This is a very interesting question I think Hobbs has a valid point when he says a bad government is preferable to no government at all. When we look at what is happening in Syria and other countries we see that once a government falls anarchy follows as the population search for leadership and direction civil unrest grows. Leaders apperar to offer the population change promising a new beginning which results in civil war as different factions vie for a piece of the action each trying to wield it authority. An attempt is made at showing strength and promising much. However, a bad government will try and hold things together by offering gifts or bounties to its people if they do or say what the leadership wants to hear. You have peace to a certain degree with consequences bad policies poor Dr visions unfair or unjust burdens placed on the people in the state while the government grapple to stay in control and the population watch helplessly and take the consequences.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Risser, 

I am reminded of a passage from the Declaration of Independence:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

---End quotation

Often enough, bad government will be better than none at all; and I would certainly hesitate to try to make such a judgment about  someone else's situation.

H.G. Callaway 

"Bad government" involves moral judgement, which differs according to whom you are talking with.  But, "no government" is a reality and a failure in providing public goods, which certainly makes life difficult for all people.  So, the former is uncertain while the latter is absolutely undesirable. 

FD

I just want to share these quotes from two great leaders:

"I prefer a government run like hell by Filipinos to a government run like heaven by Americans." - Manuel L. Quezon of the Philippines

“I beg you to accept that there is no people on earth who wouldn’t prefer their own bad government to the good government of an alien power.” - Mahatma Gandhi of India

There is no social group without a leadership, it would be nothing but a gang.

By the way, it is an excellent question, thanks for giving us this good motive to think.

Better than none. The fact that is deemed to be "bad" would give the current government a chance to improve itself or face a defeat in the near future. Also it would give the opposition a golden opportunity to adopt a new direction to make themselves more popular and eventually win in the next elections.

I think the answer can be found in Human History. Society evolved from non organized groups of persons to increasingly organized ones. That happened because the complexity of internal relations, resulting from differentiation of labor roll of persons and using of more sophisticated tools. In this context, with the production growing, differences appeared among people and with that, social classes. Those lead to some groups/classes to control over the rest of society, and consequently, to states formation and their governments.

That was better for the Society development. Rulers could be good or bad persons (as these concepts were understood in that time), but they guaranteed more efficient development of Society, accordingly to that time and cultural historical stage. Societies which evolved to government based organization mostly survived. Other human groups disappeared or almost disappeared (currently there are human groups without government).

Possibly society will evolve, in the future, to social structures without governments. Of course, it should take place step by step. From my point of view, one the most interesting source of information on this issue is the Lenin's book "The State and Revolution". Curiously, he concluded that governments, as institutions, will extinguish, while government in Russia, and eventually in Soviet Union, became stronger and stronger.

In any case, it is understandable that processes, related to social organization, are very complex, and it is very difficult to predict the next stage of development, but I think currently society still needs some kind of controlled organization, while, at the same time, people will get more and more self control, by means of participative forms of democracy, where every opinion matters. ICT, and Internet as a particular expression, are tools that will help (actually they are).

Other approach to this question can be a cybernetic based analysis, considering society as a cybernetic system, which uses information to control its processes, and consequently some kind of controller subsystem is needed. Even, in many cases, first civilizations appeared in places where, for different reasons, people could share more information, that those places, where there were not developed civilizations.

Very fine-tunned question, dear David. No: I would definitely answer no. A bad government is worse than anything else on earth. History abounds in cases and examples.

Can there be a no-government situation? At every social situation, something, someone or certain condition rules. However, how do we define a good government and where can we fine an example?

Dear David:

In my view, a bad government is generally better than pure anarchy. That said. if the price I have to pay in order to avoid anarchy is Hitler or Stalin, well, I'm sorry: I would rather live in anarchy until another option is achievable. 

I don't think anarchy is a sort of "natural state" of humans. However, when societies fall into such state, they generally adopt the Hobbesian (bad) solution. Authoritarianism (not necessarily totalitarianism) is usually the (poor) solution when the members of a society fail to cooperate.

It is highly unlikely that democracy can emerge in a society whose members are not willing to associate and cooperate.

In both cases it would be a big mess.

I completely agree with Ahmad Samed Al-Adwan:

"In both cases it would be a big mess".

Believe me, dear friends: a bad government is a curse for the people. Can't we trust people without any government? Trust is something fundamental, I think...

Dear all,

This is interesting question,  a society that is devoid of a government or a society with bad government. First off all, if a society has no government then that society does not exist as a collective group. Governments are social organizations of political power that are made to facilitate or govern by putting in place fundamental laws so that citizens live in safety and enjoy liberty  to lead a better life. Such establishments are meant to give a higher latitude for humans to live in common for a greater purpose with more resources that are managed and sustained than surviving only by self,  like wild beasts where only rule/law of nature dictates.

Living without a government will be more dangerous, more meaningless and less motivating to exit than otherwise, but at the same time if there is a government that takes away the things the people were supposed to enjoy, then it puts a question to the people as to how to change the government, not how to live without a government. We witness what life in Syria today is because of the absence of a strong government that is for all and democratic, where gun touting groups fighting each other to create their own sphere of influence of a political power. If we diminish the size of the fighting groups further down, then the condition changes to almost chaos and reasonable existence is almost impossible as a thinking rational  human being. We see how catastrophic and almost self elimination such kinds of existence is, an existence without a  government and painful to live in a bad government.   

Any society that has a relative large size necessarily came to exist if and only if it has a way to coordinate itself.  Anarchisms believe that the best government is no government, i.e. a society that coordinate itself without large locus of concentrated power.  Each one of us is a coordinate group of 35 000 billion Eukariot cells. In spite of the fact that we have a central nervous system, we do not have very centralized nexus of power.  Maybe this should be a clue how we can become more and more coordinate society without the need of a centralized governance which end up governing for itself becoming the equivalent of a cancerous tumor.

