Government: A Terror to Evildoers?

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. (Romans 13:1 - 3 NRSV) What is Government? According to Howard Zinn, "The greatest violence comes not from protesters and revolutionaries but from governments." (Zinn 1997, 582) Indeed, he is correct. As Ludwig von Mises wrote, "Government is beating into submission, imprisoning, and killing ... [A] law to which no sanction is attached (is) an imperfect law." (Mises 1962) "We must have government," claimed Robert Higgs. "Without government to defend us from external aggression, preserve domestic order, define and enforce private property rights, few of us could achieve much." (Higgs 1987, 3) Echoing Higgs, Armen Alchian and William Allen wrote, "[W]ithout government the state of society would be intolerable, and there could be neither exchange of private-property rights nor such rights. Because security against foreign and domestic aggressors is not adequately organized by private contracts, the military, the police, and the courts are essential." (Alchian & Allen 1983, 392) Again, von Mises: "In stark reality, peaceful social cooperation is impossible if no provision is made for violent prevention and suppression of antisocial action on the part of refractory individuals and groups of individuals." (Mises [1949] 1998, 715) "In order to preserve peaceful cooperation, one must be ready to resort to violent suppression of those disturbing the peace. Society cannot do without a social apparatus of coercion and compulsion, i.e., without state and government." (Ebeling 1990, 303) "What is required for the attainment of an end aimed at is a means, the cost to be expended for its successful realization." (Mises [1949] 1998, 715) "[W]ithout (government) no lasting social cooperation and no civilization could be developed and preserved." However, Mises warns, "It is a double-edged makeshift to entrust an individual or a group of individuals with the authority to resort to violence. The enticement implied is too tempting for a human being. The men who are to protect the community against violent aggression easily turn into the most dangerous aggressors. They transgress their mandate. They misuse their power for the oppression of those whom they were expected to defend against oppression." (Mises 1962) In Elaine Pagels book "The Origin of Satan," she pointed out that Paul, the author of Romans, was probably executed by order of a Roman magistrate and that Nero, a Roman emperor during the first century, had a group of Christians "hung up in his garden and burned alive as human torches." (Pagels 1995, 113) If we consider Christian conduct to be good then, certainly, these rulers were terrors to good deeds or, as Pagels translates it, "to the one who (did) good." (Pagels [1975] 1992, 43) (We are assuming here that Christians experienced fear.) "The

main political problem," according to von Mises, "is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical." (Mises 1962) Tyrannical governments are terrors to those who do good. They are exceptions to the rule. Unless we interpret the Christian teaching cited above as a generalization, it is difficult to reconcile the words from Romans with Mises' analysis. Hayek on Government Perhaps more than any other economist, F. A. Hayek emphasized the singular and, perhaps, insupplantable function religious beliefs serve. In his last major work. he wrote, "We owe it partly to mystical and religious beliefs, and, I believe, particularly to the main monotheistic ones, that beneficial traditions have been preserved and transmitted at least long enough to enable those groups following them to grow, and to have the opportunity to spread by natural or cultural selection." (Hayek [1988] 1991, 136) Decades early, Hayek's explication of religion's role in human affairs was almost fervent: It is essential for the growth of reason that as individuals we should bow to forces and obey principles which we cannot hope fully to understand, yet on which the advance and even the preservation of civilisation depend. Historically this has been achieved by the influence of the various religious creeds and by traditions and superstitions which made man submit to those forces by an appeal to his emotions rather than to his reason. (Hayek 2010) Precisely which traditions Hayek is referring to we don't know. A Christian author claimed that "Western civilization was built by Christianity" (D'Souza [2007] 2008, 43) but this is, for our purposes, ambiguous. What concerns us here is whether belief in Christian teachings on government is indispensable in the sense that rejection of them would lead to the destruction of civilization. Hayek's system of thought, which he referred to as "the antirationalist tradition," was "never antistate as such or anarchistic." (Hayek [1960] 2011) In this respect, Hayek's political philosophy is compatible with the biblical passage cited above. Why would you want the abolition of the state if it is a terror to evildoers? It's safe to say that Paul was not an anarchist. Neither was Hayek but his position is relatively sophisticated. Initially, Hayek wrote, "[T]he spontaneous order of a free society will contain many organizations (including the biggest organization, government)," implying that government is, by definition, a part of a free society. (Nishiyama & Luebe 1984, 366) Later, he refined his position: Government is an organization "which regularly occupies a very special position" within "the Great Society ... Although it is conceivable that the spontaneous order which we call society may exist without government, if the minimum of rules required for the formation of such an order is observed without an organized apparatus for their enforcement, in most circumstances the organization which we call government becomes indispensable in order to assure that those rules are obeyed." (Hayek 2013, 45) The New Testament, as we have seen, preaches non-resistance to

