From: lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA (Michael Lewchuk)
Subject: Re: Just a few simple questions from a newcomer...
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 19:52:32 GMT

fdeck@vyasa.helios.nd.edu (francis deck) writes:
>What, exactly is the role of the "government" in an objectivist
>system?  Does it extend beyond enforcing the law that one person
>cannot infringe on another's rights?  That, it would seem, would
>require the minimal assumptions, but some questions arise:

Government:
1.  Provides military, police, and emergency services.  This includes
    making laws or adjusting them as required, maintaining prisons, etc.
2.  Provides basic education and standard of living to children.
3.  Taxes people to provide for (1) and (2).

I'll answer your questions below, from my knowledge of Objectivism and
its current standard interpretation.

>1. Who pays for the government, and how is payment enforced?

The governed pay for government through taxes.  Payment is enforced by
making tax evasion illegal.

>2. Who polices the government?

Nobody, since government has so few powers it is unlikely it would need
real policing.  You could also say that the voter "polices" the government
in that a government performing clearly stupid actions would be voted out
in the next election.  Technically the government could be "policed" by
making its budget public, since any other action it takes (military,
legal) would probably be noticeable by the public anyways.

>3. Suppose two governments claim jurisdiction over a territory,
>   or over a particular race, sex, &c within a boundary.  How
>   is this resolved?

Negotation or war.  It is highly unlikely that such a situation would be
resolved in any other way under any system.  Objectivism has little to do with
international politics.  It is more an internal than external system.

>4. Is it possible for the government to be operated with 100%
>   efficiency?  What force prevents the efficiency of the
>   government (i.e. the assessed cost to the people) from
>   assuming an arbitrarily bad value?

Presumably people will be informed (somehow) about the true nature of
the cost of items.  Managers could be fired, etc.  Generally since people
themselves monitor things like emergency team usage and response time, if
there was a problem then generally people would know about it, wouldn't they?
Plus, a government could impress the people by cutting costs if costs were
too high.  Also, government expenses could be "fixed" somewhat, such as a
fixed salary for elected officials, adjusted as per inflation each year.

>5. If an individual or corporation were to prove (objectively)
>   that he could manage the government at lower cost to the
>   people, without any degradation in quality (say, by using
>   a novel technology, or by accepting lower wages), then
>   should that person get the contract?

Technically the government should be mandated to maintain the best in
technology and thus the most efficient services.  While any service could
be "contracted out", the government's job is to:
a) establish a code of conduct based on the rights, freedoms, and obligations
   of the citizens and maintain this as a code of law.
b) establish a military and maintain the security of the nation.
c) provide an equal start for all members of society through schooling.

In some sense, we are not talking about "efficiency" here but "security".
An army operated by a government instead of a private firm is duty bound to
that government (and thus that country).  Same with a police force.  I'd
rather a nation maintained its own military rather than hired out soldiers
that were more efficient because you can always have your own troops; you
can't always find cheap mercenaries, especially in wartime when you actually
need them.  In short, some "inefficiency" in terms of cost is sacrificed for
security, which is the only intent of military and police forces.  If the
intent of police forces was not security, then of course lower cost would
prevail.

>6. Suppose it were demonstrated, objectively, that the gov't
>   could be operated at significantly lower cost if the
>   territory were split up into smaller pieces, each with
>   its own gov't.  Should the split be allowed?

Probably, although there are some services (such as the military) where
having an entire continent pay for hundreds of thousands of troops is better
than having each state and province and (do they have territories in Mexico?)
pay for its own militia.  This is primarily why we have 3 levels of
gvoernment: civic, state (provincial), and federal.  Each represents the
ideally efficient level at which to maintain the services they provide
(although state governments would probably be reduced to near nil in an
Objectivist system since the only useful service they provide for an
Objectivist government is state law enforcement and state prisons).

>7. What are the rights which the gov't protects?  Do I have
>   the right to prevent someone from building a skunk farm
>   next to my house for the purpose of devaluing my and my
>   neighbors' property so he can buy them up cheap?

1.  You have the absolute right to your own property.  Your person is
    considered your property.
2.  Nobody has the right to interfere with your property unless you give
    them permission to.
3.  You have the right to act in any way which you deem reasonable when
    not in violation of (1) and (2).
Technically the "skunk farm" case is a legal problem since it would eventually
be generalizable to any type of air pollution.

>8. Could a person voluntarily give up his rights in exchange for
>   money, say by some contractual agreement?  Suppose I
>   offered everyone in a large region to give up all their
>   rights, including the rights to leave the region, and sell 
>   me all their land in return for a chance to win a dose
>   of some ultra-pleasure-drug by random drawing?

The contract would be ruled invalid.  You would wind up with all of their
land and nothing else.  You would still be obligated to hold that lottery.
Either that, or the entire contract could be ruled illegal.

>9. How are the rights of infants protected? 

The government has the duty to protect the life and guarantee suitable
education and upbringing of its citizens under adult age.  There is no
real difference from our current system in this respect, although I'm not
sure of the Objectivist view on whether post-secondary eductaion is a "right".
If so, colleges would be essentially "free" by a voucher type of system.  You
would get ($$) to spend on college(s) of your choice and thus obtain higher
education.

>f.deck >physics >notre dame

					Michael Lewchuk
					lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism