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Classical Liberalism #10: Arguments for limited government & expanded civil society | Lauren Hall - YouTube
Channel: Big Think
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LAUREN HALL: Generally speaking when we talk
about civil society we're talking about all
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the ways that people associate with each other
when they're not interacting directly with
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the state or the political process, and they're
not buying and selling things on the market.
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So in the sort of theory of civil society
we generally talk about three different types
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or sort of subsets of civil society.
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There are the primary associations, and some
people don't put this in civil society at
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all.
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And those are sort of friends and family.
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So the kin relations that we have, the really
close friendships that we have.
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And those are the primary associations that
again are sort of quasi voluntary and our
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families are not always totally voluntary.
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But those are the really close intimate relationships.
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What matters more for most civil society scholars
are the secondary and to a certain extent
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tertiary associations.
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And the tertiary associations are the kinds
of associations that you're a member of but
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you don't really interact with people in those
associations.
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So if you are a member of, or if you donate
to NPR, for example, or the various environmental
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groups you might send a check once a year,
so you're a member in a sort of nominal sense
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and you give them financial support but you're
not really interacting with anybody.
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It's not what we call a thick relationship.
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But when people think about civil society
broadly very often what they're thinking about
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are these secondary associations.
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And so the secondary associations are all
of the situations in which people organize
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and associate with each other that are not
based off of kin and that are not based off
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of selling or sort of swapping services.
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So you can think about these as everything
from religious associations so the church
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that you go to, the synagogue that you go
to, to the roller derby team that you're on
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to the group that you meet up with at the
library to do puzzles or whatever with on
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Sunday afternoons.
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So all of those different ways that you associate
with people to fulfill some kind of end.
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The major argument for limiting the power
of government broadly and expanding what we
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call civil society, which again we're primarily
talking about these secondary associations,
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but depending on who you talk to there's arguments
about really expanding the role of the family,
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for example, also.
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But the major argument is, well there's two
arguments I'll say.
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One is a basic efficiency argument and the
efficiency argument simply says the government,
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especially in large nation states is simply
too big to know what people actually need
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and is too big to actually help them in the
way that they need to be helped.
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So this is related to Smith's argument about
sort of universal benevolence.
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It would be really nice if we could take care
of everyone, even people that we've never
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met.
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But we just can't.
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We don't have the systems in place to do that.
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And moreover we're actually more likely to
harm them because we don't know what they
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really need.
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So imagine that there's some sort of hurricane
and you show up with a huge truckload of water
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and everyone says well, we have wells.
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What we really need are generators.
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Well now you've wasted a bunch of resources
bringing them something that they don't need
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and they're no better off.
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And so the efficiency argument says we need
to try to devolve a lot of services onto the
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people who know those people the most and
again those secondary associations where people
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have face to face knowledge of what everyone
needs.
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So that's the efficiency piece.
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The moral piece though is one that I think
is even deeper than the efficiency piece and
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that's a question of coercion,
which means that even if you don't like the
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government's response to your specific problem
you will be forced to accept it.
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So what a lot of classical liberals and libertarians
get concerned about is the moral problem of
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government intervention which is that the
government is a coercive organization.
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And when we talk about the state generally
very often what we talk about is it's any
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kind of institution that has a monopoly on
the use, of course, of force.
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A legitimate monopoly, a monopoly on the use
of force.
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So what that means is government can say I
want to help these people and I'm going to
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raise your taxes to do it.
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And so while we might agree that those people
need to be helped, I might not agree about
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the way that the government is helping.
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And I might also not agree with a variety
of things that the government does with my
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tax dollars.
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So, for example, the government might say
I want to use your taxes, I'm going to take
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money from you and I'm going to force you
to give me that money and I'm going to use
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that money to create a single payer health
care system.
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And I say okay, I'm in favor of single payer
healthcare, but the government is also going
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to use that money to say go to war with a
bunch of people that I think are innocent
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in Afghanistan or Iraq.
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So all of a sudden I don't have a choice in
how my money is being used.
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I might appreciate one use that the government
is putting it to, but I might have real problems
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with other uses.
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And I don't have any option or way of exiting
that relationship.
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So what happens in civil society, at least
ideally, is that the secondary associations
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give you more freedom to move between associations
that do meet your needs in various ways.
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They also give you just more freedom to dissent
without the coercive piece.
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So if I'm a member, for example, of a conservative
religious organization I may say there's all
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these things that I agree with about this
community, but there's a couple of things
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that I don't agree with.
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So I recognize that in order to be a member,
a full member of this community I might have
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to have very similar kinds of beliefs about
certain things.
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But there's areas that I can disagree and
so maybe when the tithing, the basket goes
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around and there's a specific organization
that they're supporting that I don't believe
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in or trust I say well, I'll put my money
into something else for this week or something
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like that.
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So there's a freedom of exit with secondary
associations and that's true broadly speaking.
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So if I'm a member of a very, again to use
the religious example, if I'm a member of
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a very conservative religious organization
and I, for example, don't like their attitudes
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toward say women or LGBTQ folks I can say
you know what, I'm going to find a different
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religious association that I want to be a
part of that, in fact, has what I think are
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better values in this area.
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And so I can move.
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So when we talk about freedom of exit that's
what we mean is the ability to exit relationships
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that are no longer serving our purposes.
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The problem with government broadly is that
there's no exit.
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So I can look at the government and say well,
I've got all these problems with say, for
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example, wars and the criminal justice system
or I'm really upset about something else.
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But I can't withdraw my tax dollars and say
I want to put them somewhere else.
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I'm stuck.
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I'm stuck with that government.
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And, in fact, because of restrictive immigration
policies it's almost impossible nowadays to
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move to another country unless you're extraordinarily
privileged and have a job in that country
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and all sorts of other things.
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So for a lot of libertarians the problem of
government is both that it tends to solve
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problems in inefficient ways, but it also
relies on coercion when if you rely on these
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civil societies, these secondary associations,
you create more wiggle room for people to
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find systems that meet their needs.
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