should government decrease as humanity improves?

[Metric]

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

How many of you actively disagree with the above quote? Apparently, as humanity becomes more educated, ethically advanced, etc. etc. this would seem to imply that government would become less and less necessary and pervasive. Yet of course this is the opposite of what actually seems to occur. What is the explanation?

[cambraceres]

Simple, terribly so. The same thing that makes us as great as we are in comparison to everything else we know of is the same thing that keeps us at odds with one another.

We have creative power, and pure choice. We can use our rationalities for anything we wish, using the stars and planets as marbles and dice, however, this means we have the ability to cause harm to our fellow man through carelessness and ill-intent. How could we ever cause a situation short of slavery which accomplishes the thing you say?

The ability to do good as well as evil is a basic fragment of what makes us what we are.

When men have free choice, they will use it.

There are a cadre of validations for this. Now I said "meaningful period of time" above because I concede that evolutionary changes may elicit the situation you speak of, but I simultaneously contend that the resultant species could not be refferred to as human.

Cam

[BCPVP]

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"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

How many of you actively disagree with the above quote?

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I disagree with the quote, but only because government is not necessary, whether men are angels or not.

[ QUOTE ]
Apparently, as humanity becomes more educated, ethically advanced, etc. etc. this would seem to imply that government would become less and less necessary and pervasive. Yet of course this is the opposite of what actually seems to occur. What is the explanation?

[/ QUOTE ]
Power.

[Metric]

So can we summarize by saying that becoming better educated, more ethically advanced, etc. etc. actually takes us farther from the "angelic" case and thus MORE government is apparently necessary?

[MidGe]

It seems that humanity progress, in direct contradiction withm AC'ers views, is, whilst not perfect, a lot better, the most laws a society has.

Compare lifestyle of 100 or 200 or more years ago with today (eliminate the impact of technology, just add the gradual refinement of the statutes). And, no, I don't subscribe to the romantic version of the wild west, as a desirable state, when laws were fewer. I leave that to those that were fed, as youths, on John Wayne movies and super heroes comic strips, and took those as a description of their reality.

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
It seems that humanity progress, in direct contradiction withm AC'ers views, is, whilst not perfect, a lot better, the most laws a society has.

Compare lifestyle of 100 or 200 or more years ago with today (eliminate the impact of technology, just add the gradual refinement of the statutes). And, no, I don't subscribe to the romantic version of the wild west, as a desirable state, when laws were fewer. I leave that to those that were fed, as youths, on John Wayne movies and super heroes comic strips, and took those as a description of their reality.

[/ QUOTE ]
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc...

[Metric]

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Power.

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This seems the most obvious explanation to me as well, but I doubt most people can accept it -- particularly anyone advocating more government. The simplest alternatives are that the quote is just wrong (for reasons opposite to the one you suggest), or that we are NOT becoming more ethically advanced, but are in fact becoming less so.

The interesting thing is, I don't think most advocates of "more government" will like those explanations either.

[MidGe]

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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc

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In that case, the AC'ers claims are even more presumptuous, for they have NEVER been validated in any way, not even by coincidental correlation! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]


Thanks for pointing this out!

As for my view point, go back 400. 800, 2000 or even 5000 years you will see more laws (more refined statutes at least) and a better standard of living. In between there have been a few regressive eras, without a shadow of a doubt, but the overall is clear unless you have little information about historical living conditions.

[Metric]

Your position seems to be that as people become more "angelic", more government will be necessary. Correct?

[Skidoo]

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"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

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People (irrespective of individual purchasing power) have inalienable rights, and so "to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed" (irrespective of individual purchasing power).