I reject Hobbes' premise no government would lead to total chaos, in fact, I find it the complete opposite, where governments train, teach and cajole their citizens to behave violently, and, this is done for a myriad of reasons, but a few of them are to generate dissension whilst the government pilfers, to train the populace in all things abusive, in order to, enable their citizens to kill and commit other criminal activities, lastly, and certainly not the last of such reasons, governments encourage violence among their populace to generate profit. 

Hobbes was a fool. The very monster, Leviathan, he promoted is the very reason misery exists in such abundance upon this hellish Earth.

Thanks to Hobbes and all his stinking buddies. 

P.S. conditions in Iraq, Libya and the like were generated by predatory governments, hence, what control is there for a world full of ravenous, criminal governments?

Hobbes, let me guess, would then suggest a world government... ... ...that would fix it...right?

P.S.S. David, you don't need to cite such cliche governments, like NAZI Germany, etc, to find a government dripping in blood, criminal behavior and total rot... ... ...take a look around, you'll find a world overflowing with such disease. 

Many contributors are seeing bad government as mere authoritarianism. That is only a type or an aspect of bad governance. A bad government can be as chaotic as a no-government. A bad government can ensure the perpetuity of chaos. In my view, I agree with Ahmad Samed Al-Adwan that at the extreme they both could be a big mess.

It's an interesting question. The two great political works in Western philosophy are Plato's Republic and Hobbes' Leviathan. Plato anticipated Hobbes' work in Glaucon's Ring of Gyges myth that analyzes the relation between the State of Nature, Human Nature, and the Social Contract (see Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Golding's Lord of the Flies), between the organic community and the atomistic society. Plato obviously views the nature of man as congenial to positive associations. Nevertheless Popper criticizes him in the Open Society and its Enemies as strongly tending toward totalitarianism and censorship. Hobbes clearly has a pessimistic view of human nature--"man's life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short--a war of all against all" while Marx recruits Hobbes' paradigm in his descriptions of capitalism. But scholars interpret Hobbes as an authoritarian who seeks a supervening power or force to protect men from each other. I think it all depends on how one "reads" the virtues and vices of mankind. Rousseau for example offers a much more benign portrait of mankind in the State of Nature (see J. W. Gough, The Social Contract: A Critical Study of Its Development). 

Because I explore the impact of social environments on human loneliness, I wrote an article based on Ferdinand Tonnies classic distinction between Gesselschaft and Gemeinschaft on human loneliness ("Organic Communities, Atomistic Societies, and Loneliness," Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, that may be of some interest.

''MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the

master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. How did

this change come about? I do not know. What can make it legitimate?''

Social Contract, Rousseau

Dear Louis, cancer arises just because one single cell does not want o cooperate. Hence, it goes "out of control" and a tumor begins to grow.

Life does consist of networks of cooperation, not on hierarchical divisions. Cooperation and not fight and selection are the ultimate real grounds for life to exist.

Boulder, Colorado

Dear Brassard, 

I think we have already seen, in various discussions, how Edmund Burke and R.W. Emerson might answer this quotation from Rousseau.

Emerson wrote:

To hazard the contradiction, — freedom is necessary. If you please to plant yourself on the side of Fate, and say, Fate is all; then we say, a part of Fate is the freedom of man. Forever wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in the soul. Intellect annuls Fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.

---End quotation

See:

http://www.emersoncentral.com/conduct.htm

Freedom persists were people are willing to take the risk to question authority, day in and day out, instead of seeking advantage in acquiescence to authority. Or, we might say that un-freedom arises from the "freedom of the lambs."  

H.G. Callaway

Boulder Colorado

Dear Maldonado, 

I'm all for cooperation and give and take. However, it is important to notice that cooperation prospers in the light of common purpose and the possibility of success of join projects. 

You wrote:

Life does consist of networks of cooperation, not on hierarchical divisions. Cooperation and not fight and selection are the ultimate real grounds for life to exist.

---End quotation

If we allow the existing hierarchical powers-that-be to decide on which projects and cooperative undertakings, will prosper; and if cross-examination is put beyond the pale, then the consequence will likely be that the grounds of cooperation, particularly the economic grounds, will be subject to manipulation. 

Those unwilling to put up a little "fight" in the face of oppression will also see  oppression grow and prosper. That is the reason is it important to question authority. This is an essential feature of democratic control. 

H.G. Callaway 

Professor Callaway,

I heartily agree with your claim that the questioning of authority is an essential feature of democratic control.  I believe that the questioning of authority is also essential to the development of individual moral autonomy.

I also agree with the observation you pointed to in the Declaration of Independence, to the effect that people are far more likely to tolerate a tyrannical government too long, than they are to rebel against government prematurely.  (Jefferson's source for this empirical claim is, of course, John Locke.) 

Boulder, Colorado

Dear Risser, 

Many thanks for your good word and supporting arguments! 

H.G. Callaway

All government is bad. Once government is instituted, however well intended, its first job is to ensure its preservation. Self-preservation makes a good government bad. Society needs protection and order and many types of communal services. Protection and order are the primary responsibilities of government. Communal services need not be assigned to the organized government. Assigning services to the government ensures government will degrade. Nevertheless, bad government is better than no government. The job of the citizens is continuously correct the government and limit governmental power. Governmental power impedes correction by citizens.

Dear Luisiana Cundin,

Thank you for your comments. 

Although I do not agree that all governments are ultimately criminal conspiracies, I do agree that most governments do not rule in the interests of the governed, and that there are, and have been, far more tyrannical regimes than just or benign ones.

