It is possible to live without a government, but few people like to do so. The absence of any kind of government is referred to as anarchy. Some people may believe anarchy is ideal because everyone has total freedom. In practice, our liberty often bumps into someone else’s freedom.
Social norms can sort some of this out, but not all. For example, everyone can get used to driving on the right side of the road. Most of us can agree that it is wrong to steal. But criminals don’t care about norms. If they can, they will threaten or outsmart you. The absence of governmental authority makes it hard for people to get justice and settle disputes peacefully. Under anarchy, justice is subjective and is achieved mainly through vigilantism. Thus, anarchy in real life is usually associated with injustice, violent conflict, and chaos.
One example comes from the country of Somalia from 1991 to 2012. Clans with enough money and arms could do as they pleased, extorting from those who were weaker. Might made right. In those years, no one clan was strong enough to form and maintain a national government, and too few were willing to collaborate to form one. A similar situation recently played out in Haiti. The country was without an elected government in 2023 following a series of escalating crises. Since then, warfare between local gangs has made it impossible to form a new government for more than a few months at a time despite several attempts. Kidnapping, murder, and sexual violence have surged. Basic services have largely collapsed.
1. At a minimum, people create governments to avoid the problems of anarchy. Most of us want physical and economic security, predictability, freedom, and fair treatment. Unfortunately, an armed gang, or even just one person, can unfairly and suddenly take away any or all of these things. The solution is for some people to impose order, dispense justice, and manage conflict within a territory. By so doing, they become a government. At a minimum, a government requires:
- a military to repel invaders,
- police to catch criminals,
- judges and jails to punish criminals,
- some form of taxation to finance the military, police, and judiciary
- laws to create and maintain those four institutions of government and
- the ability to punish anyone who resists the laws – including required taxes.
Many governments do much more than the minimum. That’s especially true when they represent, and are accountable to, their citizens through regular elections rather than a small circle of powerful people and their cronies. We offer a fairly complete summary in our short short course “What Can Governments Do for Us?“
We offer several short courses on the U.S. system of government. You can find them here: https://cffad.org/topics/
