provided either through the market or through voluntary co-operation. It is also a mechanism for transferring claims to income or property from one citizen to another.

The question is how much one set of citizens should transfer to another set. The transfers may require a complicated administrative mechanism, although not one as complicated as that provided by the present accumulated mix of goodies.

. . .

Suppose someone has not made adequate provision for old age or periods of ill health. In a civilised, affluent society he or she should not be left to perish in the gutter. The genuine liberal (neo or otherwise) should ask: what is the minimum standard we wish to provide even for those who have been improvident or unlucky in their personal affairs?

He declares there is no “theory of just property rights” and then from an apparent community property basis declares that there is no such thing as the state. I’ll leave it to others to work out how one can have forced redistribution without something taking the role we recognize as “the state“.

“The state” is imbued with an institutional will of its own that transcends any individual actors. Institutions will survive and prosper when their institutional perpetuation is best served by those acting in them. Institutions whose actors prioritize their chartered goals rather than the institutions’ own perpetuation will fade. At the end of the day, the institutions that are best served, rather than the institutions that best serve, are the ones that survive. This institutional will can work even in defiance of the interests of its own actors to say nothing of those outside of the institution. I believe this is the point Laird was making.

May I suggest a 2004 column by Samuel Brittan:

There is No Such Thing as The State

It can still be found on his website, under Articles, by Date, 2004@ Samuelbrittan.co.uk

They do call out for the government to “do something” about X, Y, Z.

It chills my blood when they make that call. Although (with the specific examples given above) the voters did not demand them they were invented (and pushed) by the elite. Only after people got used to them did they start to see them as rightfull benefits (even as “rights”).

ADE.

I am indeed no fan of “scientic”, “objective” government.

Let ministers hire their own advisers – and let them be kicked out with the minister (if the election goes against them).

The “cult of the Civil Service” had gone much too far – it started with examinations (replacing the spoils system) and ended up with the administrative structure becomming an end itself.

Especially (in the American case) after Jack Kennedy let unions into the Federal government – only the State of Wisconsin (of the 50 State governments) already had them, but most other States soon followed the Federal lead.

Back in the 1950s officials at least for the most part followed the orders of politicians (and one could kick politicians out) these days the reply to often is “I am sorry but our rules are….” whose rules? OFFICIALS ARE SUPPOSED TO DO AS THEY ARE TOLD. and this was also the time when Acts of Congress were only a few pages long and people actually read them before they read them.

I simply refuse to belive that the 1950s was a different geological age and it is impossible to get back to things like that.

Tim.

Like me you are a libertarian – we both would like to have a government a lot smaller than Federal government was even in 1950s (something rather like what existed in 1886, PERHAPS minus the Civil Service Act, and certainly minus the National Banking Act in my case – to me even the ICC is a serious mistake).

Actually (as far as the Federal government goes) I would like to go all the way back to Martin Van Buren – no national debt and money straight in the Independent Treasury to be spent on a REAL “pay as you go” basis.

Not back to Andrew Jackson – no “trail of tears” or State “pet banks” for me.

Constitutions……..

You take the Jeffersonian line – that they can not be expected to hold over very long periods of time.

Partly (I suspect) that is a LANGUAGE thing.

The meaning of words changes – so people find the original text harder and harder to fully understand.

It is like the difference between the King James version of the Bible and more modern translations.

Yes the King James version is much nicer – better to hear.

But which are you going to give to a person who has never read the Bible before?

Which is going to be less difficult for him or her to UNDERSTAND?

If the “gender neutral language” could be ditched I would have no hesitation in giving someone the New Revised Standard Version rather than the King James.

Because the ordinary person would UNDERSTAND the modern langauge with less difficulty. He or she might go on the the King James version later (once they understood what the words meant) – that is another matter.

Also no document is perfect.

Let us leave the question of modernizing language for a moment.

Does the commandment really say “not kill” NO it actually says (in the Hebrew) not “murder” (a very different thing).

The King James version is just wrong at this point – it is a mistake in translation.

And there are a few places where the original text of the United States Constitution is just WRONG as well (the Amendments were not all mistakes).

It is not just a language thing.

We must accept that even if a Constitution chains the State, the State will seek to add link after link until, over time, the chains are so long as to mean nothing but a dead weight to its citizens.

In that respect, every now and then the Stables must be cleansed and the chains re-forged.

Yes, I have deJasay’s The State on disc.

He is abit younger than I, better intellect and more articulate.

However, on the operation of governments I am sort of an afficionado of Gordon Bulloock.

I repeat line 4 of my comment:

This is the same electorate (over a time spectrum) that has departed from a defined constitutional structure for the functions of government (that is for what it can be used) to not only support but insist on the three functions that are destroying the fiscal capacity of that government to function at all: social security, medicaid and medicare.

I raise the consideration that it is not so much the nature of the persons operating the government as it is the deviations of the electorate (even if seduced) to which they respond.

The electorate wishes for something more than a constitutionally limited government, without caution in what they wish for.

All organisations exist (or eventually get co-opted ) for the benefit of ‘management’.

The mistake we are making is thinking that elected politicians are ‘management’. The real level of management is below them, invisible, Sir Humphries.

We need to drop the level of officials who are removed when a Govt is turfed out. Pour encourage…

ADE