Hobbes did not advocate "world government".  In fact, he claimed that governments were in a state of nature vis-a-vis one another, and thus there is a "war of all against all" among regimes.

The discussion runs along, t leads, two different scales. Firstly, there are those who participate taking into account real-existing situations. Secondly, there are those who think on the very possibilities of the question raised by David. This distinction is roughly clear. However, there is some noised when combining both. Either realism or logic possibility...

Hey David,

Let me respond by saying this: consider the proposal that we will hire a watcher to oversee an agency, but someone points out the obvious fact that the watcher could be unreliable, thus, after much deliberation, the solution is to hire yet another watcher to watch the watcher... ... ...and so on to infinity.

The above is a well-worn concept to admonish governments or to erode trust in them...fair enough. For me, the real point is the obvious invalidity of the original "solution", hence, no matter how many times you may iterate the same bad idea, you will end up with the same problem you started with. In fact, it will get worse, because you then have power of office, the higher it may go, with all the trappings of regality or authority, etc. To sum it up: power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

With that said, the least government appears to be the best solution; yet, as Hobbes points out, we all live in a "family" (said with immense spite and quite snarky) of Nations, governments, etc, and this family is quite dysfunctional, where stronger governments will interfere in less powerful ones. Of course, that's world history, the constant interference of one to another, the constant abuse, when advantage presents itself...

So, with all that obviousness... ... ...it is quite obvious that governments do not solve a bloody thing, but they are expected to be victorious over rival governments. Fine, we just might live in an incorrigible shithole called the world. 

I accept that and no longer fight against it, in other words, I make no further attempt to beguile myself that the world is redeemable or beautiful...it is simply rot. It is a sober and somber perspective, even if it pessimistic, yet such distrust of authority could go a long way for a population in keeping their government inline. That's, I think, is the very crux of the problem: no matter how well intentioned a government may be, nor whether it be good in every sense at the outset, over time, it will erode, corrupt, decay, decadence, thus we arrive exactly where we departed. In the same sense, the world revolves... ... ...without end. 

Finally, it is important to think in terms of not utopianists ideology, but realistic terms, knowing the true nature of man and knowing that good only emerges when men have the courage, strength and will to make it so. 

I think a bad government is better than no government at all. However, bad government ironically is no government.

Dear Callaway,

I totally agree with the position of Emerson on the relation of faith and freedom.  I was thinking exactly along the same line when I wrote this contribution yesterday.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Does_free_will_exist3

This sentence of Rousseau has been haunting me for a long time and I would tend to answer that the chains are the power of the look of the others and that its more powerfull incarnation is money.  The Sauron of Tolkien as the Lords of the Rings and its invisible ever looking eye is also haunting me.  I take very serioiusly these authors.

Hi David,

you know self that your question is not conform to the constitution of a developed state. No government would mean chaos also in the USA. But a bad government can already exist. But then in free, secret elections, however, the people had got not enough attention for that.

There should be enough strengtht o be there to change this. Through a non-parliamentary opposition and through elections.Changing the system is difficult and does anyone want this?

Greetings

Michael Lersow

All governments are bad. The levels may differ and in genuine democracies, this may be measured by how popular such a government is!

after the american operation in Iraq, we stay about two years without cabinet, and our life is go peacfully, our problems begins when the cabinet formed

Dear Vladimir Karadzhov,

I accept your opinion but your suggestion is well known and not acceptable. You want again a Soviet republic! We had this ever once, never again. All the power to the Soviets has brought us into the dictatorship! The dictatorship of the proletariat and this you want again?

Well, Germany is no longer under the hegemony of Russia and us can it  be not matter what you do.

Have a good time

Michael Lersow

As history shows - bad government always leading his country to disaster (the Third Reich, the Soviet Union), and the lack of government creates the possibility of self-organization of the people (the beginning of the power and the creation of structures within each social group). So rather better is the lack of government than the government leading to crime. But the organization structure leads to a struggle for leadership and destabilizes the lives of the inhabitants.

Perhaps the problem lies in the concept of "bad government". There are always groups that are beneficiaries of even the "bad government". The "bad government" - that is, for whom bad? Even if the gain is just a small group of citizens (at the cost of others), then we have a simple dictatorship based on the strength of the army or police.

So rather we have a question how much the government must be "bad", that better was his lack.

Dear Jan,

your examples are examples, if the sozial situation of the most people of a society is so bad, that a great demagogic seducer comes to power with simple answers and great promises to the great problems.

Demagogy is that a group (the proletariat) is pretended out of society or a society (the Germans), they are better than the others and only they can solve the problems. Prejudices against others are built up or strengthened.This always leads into the misery.

These are not bad governments but criminals who are not allowed to take power. There are elections and an enlightened bourgeoisie that can prevent this.

Good lack

Michael

Good point, dear Jan. However, making the list, or characterizing a bad government would take very long posts, isn't it? The general term "a bad government" is bad enough to go into details. Nearly of all of us know, by experience or reading about pretty bad governments: the Roman emperors, Alexander the Great himself, many Kings and Popes in the Middle Age, and so on and so forth.

Dear Carlos,

You are correct that "bad government" is not specific enough.  What I had in mind in my question was either (1) impotent government unable to provide the basic conditions of peace and security, or (2) tyrannical government which makes use violence to quell internal dissent. 

Agree, dear David. No problem with that. Moreover, any bad government is a violent one.

I personally do not buy the pretension (mainly from political science) that all the crux lies in the legitimacy of the violence. Violence, in my view is not acceptable, period. Apologize to all our friends here for my tone.

