I’ve
been reading ‘The Better Angels of our
Nature’ by Steven Pinker.
He marshals facts clearly and with authority. He makes many powerful arguments including, above all, this: EVERY party in a dispute genuinely feels themselves to be the more aggrieved, to be the greater victim.
The
only way to avoid escalating “retaliation” is to cede resolution to a neutral
third party. Pinker names the growing authority of the state and with it state-mediated
justice; He credits this with the global decline in violence over the last
century or two.
On
this, the tenth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, it is worth applying this
lesson to what happened there (Pinker’s book does not talk about politics. These
are my opinions now).
When
the Americans invaded Iraq in 2003 they could have removed specific individuals
at the heads of institutions and left those institutions of state intact.
Instead, driven by a naïve belief that their own civil society was somehow the
default if government just “got out of the way”, they destroyed not only Saddam’s
administration, but the very state itself.
When
you turn “justice” over to gun-toting, inherently self-interested individuals
this is what you get: a crippled economy, rampant corruption and, always,
greater violence. Anarchy is not democratic. Anarchy is not freedom. Anarchy
resolves itself into tribalism and feudal society.
Even
the least inhibited (they would call themselves the “strongest”) do not have
the opportunities afforded by a controlled environment; Even they are not free
as they crouch, armed and trapped in their own defensive postures.
Meanwhile, the civilized cannot function in the absence of functioning civil institutions.
The state does not impede commerce and freedom, it ENABLES them. The state does not, as John Boehner recently would have it, “steal” money from its citizens.
The
state delivers back tenfold and more every tax dollar gathered: By creating
choices and opportunities that would otherwise not exist; By delivering peace
and prosperity, safety and justice.
Fascism is too much state control; Anarchy is too little. Both defeat individual initiative. In the vast space dividing these two extremes we have many, many examples of democratic states that work well for the benefit of their people. Robust institutions legitimatized by democracy, honoring democratically formulated laws, are not enemies of freedom but the very source of freedom itself.
