Purpose of the Government

[MigL]

Say you live in a village, in the lands bordered by the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, about 55-60 hundred yrs ago, and the population has grown enough that a government is needed to run and oversee this now city/state, what should be the purpose of such a government ? What should it be tasked with ? What should be the extent of its power ?

 

Lets leave out any religious influence that would have been manifest in ancient people so as to make it easier to compare with present day governments. How has government and the expectations we have of said government changed through the ages ? Has it become more or less intrusive on people's lives ? Has it gotten too big/powerful or does it need to assume even more responsibility ?

What exactly, does a group of people need from their government ? How has it changed over the ages ? And are we headed in the right direction ?

 

All of your thoughts/opinions are greatly appreciated.

 

 

 

[Greg H.]

In theory, the idea behind a centralized government is to provide those things that the society needs that individual members of society aren't really going to either want to provide, or have the means to provide on an individual level.

 

Roads for example, or emergency services.

 

In ancient times, the government probably oversaw agricultural activities.

 

And of course, organized defense (or agression).

 

Most governments also tend to get into the business of legislating morality, which is not, to my mind, the job of a government.

Edited February 20, 2015 by Greg H.

[swansont]

Keep the peace, create and enforce the laws, promote the general welfare.

[Hans de Vries]

The government's role is to protect our rights following from the natural law.

[MigL]

If the individual members of a society don't want to provide some things to some people, how can the government go against the people's wishes and do so anyway ? It is then a non-representative government, Greg H.

 

What exactly is 'natural law', Hans ?

 

General welfare of its own people swansont, or of the whole world ? Sometimes the two are at odds.

[Hans de Vries]

 

What exactly is 'natural law', Hans ?

 

In short, natural law is the highest legal system - a set of eternal, unchanging legal norms that exist above and outside of positive law. These legal norms must be reflected in the system of positive (man made) law and cannot contradict them. There are various views on natural law - some cite God as it's source, others cite reason, even others say conscience is the source of natural law etc.

 

The school of natural law is therefore distinguished from legal positivism which views positive law as the only source of legal norms, denying the existence of any meta-law.

[Essay]

I ran across "natural law" in this context a few years ago, and first thought, 'oh thank god, finally somebody has realized we need to account for nature (and resources) when we devise an economic system.' But no, rather "natural law" is some weird ideology that is based on an economic system where everything will be free ...since 3-D printers can make anything you need ...so we'll finally be rid of the (then) unnecessary corporate and financial overlords. Basically it seemed to me like the libertarian take on how society should be structured.

 

Maybe I'm oversimplifying too much, or mostly wrong, but that was my take on "natural law" when I looked a few years ago. Maybe Hans can clarify some of his terms.

 

~

[Hans de Vries]

Modern theories of natural law simply state that some rights are eternal and unchanging - and therefore, most of constitutions treat many rights as inalienable, i.e. no one can be deprived of them, not even voluntarily.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights

[John Cuthber]

This was a perfectly serious political party- it is not a joke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=438UKM1Av1g

 

honest! they are real- there's a wiki page about them

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Law_Party

 

More importantly, what looks "naturally" right to me may not agree with what what you think so there is no "natural "law.

[MigL]

Thank-you John, just what I would have said.

'Natural' is open to interpretation.

 

So, back to the original question, has government grown too intrusive into people's lives ?

Does it try to control our lives more than was originally envisioned when we first decided to live under a 'government' in ancient Sumer ? Just in some areas ?

 

Or do you think the government should have even more control/responsibility over our lives ? Just in some other areas ?

 

And what are those areas ?

[CharonY]

This seems a bit romantic, doesn't it? Already the code of Ur-Nammu is quite intrusive. I am not familiar about the genesis of these texts, but I highly doubt it was a well-thought out, democratic process that everyone agreed on.

At different times people believed different things to be important (e.g slavery or virginity or sorcery). That is reflected in how they were governed, plus historically few actually had choice in the way they were ruled. Absolute rulers were far more intrusive than governments nowadays, if they decided to.

 

Instead of invoking a past that never was, wouldn't it be better to discuss the issue in abstract, modern terms?

Edited February 23, 2015 by CharonY

[Greg H.]

If the individual members of a society don't want to provide some things to some people, how can the government go against the people's wishes and do so anyway ? It is then a non-representative government, Greg H.

 

 

Do you want to spend a couple of million of your own dollars to build a street from your house to the main road? Probably not. But by charging everyone in the area (including people who probably don't care if you have a street or not) a few cents each, your street gets built, and you get to drive to work instead of walking there. (uphill, both ways)

 

If you did spend a couple of million of your own dollars, might you not rightly feel that it would be your due to charge other people who want to use your street, including the fire department, or the ambulance, who are trying to get to your neighbor's house?

 

It isn't that people don't want the road. They just don't want to (or can't afford to) pay for it. That's why taxes, as irksome as they may be, are vital to sustaining the infrastructure of our society. The government amasses those contributions, centralizes them, and then allocates them in a way that will do the most common good (theoretically).

[overtone]

 

 

If the individual members of a society don't want to provide some things to some people, how can the government go against the people's wishes and do so anyway ? It is then a non-representative government

Grownups do not set up their government to track and follow their every future whim, partly because they don't want that kind of power tracking and following their neighbor's whims likewise, and partly because they don't want a government so intrusive and ever-present that it registers their whims, and partly because such a government would be too expensive and complicated.

 

Instead they set up the thing to follow a few carefully chosen basic principles, as simply as possible, regardless of what they or any other individual happens to think at a given moment. They accept the occasional contravention of their preferences, enjoy the benefit of their neighbor's preferences being likewise contravened. and in this way live in freedom from unnecessary monitoring, expense, and complexity from their government.