Dear Carlos,

Max Weber defined the state as that human organization which claims a "legitimate" monopoly on the use of physical violence within a certain geographical area.  

Many governments (e.g., the US) were created by people perpetuating a violent revolution in order to replace tyrannical rule. But, once their new government is established, it reserves the right to use violence to defend itself from overthrow. This state of affairs seems to be one of the persistent contradictions in human affairs.

I know those arguments, of course. That's why I introduced the general statement.

That is, if allowed, the theory: now, let's look into the praxis of eugenics in the U.S. in the 1920s and 1930s, f.i., and the Nazi regime. Or all those crimes around Syria and Irak... The list can be large enough, still.

Dear Daiv, I wish I was black, or gay, or communist, or whatever, which I am not. I belong to another minority group: pacifists.

Dear Carlos,

Although I am not a pacifist, I understand and respect your position.  Your position raises another question in my mind:  When and under what circumstances, if ever, is the use of violence, by individuals or organized groups, such as the state, morally justified?

Bingo, David. Morally justifies sets the question on quite a different level as on "politically justified". 

Yes it does. I would argue, following Aristotle and others, that political legitimacy is the moral foundation of governmental authority.

Dear Michael,

you're right, examples are just examples. And the second time you're right, there are elections and an enlightened bourgeoisie that can prevent this.

Only during the election (assuming democratic election in the modern sense), the majority wins.

A majority choice demagogue - and we have bad governments - governments criminals.

So maybe coup - instead of democracy, to stop the bad governments?

But the coup in the end it creates a bad government.

Yours

Jan

Carlos,

Einstein was the archetype pacifist.  Is'nt ironic, it is this pacifist that sent in 1939 a letter to President Roosevelt for convincing him to develop a nuclear weapon.

http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Begin/Einstein.shtml

Dear Louis,

Einstein never claimed to be a pacifist, as far as I know, and he is said to have expressed regrets for signing the letter to FDR after the first test explosion of an atomic bomb by the US.  The letter in question was sent to Roosevelt during WWII when it was thought, incorrectly, that Germany was close to developing its own atomic bomb.  The first successful test explosion of the A-bomb occurred after VE (Victory in Europe) Day. 

Dear Louis, I personally do not pretend to defend Einstein or any other pacifist. I am talking for myself. Of course I know the case of Einstein. This is...huh... not a religion...

I have the feeling that being a pacifist is kind of uneasiness. The ruling mindset is about weaponry and wars, under any justification no matter what.

Carlos,

Might pacifism, in practice, be understood as hearty skepticism about the use of violence, at least, for political purposes?

David,

''Born in Ulm, Einstein was a German citizen from birth. As he grew older, Einstein's pacifism often clashed with the German Empire's militant views at the time. At the age of 17, Einstein renounced his German citizenship and moved to Switzerland to attend college. The loss of Einstein's citizenship allowed him to avoid service in the military, which suited his pacifist views. In response to a Manifesto of the Ninety-Three signed by 93 leading German intellectuals including Max Planck in support of the German war effort, Einstein and three others wrote a counter-manifesto.[4] Einstein accepted a position at the University of Berlin in 1914, returning to Germany where he spent his time during the rest of World War I.[5] Einstein also reacquired his German citizenship. In the years after the war, Einstein was very vocal in his support for Germany. In 1918, Einstein was one of the founding members of the German Democratic Party.[6]:83 In 1921, Einstein refused to attend the third Solvay Congress in Belgium, as his German compatriots were excluded. In 1922, Einstein joined a committee sponsored by the League of Nations, but quickly left when the League refused to act on France's occupation of the Ruhr in 1923. As a member of the German League of Human Rights, Einstein worked hard to repair relations between Germany and France.''

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Albert_Einstein

My point was to say that even a convinced pacifism may end up involve into promoting the development of the most terrible weapon of war and regret it afterward.

Dear Louis,

I stand corrected on the status of Einstein's pacifism, and I understand your point regarding his involvement in promoting the development of the A-bomb.

David

Hi David. Interestingly Kant is closer to Hobbes on this point than one might expect. For myself, I think there is a third alternative. States with good governments sometimes have the right and probably obligation to bring evil states into line. I think Rawls;s analysis in The Law of  Peoples is right on the mark here. 

Dear Norman, 

It was very useful to bring both Kant and Rawls to bear on this question, and I agree with your comments regarding both philosophers. These comments bring another question to mind:  Under what circumstances and for what ends, if any, do good governments have the right (or the obligation) to bring evil governments into line? Further, assuming there is such a right or obligation, what means may good governments employ to control and/or correct evil ones?

Thank you for your contribution.

David,

The world order is not one where the individual states are really independent.  They are just one super power: the US with allied and privilege vassal states and then the other weak vassal states and then a few powerfull unsubmit states: China, Russia and their allies such as Iran, Assad, etc...  And in all states, the government is not the government of the people but of the finantial oligarchy.  Speaking of morality in this context is fairytales talk.

Yes, dear David, it might be. Skepticism -particularly Pyrronism and the version by Sextus Empiricus, is quite close to wisdom and prudence. Such is the spirit of pacifism, indeed. Thank you for your question.

No goverment means Chaos

Dear Rolando,

No government literally means anarchy. But, does anarchy necessarilly mean chaos?

I think this is one case in which you can't say, "All other things being equal," because the nature of these other things are perhaps sometimes the same and things would work better if the "no government" choice were made, and at the other end of a continuum if the "bad government" choice were made. 

If there were only 100 people in a place the size of Rhode Island, people would be better off being able to avoid anybody else they didn't get along with and lead 

If the population density were one person per square yard over a closed area, then like it or not, conflicts would emerge and might well be solved by viiolence. If a single strong man emerged his rule might not impose a high cost on the people he ruled. 