authority. Without authority or government, Hayek maintains, in most cases, certain rules would not be obeyed. If certain rules are not obeyed, society would cease to exist. Therefore, non-resistance to government, if we follow his premises, is, almost always, a necessary condition for the existence of civilization. ("Non-resistance" here means nonresistance by enough people to insure that the amount of resistance is suppressible and anarchy is avoided.) It is not, however, a sufficient one. Government itself must obey rules also. When government "successfully claims the monopoly of coercion and violence, it becomes ... the chief threat to individual freedom." (Hayek 2013, 462) Here we see what appears to be a divergence between Hayek and the New Testament. If government violates long run rules that were intended to limit its functions and scope how can anyone claim that such a government was "instituted by God"? Has God appointed all existing governments no matter how despotic? It depends on your interpretation. The letter to the Romans was written nearly two thousand years ago. Assuming modern translations are reliable, Paul is writing in the present tense. In these verses, he is referring to rulers in his day not ours. This is our error when we delve into biblical exegesis: We read the text as if the author is addressing us when he, in fact, was addressing people who have been dead for centuries. Nonetheless, the passage is thought-provoking because it recognizes that government's role is to enforce rules of conduct. What these rules should or should not be is the topic of the next section. What Rules Should Government Enforce? Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God's servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid. (3 & 4 NRSV) Is "the existence of strongly and widely held moral convictions in any matter ... by itself a justification for their enforcement"? According to Hayek, "[W]ithin a spontaneous order the use of coercion can be justified only where this is necessary to secure the private domain of the individual against interference by others ... [C]oercion should not be used to interfere in that private sphere where this is not necessary to protect others. Law serves a social order, i.e. the relations between individuals, and actions which affect nobody but the individuals who perform them ought not to be subject to the control of law, however strongly they may be regulated by custom and morals." (Hayek 2013, 221) Of course, Hayek is a classical liberal or libertarian: "[T]o the (classical) liberal neither moral nor religious ideals are proper objects of coercion ... [M]oral beliefs concerning matters of conduct which do not directly interfere with the protected sphere of other persons do not justify coercion." (Hayek [1960] 2011) The New Testament says that the one who has authority "is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer." (13:4 NRSV) This, however, is, arguably, mere journalism and does not provide us with any principle to determine what laws government should enforce. According to Hayek, it is inadvisable that obedience to all moral rules should be coerced by government. He argued, "The importance of ... (the) freedom of the

individual ... everywhere where his actions do not conflict with the aims of the actions of others, rests mainly on the fact that the development of custom and morals is an experimental process, in a sense in which the enforcement of uniform rules of law cannot be - a process in which alternative rules compete and the more effective are selected by the success of the group obeying them." (Hayek 2013, 221) Although he is convinced that "freedom has never worked without deeply ingrained moral beliefs" and "coercion can be reduced to a minimum only where individuals can be expected as a rule to conform voluntarily to certain principles" he, nevertheless, insists that "there is an advantage in obedience to such rules not being coerced ... [I]t is, in fact, often desirable that rules should be observed only in most instances and that the individual should be able to transgress them when it seems to him worthwhile to incur the odium which this will cause." His grounds for supporting individual freedom and rejecting state coercion is "the antirationalist, evolutionary tradition." (Hayek [1960] 2011) This anti-rationalist theory of morals shows that, "so far as the creation of moral rules is concerned, 'reason of itself is utterly impotent' and that 'the rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason' ... [O]ur moral beliefs are neither natural in the sense of innate, nor a deliberate invention of human reason, but ... a product of cultural evolution ... In this process of evolution what proved conducive to more effective human effort survived, and the less effective was superseded." (Hayek 1967, 111) Gradual evolution is possible only under limited government, only "with rules which are neither coercive nor deliberately imposed - rules which, though observing them is regarded as merit and though they will be observed by the majority, can be broken by individuals who feel that they have strong enough reasons to brave the censure of their fellows ... [R]ules of this kind allow for gradual and experimental change. The existence of individuals and groups simultaneously observing partially different rules provides the opportunity for the selection of the more effective ones." (Hayek [1960] 2011) Because "a rule of conduct may unexpectedly be contradicted by new experience," it is recommended that government should enforce only some rules and not make all immoral behavior illegal. (Nishiyama & Luebe 1984, xlii) In his essay "Principles of a Liberal Social Order," Hayek specified the kind of rules government should enforce. He argued that the coercive activities of government should be limited to the enforcement of universal rules of just conduct. Enforcement of such rules will protect "a recognizable private domain of individuals." (Nishiyama & Luebe 1984, 365) These rules "have essentially the nature of prohibitions" (There are exceptions. Sometimes the rules of just conduct require positive action.) As to what the protected or private domain of people should or should not include, Hayek doesn't say explicitly. It depends on what rules of just conduct the authorities enforce. That being said, not all rules that governments enforce are rules of just conduct. Rules that regulate behavior that doesn't infringe on the rights of others are not included in the rules of just conduct. As Hayek puts it, "[I]njustice is really the primary concept ... [T]he aim of rules of just conduct is to prevent unjust action ... [T]he injustice to be prevented is the infringement of the protected domain of one's fellow men, a domain which is to be ascertained by means of these rules of justice." (Nishiyama & Luebe 1984, 369 & 370)

Bibliography Alchain, Armen A. & Allen, William R. (1983) "Exchange and Production" D'Souza, Dinesh. ([2007] 2008) "What's So Great About Christianity" Ebeling, Richard M., ed. (1990) "Money, Method, and the Market Process: Essays by Ludwig von Mises" Hayek, F. A. ([1960] 2011) "The Constitution of Liberty" Hayek, F. A. (1967) "Studies in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics" Hayek, F. A. ([1973, 1976, 1979] 2013) "Law, Legislation and Liberty" Hayek, F. A. ([1988] 1991) "The Fatal Conceit" Hayek, F. A. (2010) "Studies on the Abuse and Decline of Reason" Higgs, Robert. (1987) "Crisis and Leviathan" Mises, Ludwig von. ([1949] 1998) "Human Action" Mises, Ludwig von. (1962) "The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science" Nishiyama, Chiaki & Leube, Kurt R., ed. (1984) "The Essence of Hayek" Pagels, Elaine. ([1975] 1992) "The Gnostic Paul" Pagels, Elaine. (1995) "The Origin of Satan" Zinn, Howard. (1997) "The Zinn Reader