For millennia mankind has believed in the necessity of some form of government for a society to function but since governments are made up of people the results always culminate into two classes of people, the ruling and the ruled. However, it is not true that there has been the formation of a centralized government that ruled over all the people in every territory throughout all history. There have been instances throughout history when people managed to get along quite well without a centralized government, as Murray Rothbard pointed out in his outstanding book For A New Liberty:The Libertarian Manifesto. Murray points out that the Irish, for about 1000 years, basically had a libertarian style society in which, there was no Monarchy or Oligarchy to rule over the people. Murray also said “As the leading authority on ancient Irish law has written:
“There was no legislature, no bailiffs, no police, no public enforcement of justice. … There was no trace of State-administered justice.”9
Rothbard states further:
How then was justice secured? The basic political unit of ancient Ireland was the tuath. All “freemen” who owned land, all professionals, and all craftsmen, were entitled to become members of a tuath. Each tuath’s members formed an annual assembly which decided all common policies, declared war or peace on other tuatha, and elected or deposed their “kings.” An important point is that, in contrast to primitive tribes, no one was stuck or bound to a given tuath, either because of kinship or of geographical location. Individual members were free to, and often did, secede from a tuath and join a competing tuath. Often, two or more tuatha decided to merge into a single, more efficient unit. As Professor Peden states, “the tuath is thus a body of persons voluntarily united for socially beneficial purposes and the sum total of the landed properties of its members constituted its territorial dimension.”10 In short, they did not have the modern State with its claim to sovereignty over a given (usually expanding) territorial area, divorced from the landed property rights of its subjects; on the contrary, tuatha were voluntary associations which only comprised the landed properties of its voluntary members. Historically, about 80 to 100 tuatha coexisted at any time throughout Ireland.”
Rothbard, Murray N. (2010-05-23). For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (LvMI) (pp. 287-288). Ludwig von Mises Institute. Kindle Edition.
9 Quoted in the best introduction to ancient, anarchistic Irish institutions, Joseph R. Peden, “Property Rights in Celtic Irish Law,” Journal of Libertarian Studies I (Spring, 1977): 83; see also pp. 81–95. For a summary, see Peden, “Stateless Societies: Ancient Ireland,” The Libertarian Forum (April 1971): 3–4.
Rothbard, Murray N. (2010-05-23). For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (LvMI) . Ludwig von Mises Institute. Kindle Edition.
The Irish did have a king but his role was not that of a ruler and he had little to no authority on a political level unlike what was seen in other European countries. No doubt, they had wars but compared to the bloodbaths of the rest of the European conflicts, they were relatively minor skirmishes.
Centralized governments have taken many forms but whether they be socialist; communist; democratic; republican; monarchical or other variations, they all seem to end in tyranny. There are always those who think they are superior and therefore should be in charge. They are not always the intellectuals but they know how to use the intellectual class in getting the power they desire.
Since we know from history these systems all end up with the citizens becoming slaves of the state even when the government is alleged to be by and for the people, why then would people continue to subject themselves to any of these systems? I believe, as I somewhat stated above, people believe that governments are necessary for a civilized society to function well but if that were true then why has it, generally speaking, never happened? Most people have resigned themselves, I’m afraid, to the idea that government rule is inevitable and it’s just the way it is. This attitude can be seen in the oft repeated statement that there are only two things in life that are certain – “death and taxes”.
Many of those who were a part of the Constitutional Conventions at the founding of the United States, where quite convinced that the formation of a centralized government would end in a tyrannical monarchy. Luther Martin who was the representative of Maryland told his state that they should not ratify. Patrick Henry and many others were against it as well. They all pretty much had the same fear that, a central government would eventually overpower the states. Martin contended that Republics were only viable for smaller states and that uniting all the states under a centralized government was not amenable to Republicanism and would end badly for the states and individual liberty. It seems Martin’s warnings were quite prophetic.
I often point out to people I talk to that we have local governments, we have county governments, we have state governments so why on earth do we need another whole layer of bureaucrats sticking their noses in our business and taking our money. Living in Texas I get a lot of agreement, even though many here also seem to be overly supportive of the US war mongering foreign policy.
I can only conclude, by observing what has occurred throughout history that, the formation of any centralized government can only end one way; in tyranny and the loss of individual liberty. I really don’t know how anyone could conclude anything else unless, like so many Americans, they are self deceived and still believe they are free in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
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