No government in the case of a biological sink would be worse than a strongman tribal chief in a one person/square mile primitive situation.

Government is like old age--you cannot avoid it. There's always some asshole who wants to be in charge, so he can pilfer, steal and live the high life, also, his pathetic ego loves exacting control on others, in fact, it just might be the greatest joy of government, having control over the lives of others. If I were an anarchists and declared myself emancipated from all external governments, well, that's just fine, but you'll also suffer the same fate as all governments: continuous harassment, until absorbed. 

Dear David T. Risser,

"On the other hand, many observers would point to the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century., such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union to make the case that some governments are worse than no government at all". 

Soviet Union created the Lenin and Stalin (on Leninist principles, which to some extent affected by the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is a known point of view, it is a point of view and Putin).

Interestingly, Lenin in "State and Revolution" (1917) wrote about the disappearance of the state (one of the goals of communism). And then Lenin built a totalitarian regime in the USSR, and wrote about the disappearance of the state. Absurd? - Yes, the 1917 revolution has spawned a lot of absurd things. I think that a sign of equality between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union can not be. The USSR, the US and Britain destroyed Nazism. Totalitarian regime in the USSR destroyed itself (I am considering the situation simplistically), it is a pity that  together with the state of the USSR, which could become democratic This is a difficult question, I think that you have a different point of view. Creating a union of independent states has failed.

"... That some governments are worse than no government at all". I would agree with you completely, if there was an anarchist. The destruction of even totalitarian governments (I once thought it was always good, for example, is uniquely well that was destroyed by Nazi Germany). But the destruction of some totalitarian regimes regimes outside or inside (for example, the destruction of the Tsarist regime in Russia in 1917) can create serious problems for the entire world.

The destruction of the totalitarian regime in Iraq (it would seem, is - well), Libya (it seemed that good) - I will not name other countries, you know them), but what it led to? This led to the fact that the Middle East is a war, and hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing to Europe. Killed thousands of civilians, etc. Totalitarian regimes need to destroy, by changing the government through democratic means, without war.

***

"The destruction of the parasite - the state. "The destruction of state power," which was a "parasitic excrescence", "clipping" of its "destruction" of it; "State power is now being made superfluous" - these are the expressions Marx spoke about the state of evaluating and analyzing the experience of the Commune". (Lenin, "The State and Revolution" (1917).

All these ideas of Marx and Lenin now,  to put it mildly,  look "not very clever and wise".

Fine ideation dear David. Anarchy dos not necessarily mean chaos. Not to mention that a chaotic system does not mean a disordered system. On the contrary, it qualifies a highly ordered system, that is, however, highly unpredictable.

A society is a group of people that coordinate their actions.  Most of the coordination is not dictated by the government.  Our laws, our education, and all the existing infrastructure in terms of organisation that have been built are doing most of this coordination.  Government are dealing with changing aspects of the laws, negotiating with foreigh governments for establishing relations, and setting priorities for the development of the new infrastructure and the maintenance of the old, as well as insuring military protection with allied.  All these functions of government in this coordination are necessary but would not necessarily big government to be achieved if new social network collaborative tools would be available to do this without professional polititians, without political parties.  A real democracy would be a direct one and not one that is delegated.  A direct democracy is a old arnarchism idea but it was not technically and practically achievable but it is now possible to conceive how to achieve it now in this era of social networks.  These are presently only talk talk talk but it would be possible to coordinate societies with them and this talk talk talk could be harnessed and replace big governments.

Yes, indeed dear Louis. Democracy as such was valid only in ancient Greece, just because the town was small (or big enough): 10.000 inhabitants, divided in four quarters. There was time and specs ti discuss and ask and provide reasons. The story thereafter was the one of delegative or representative democracy (horrible dictum).

In cities of many millions of people, in nations of multiple regions and geographies, democracy is... apologize... just a word.

Carlos,

Now 10 000 to 40 000 citizens vote for one representative who is only one among 400 representatives who  have on top of them a party to which they have to comply more than those that elected them, and their party need funding from the financial plutocracy.  Calling that a democracy because there is a voting process every 4 years would be a joke if the results would not be so real.

Not to mention, dear Louis, the engineering -literally- that supports the winning campaigns, the lobbying and all he interests and different forces. People just vote, they do not elect, though. The election has already been made "up there". 

Carlos,

Democracies are getting closer to plutocraties every days but I would not want to be into a totalitarian regime where the plutocraty do not have to hide but just shutt you if your open your mouth.  In the west, we can open our mouth and not get shot  but it has not effect.  We have to safegard the last piece of it or ...

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all, 

Just a few words in favor of representation and representational democracy: It seems pretty clear that long-held tradition has delivered such systems to us on the grounds that it is the only viable form of democracy for larger polities. But if that is true, and I think it is, then, it does not follow that government, in line with representational strictures can do just anything, entertain unlimited ambitions, and still maintain its representational and democratic character.

On the contrary, defects in contemporary representational systems seem to have a lot to do with lack of self-restraint on the part of governments and on the part of those politicians who much prefer making deals among themselves in contrast to reflecting the views and interests of their electoral constituencies. It is important not to place the fault of contemporary systems on representational democracy, when it is precisely the lack of fuller representation which is at the root of the problems we so often see. 

