The government addressing *anything* can, and usuals does, trend towards authoritarianism
Discussion
Really? We’ve government agencies that regulate water to make it safe to drink, require licenses in order to drive vehicles, make roads that are smooth with rules about speeds and the like. We’ve got a government agency that keeps bridges from falling down, which I’m quite keen on.
I’m a smash the state anarchist, but I can also see that governments can and do perform many useful functions. Most of them are so painfully boring we forget they exist. Governments decided that primary education should be a public service, so they setup and pay for schools. They regulate companies so they don’t send out chemicals in our environment that cause cancer.
Most of what governments do in the west is supremely boring. They’re just trying to follow their stupidly complicated regulation. They’re not being authoritarian.
They add flouride, not to make it safe obviously.
So why?
Central planning requires violence/authority. Central planning an emergency requires more violence/authority. The effectiveness of the applied violence/authority is irrelevant.
“Governments decided that primary education should be a public service, so they setup and pay for schools.”
No, the Prussians got their arses handed to them in wars so they decided to indoctrinate children to grow up to be obedient little soldiers via state schooling, other major powers took note of the effectiveness of manufacturing mindless drones and copied the model, now every nation happily indoctrinates children into whatever worldview the government of the day is pushing.
American students used to do duck and cover drills when the government wanted to scare the shit out of everyone over the Soviet Union. They had kids recite the pledge of allegiance to engender nationalism. Now they teach them that everyone is racist and the climate is going to kill us all - 100 years ago they wanted warriors, today they want culture warriors, they use the same means to achieve both.
This is the problem with thinking the government is benign - it’s not. It never is. It’s a power centre which will ALWAYS seek more power to its own ends.
Just because there are teachers in the system who genuinely care about kids or bureaucrats who do and want them to learn doesn’t actually mean anything. The system itself from first principles is the problem because it has corrupt incentives.
“They regulate companies so they don’t send out chemicals in our environment that cause cancer.”
Again, no.
That’s just not true.
They claim to do this and yet we have carcinogens fkn everywhere. Our food is covered in god knows what. We can’t smoke a plant but we can smoke cigarettes. We are mandated to inject ourselves with untested shit that causes god knows what by the very same authorities that you believe are protecting people.
The system which is supposed to protect us is built on crooked foundations, the incentives of participants are to loot as much for themselves as they can whilst they have the power and pay nothing more than lip service to goals in the process.
Look at the outcomes as opposed to what things say on paper. You’ve got that left-wing approach which is guided by “ideals” or “what ought to be” which simply does not map on to “reality” of “how it actually is” which is the more right-wing lens. It’s not actually left vs right, but this is how those with power prey on people, they know they can make emotional appeals and those with the “ought” lens will always swallow it.
So well explained mate. We dont need them, is that simple. They dont have to regulate shit if we dont need it, just get out the way