A) NECESSARY PROPERTIES
The NECESSARY properties of of a government are
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provide a means of resolving differences without the use of violence (ie: to create a monopoly of violence within a geography.)
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To provide a means of resolving differences requires a definition of property rights.
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To prohibit alternative definitions of property rights from being imposed by force, theft or fraud, (or immigration.)
These are the minimum properties of a government.
B ) ADVANTAGEOUS PROPERTIES
In addition to these properties, it may also be possible for a group of people to afford to also have government engage in the following:
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To provide a means of investing in commons (human and physical infrastructure) by prohibiting free-riding, privatization, and competition when investing in commons.
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To provide a means of cooperation between classes where privatization, free riding, rent seeking and competition prevent cooperation between classes.
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To reduce both transaction costs and fraud by implementing weights, measures and currency.
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To perform as an insurer of last resort against catastrophes.
These are advantageous properties of government.
C) PROPERTIES THAT ARE LUXURIES
In addition to these properties, it may be possible for a group of people to afford to also have the government engage in the following LUXURIES:
8 ) Redistribution of all kinds, both in services, and in direct payments.
- Inter-temporal redistribution from young to old, rather than saving and lending from old to young. (But this is very fragile.)
These are LUXURIES that can be provided by some governments under rare circumstances in exceptional periods of time, where malthusian and group selection problems have been temporarily held at bay by technological innovation.
The government is not the source of the ‘good things’. The courts, under the common law and property rights is the source of ‘good things’.
The government we have today, has destroyed the common law, the rule of law, and created both corporatism and socialism. And we now suffer between two factions that try to control the government for corporatist or socialist means.