This includes the dominating role of the commercial media, institutional insider trading, favoritism, corporatism, corruption and likely much more to boot. These seem to all be factors which lead politicians away from the task of representing the actual views and interests of their legitimate constituents. Commercial media, too frequently, side with ruling tendencies viewed as popular with  their financial backers or existing tendencies of policy and politics. Its partly a matter of their jumping on existing bandwagons. Politicians are too often more interested in getting re-elected than they are in bringing difficult issues and problems to the fore, and this is basically a lack of responsibility on their own part. Getting re-elected often implies catering to existing establishments and failure to represent less popular or prevailing interests. Consider, for example the mass exporting of manufacturing and manufacturing jobs out of western countries, over decades of globalization. Whatever good this may have done in the world, it seems clear that contrary interests have often been ignored or marginalized. If it is safe to ignore such basic economic interests of large portions of the population, then it must be that the politicians supporting such policies have not been much concerned with the negative impact on their own electoral constituencies. If they are able to get away with that sort of thing, then one would think that insider favoritism would amount to small change in comparison. 

If we are headed toward plutocracy, as Brassard has it, then it seems that this has been a result of the contemporary political regimes of recent decades--and a lack of fuller representation of too many directly affected. 

H.G. Callaway

That's clear, dear Callaway. However, it would be fruitful to combine, say, politics and sociology. From a sociological standpoint is true that nearly everywhere around the globe, many local communities start organized themselves in a manifold ways. If so, representative democracy is being overcome for new forms of organization. On the basis of it, there is trust, solidarity and close integration. Pretty interesting.

One of the most serious defects in US democracy is the noncompetitive nature of congressional elections, due to gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is the strategic drawing of House of Representatives districts, by state legislatures, to favor a particular party and/or incumbent candidates.  Of the 435 seats in the House, approximately 95% of incumbents will be reelected to office every 2 years. The primary reason for this extraordinarily high rate of the reelection is the fact that about 90% of House districts are drawn to be either solidly Republican or solidly Democratic, although Republicans benefit more from gerrymandering than do Democrats.

The intention of the Constitutional framers was for there to be constant turnover in the House.  More than any other body of government, it was the House of Representatives which was supposed to register the pulse of the electorate. This intention is thwarted by the high rate of reelection of incumbents due to noncompetitive congressional districts.  Extensive gerrymandering by state legislatures has been challenged before the US Supreme Court, but the Court deems issues regarding gerrymandering to be "political questions" and has refused to become involved in redressing the anti-democratic effects of gerrymandering.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all, 

Risser's point about the prevalence of gerrymandering is important and well taken. The prevalence of gerrymandering is a strong impediment to fuller representation. The lower House is constitutionally mandated to quickly reflect changing public opinion and even moods. In effect, the state party organizations which support gerrymandering of congressional seats are depriving their constituents of congressional representation in an important degree --in the attempt to control the House majority. Gerrymandering makes those elected to congress less responsive to the general public; and this also tends to emphasize the political extremes of both parties in contrast to the centrist voters, since in the primary elections often (as in Pennsylvania) only party affiliates vote for candidates. This point is important in understanding political polarization. 

New local organizations of people, functioning to solve new problems, will, it is to be hoped, take back political control from negligent, unresponsive politicians. Representational democracy is not to be "overcome," as Maldonado suggests, but instead re-invigorated by being made responsive to organized local views and expressions of interests. Again, it is not pre-existing local organization that matters so much as new organizations of civil society--expressing neglected views and interests. Where "community" is all set and rigidly settled, this tends to discourage the formation of new groups for new purposes. Innovations of civil society are the natural counter-balance to rigid identity politics.

H.G. Callaway  

Dear Callaway,

I agree on the whole with your viewpoint.  We should not throw the baby with the dirty bath water and the important historical gain that representative democracies should not be rejected because they have been undermine in many ways by strong financial forces but reinvigorate and protected against those powerfull finantial interests. Even in their current diminished and compromized state , these institutions are still the last walls against the fast track program of financial globalisation and the last protections for our most basic right in spite of all their failings.  In Canada, the peak historical success of that type of government happened when Tomy Douglas was premier of  Premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961.  This was really a democratic government whose agenda was geared to reflect the priorities of common people.  That government agenda became the agenda of the liberal federal government in the late 60's and 70's and has totally transformed Canada but since then we also been engulfed into the same downfall of democracies by the globalisation winds.  Tommy Douglas is still ranked by most canadiens today as the greatest canadian politicians of our history. He was the greatest because he was a real representative of the people as well as the other mp of his party.  They were doing meetings after meeting in post depression rural Saskatchewan, not to only to tell them to vote for them but to listen to them, really listen to them and be their representatives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Douglas

!!!!!! Alert !!!!!!

A counter coup is underway in America, attempting to wrest back control of the US from the criminal cabal, whose figurehead is Hillary Clinton. If they are successful, the doomsday nuclear clock just got dialed back several minutes; on the other hand, we are in the most dangerous period, right now and this very moment. The criminal cabal will more than likely strike back, possibly, with extreme violence, moreover, the panic of these individuals may force them to do things they only talk about doing. 

Godspeed and God bless America!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov5kvWSz5LM

There is no right answer but I will tell you what I have seen while in the Middle East. My father-in-law lived in Libya for 3 years from 2013-16. Under the former government, Gaddafi tried to buy people off--free houses, welfare arrangements, healthcare (including abroad if need be). This is what we can call the Ruling Bargain--citizens give up their rights to political involvement in exchange for welfare security.

However, underneath the whole system there was fear and entrenched corruption.  Is Libya better off with no government or rather with competing governments and no stability? Many Libyans may say no. However, once a bad government has run 'the system', it leaves scars. Even under new governments, my father in law had to deal with bribery, rigged contract bids and the same forms of corruption that Gaddafi created.

A bad government can provide stability but it will not last. And once it goes, the scars it created remain.

Is a bad government better than no government at all?

