Origin of Society and Government

If I'm losing control, will you turn me away?
Or touch me deep inside?
And before this gets old, will it still feel the same?
There's no way this will die
--Pat Benatar

Excerpt from Frank Chodorov's (1959) The Rise and Fall of Society, which remains one of the best books on liberty and society that I have read. The basic question on the table in this excerpt is why humans socialize and form government.

There is a preposterous train of thought that society and goverment precede the individual. Lincoln, in fact, used such a rationale in his defense of authoritarian federal rule during the Civil War. Indeed, this twisted thought process forms the basis for socialism in all of its flavors--communism, facism, et al.

In reality, societies precede governments. And individuals precede societies. The question then becomes what motivates individuals to socialize and to form governments?

Chodorov reasons that there is one constant in human behavior that can be observed wherever we encounter people: they are always and everywhere concerned with making a living. 'Making a living' is broadly construed to mean the process of satisfying needs, be those needs physical or psychological.

Various truths accompany the process of making a living. Human needs are never fully satisfied. People always reach for more. Moreover, the basic condition of our planet is one of scarcity. In order to satisfy needs, resources in non-consumable form must be converted into consumable form through productive effort. However, people have a general preference for less effort rather than more, and to satisfy their needs sooner rather than later.

Thus people constantly search for ways to economize effort. Economy may be obtained thru various approaches. People can set aside some resources today to develop tools that increase productivity tomorrow. Higher output per hour relieves conditions of scarcity and improves standard of living. This approach is central to capitalism--the development of labor saving devices thru capital investments that increase abundance.

Economy may also be gained by division of labor. Specialization in a particular line of work improves productivity through repetition. Learning by doing increases efficiency. Because there is less changing between tasks, switching costs are also reduced.

To realize the fruits of specialization, however, people must engage in trade. Trade permits people to broadly satisfy their needs with more economy. More can be obtained per unit of effort when people specialize in their production and then trade.

Here we have the basic answer to why individuals socialize. Societies are a natural expression of the human desire to satisfy needs. These needs can be better satisfied through voluntary exchange with others than by people working in isolation. The key word here is voluntary, for if an individual does not like the terms offered in societal exchange then that individual can choose a more self-sufficient condition, albiet at a lower living standard perhaps.

Because man has an aversion to labor, and prefers satisfying needs using the least amount of effort possible, there will be those in society who covet the output produced by others. As such, individuals engaged in societal cooperation institute government to help protect property from expropriation by others. As long as the scope of government is limited to the protection of individual property rights, then individuals and society prosper.

Unfortunately man's aversion to effort in the pursuit of ever more satisfaction finds him seeking a broader scope for government. "Because government is an instrument of force," he reasons, "perhaps it can be employed to deliver into my possession economic resources that I won't have to work for." Government thus becomes a strong armed agent for a thieving principal.

When the scope of government moves beyond the protection of property to the expropriation of property, then prosperity is lost in societal arrangements.

It should be evident, therefore, that society and government are constructs--institutions that individuals create in their lifelong pursuits of making a living. The institutions assist in man's endeavor to get more for less.

The problem, of course, arises when these institutions reduce the voluntary cooperation necessary for increasing prosperity, and instead fester forceful invasion of one individual on another.