Dear David T. Risser, dear сolleagues,

History, they say, has no subjunctive mood. But suppose that after 1917 would come to power  the anarchists - P.A. Kropotkin and his supporters. I have a question for you: they created a political system in Russia it would have been better than the totalitarian regime of Lenin and then Stalin?

Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (December 9, 1842 – February 8, 1921) was a Russian activist, scientist, and philosopher, who advocated anarchism. Kropotkin was a proponent of a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between workers. He wrote many books, pamphlets and articles, the most prominent being The Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops, and his principal scientific offering, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. He also contributed the article on anarchism to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition.

21 March 1874 31-year-old Peter Kropotkin made a sensational report of the Geographical Society of the existence in the recent past ice age. And the next day he was arrested for belonging to a secret revolutionary group, and imprisoned in the fortress.

Kropotkin predicted the existence and the calculated coordinates of the Franz Josef Land, Severnaya Zemlya and the Barrier Kropotkin (chain polar islands in the north of the Barents and Kara Seas - from Franz Josef Land to North Land) as a whole, so that preserved the sovereignty of Russia over open them lands, despite their first foreign visit, rather than Russian, expeditions).

Prison conditions, intense mental work undermined the health of Kropotkin. With signs of scurvy, he was transferred to the prisoner's department Nicholas military hospital. July 30, 1876 Kropotkin escaped from his prison department.

December 22, 1882, along with Lyons Kropotkin anarchists was arrested by the French police on charges of organizing explosions in Lyon. The trial was held in Lyon, January 1883; Russian Empire Peter A. was sentenced to five years' imprisonment on charges of "for belonging to the International," which did not exist at that time under government pressure.

May 30, 1917 in 2 hours 30 minutes Kropotkin arrived at the Finland Station in Petrograd. In the hall waiting for him War Minister Alexander Kerensky and old friend Nicholas Tchaikovsky, who after the February Revolution, deputy Petrograd Soviet.

 After the July crisis Alexander Kerensky offered Kropotkin enter the Provisional Government.

P.A. Kropotkin was disappointed by the February Revolution and the meeting with the Russian anarchists - "rude cheeky young people, taking as a basis the principle of permissiveness." However, while in general, he supported the Provisional Government.

By the October Revolution, Peter A. reacted ambiguously: he welcomed the fact of the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the formal establishment of the power in the form of the Soviets, but he rightly feared that at a distinct trend towards concentration of the new government in the center of the party, which has this power, does not wish it to anyone divide, and most importantly - do not wish to give it to the people, while the revolution must become a popular affair.

The Bolsheviks proposed P.A. Kropotkin apartment in the Kremlin, the Kremlin rations, the People's Commissar of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky wrote Kropotkin wife Sofya Grigorievna letter, which asked to work on Peter I, that he did not reject the help that comes from public authorities. But Kropotkin on aid firmly refused.

The development of further events, the Red Terror and the dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party made the venerable old man to take more critical of the October Revolution.

Peter Kropotkin died on the night of February 8, 1921, at the age of 78 years. The next day, February 9, the central newspapers front-page ad placed mourning of the Presidium of the Moscow Soviet of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies, announces the death of the "old fighter tempered revolutionary Russia against the autocracy and the bourgeoisie."

According to Peter Kropotkin, anarchism comes from the same revolutionary protest, the same human discontent that socialism; and the result of the revolution, he sees the establishment of a "stateless communism", a new social order saw it as a free federal union of self-governing units (communities, areas, cities), based on the principle of voluntariness and "anarchy." It was assumed the collective management of production, distribution of collective resources and general collectivity of all that relates to the economy, the service sector, to human relationships. The team would be a group interested in the activity of people who would understand why and for whom they do it, what would be sufficient for their voluntary activities.

Being an inquisitive scientist, talented historian, a highly educated man, P.A. Kropotkin was trying to bring under anarchism any scientific basis and arguments to show its necessity, for it seemed anarchism a philosophy of human society. learning method P.A. Kropotkin is based on a uniform law for all, the law of solidarity and mutual assistance and support. He sought to prove that Darwin's position on the struggle for existence is to be understood as a struggle between the species and mutual support within the species. Mutual assistance and solidarity - the engine of progress.

"In Germany, there was the writers school that mixes state and society, which could not imagine a society without government suppression of personal and local freedom, and hence there is the usual accusation of anarchists in the fact that they want to destroy the state and society, and preached a return to the eternal war each with all. But the state - only one of the forms assumed by society throughout its history."

- P.A. Kropotkin. "State and its role in history" (1921 ed.).

According to Peter Kropotkin, it is totally unacceptable to equate the Government and the State, as the latter includes not only the existence of power over a certain part of society, but also the concentration of control of public life in one central location. The presence of the state, among other things, involves the emergence of new relations both between different population groups and between individual members of society.

A characteristic feature of all the works of Peter Kropotkin is to give a single human being really matter. Personality - the soul of the Revolution, and only taking into account the interests of each individual and giving him freedom of expression, society will come to flourish.

Social ideals of  Kropotkin was anarchist (stateless) communism, which by revolutionary means (the social revolution) will be completely abolished private property. Being a staunch opponent of any form of state power, Kropotkin did not accept the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Very well said, dear P. F. In the case of Kropotkin, anarchism was a matter of "noblesse d'esprit" - and radical independence. Which is exactly the opposite to accepting a bad government.

If you want a glaring example of just how bad government can get...take a look at the linked article. To think this person is a presidential candidate! These pedophile rings are run in all major Western governments, from Australia, New Zealand, Britain, France, etc, and the occurrence of such filth is by far NOT uncommon. They even breed children for their sex-rings, whereby, these children are not issued birth certificates, hence, they do not exist in the eyes of the state. The level of criminality exhibited by these scum go well beyond just your typical degeneracy...oh no, these people reach new levels of evil. I think of Tiberius of Rome, Caligula...this New Rome has degenerated to a corpse. 

Now, the obvious point: these people are running YOUR government! Think about it!

I vote for Kropotkin, Bakunin, Jack London, Makno and anyone else who supports tearing down and abolishing these "dens of iniquity" called governments.  

http://yournewswire.com/nypd-hillary-clinton-child-sex-scandal/

http://yournewswire.com/fbi-hillary-clinton-indictment/

YES!  Some security, protection of property, social rights, etc. is  better than none!

No Government was the Goal of Anarchists such as those that provoked the Cuban-American war versus Spain in 1898, later the First World War with the murder of the Heir of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914, along with other examples. Government is essenrial for Society Progress Welfare Security etc.

Dear Waldemar Koczkodaj,

your logic struck me. I agree with you! ·

Do we need a government?

Answer: "yes"

There is a proverb: "Better a bird in hand is worth two in the bush".

Russian proverb: "Better tit in hand than a crane in the sky".

Some of us, probably critically, are so used to be birds in golden cages, that we extremely love our own cages. Poor little birds.

A bird born in freedom would never accept any cage - even if a golden one.

There are no "good governments!"  The choice is NOT between "good," or "bad," or "no" government, BUT between "bad," "worse," and "worst!"  The most we can realistically aim for is the least worse of the lot!  Anything more than that is just unrealistic idealism.  In my childhood my parents assured me that "the government of heaven, under God's rule, would be ideal."  Even those who believe in this possibility will know that there is no prospect whatsoever of it being realized on earth!

Brief, clear and concise, dear William. Good!

It is so easy to avoid debating an opinion but presenting it as simply one of two possibilities, as if there are only two paths, as if as if of these path are simple evidences.  

Two choices such between a bad government versus a good government!!

It sound like a choice between Satan and God or a choice between good and evil.  Choice between left and right, and all the long list of fabulistic choices.  We need to look at this question from an historical perspective.  What were the arguments of the first anarchists, those which for the first time imagine something else than an social hieararchy.  We have to discuss the question of social power and of banking and the history of banking in all civilisation and their downfall. What was the cold war and its relation with the international monetary system.  How these have evolved.  This is real power and if we want to change something, we need to do it knowing where it is otherwise we are searching solution into the fairy tales of our illusions regarding our world.

Dear friends, as time goes by, we gain new information. I have come close to the idea that WWIII might be close, even though it is uncertain. The whole situation in Syria and Irak makes things troublesome. Russia and the NATO-USA remain suspicious to each other, and a number of maneuvers are being taking that seriously challenge peace.

That said, it is also true that those scenarios are usually taken as war-labs - to prove new weapons, new strategies, etc. Those are, say, real games, period.

It is better to not have a government rather than having a bad one as it will seriously damage the social values. 

Hello David,

Hobbes is a theorist of the state, not of government per se (as Locke, say, is). A government is like a manager, whereas the state is a system of rules, rules which –ideally– are common to all agents, legal (coercively enforceable), and known by all. So the question for Hobbes is not so much whether there is government or not, but whether certain actors share a common set of rules for social interaction (especially rules distributing individual rights) which everybody or at least most of the actors in a given interaction domain respect. These rules can be 'soft', social rules, even though Hobbes was obsessed with the notion of 'hard', legal rules.

So for Hobbes the state of nature stands for any condition of rule vacuum (it can also be a linguistic vacuum, or if you take the individual mind as a domain of reference, a mind which is pathological and not regulated by rules of thinking is also for Hobbes, metaphorically, a state of nature – in this he anticipates Freud). My point is that the state of nature is a label for a much more basic philosophical problem than political action and government, although of course it also applies to that area.

Without a government, no society at all would be possible on the scale, or with the functionality of modern society.  Modern societies need governments to assure both personal security and collective law and order.  "No government" is not possible with modern conditions - it's as simple as that!

Dear All,

I am simply impressed by the pertinence of the subject under debate and the insightful reactions. May these reflections further sharpen minds for better governance/welbeing...

Cheers!

Godswill N. N.

Dear David T. Risser,

It is said that the abdication Nicholas II, the czar of Russia a few days was his brother Michael II. He had 2 of the Decree. According to the first decree from prison all the criminals were released. In Russia began anarchy. In October 1917 the Bolsheviks seized power. And then: the power of the Bolsheviks, the anarchy, the intervention, the White movement, Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Soviet Union, Stalin. Horrible time! Red won. But terrible times were not over. The rest you know. Totalitarianism is terrible, but anarchy (I mean the complete absence of state power) - no less terrible.

You are just ridiculus. Nazi Germani and Soviet Union have faught against each other in the most damaging war in history. Only in the mind of superficial academicians can their forms of government be put on the same ground. Ask Russians if they were better off during Socialism or in the anarchic period that followed the disgregation of the Soviet Union. And then ask German people how they lived during Nazism. But please, don't ask scientists to answer your mystified questions.

Dear Giulio Palermo, totalitarianism - it is bad, but we can not equate the Soviet Union and the Third Reich (Nazi Germany). Unfortunately, in Russia there are people who do it. These are people whose relatives were killed in Nazi concentration camps. · People whom Hitler had planned to destroy in part or in whole, by defeating the USSR These are people of different nationalities!

Dear P. F. Zabrodskii, 

Generally, I agree with you.  The USSR and Nazi Germany display some similarities, as well as some significant differences.  In providing context for my question, I used these two governments as relatively recent examples of bad regimes, and I did not mean to suggest that they were equally bad, from a moral point of view, or to suggest that they were bad in the same ways. Thank you for your clarification.