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Comment by baddox | Hacker News Reader

The government isn't just a normal player on the field that happens to be bigger and stronger. Government also enjoys the acceptance by society that it is the only actor with certain authorities, like the authority to mediate conflict with violence, imprison and execute people, break up companies or prevent mergers by force, and fund itself via taxation. If a "normal" organization did any of those things, you would probably resist, and your neighbors would probably take your side.

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Could we please stop conflating the military and use of it by the government to laws that were enacted long ago to protect consumers when buying a car? The military isn't going to take over a dealership with armed service personnel to keep Tesla from selling their cars. Sheesh.

It was just an example of some of the powers the government is given by its people. He's not saying they are equivalent.

Political patronage doesn't require violence.

Look at the FED.

By "FED" do you mean the Federal Reserve? While they don't directly engage in violence as far as I know, their powerful influence is due to the dominance of the US dollar, which is established and maintained by violence, in the form of monopoly protection (if you create a competing currency, you go to jail) and taxation.

Nice theoroy, but their influence is greater within the US than externally (obviously). Most people are manipulated by means other than violence quite effectively, just look at Advertising and other Online Scams.

I don't claim that manipulation is impossible without violence. How do you explain the Fed's tremendous influence in the US (and presumably world) economy?

They are in control of an insane amount money.

Not the military, but if Tesla or someone else violated the law, it's no exaggeration to say that at some point law enforcement, i.e. armed personnel, would be involved. Of course, it's unlikely anyone would take it that far, but that doesn't mean force or the threat of force is not at work.

I didn't even mention the military.

How do you think personal and private property laws get enforced?

Don't be under the illusion that our system is built upon trust and volunteer acceptance. It's built upon overwhelming brute force.

>he military isn't going to take over a dealership with armed service personnel to keep Tesla from selling their cars.

Who do you think the car dealerships will call when Telsa refuses to shut his stores down? The police. They will confiscate the property, arrest the managers/owners and shut down the business.

That is overwhelming brute force whether you call it the military or the police.

> Who do you think the car dealerships will call when Telsa refuses to shut his stores down? The police. They will confiscate the property, arrest the managers/owners and shut down the business.

I'm going with the court system.

Businesses for the most part don't comply with the law because they are worried about a gun being pointed to their head, they are worried about being sued and being put out of business, or being sent to jail for something criminal.

> Businesses for the most part don't comply with the law because they are worried about a gun being pointed to their head, they are worried about being sued and being put out of business, or being sent to jail for something criminal.

Those are essentially the same thing. What do you think happens if a court rules that you cannot continue your business, but you do anyway? Or what happens if you are given a jail sentence and you physically resist being moved to jail?

Sure it can eventually come to that, but thinking that businesses operate for the most part in compliance with the law because they are worried about being accosted by the US military is just fear mongering.

Again, I don't think anyone here is talking about the military.

Military / police / militia, whatever type of scary men with guns you are insinuating above...

You're making it sound comical by making it over precise. Business comply with the law because the law has the capacity to punish them. That's it, plain and simple. It's about enforcement.

>Don't be under the illusion that our system is built upon trust and volunteer acceptance. It's built upon overwhelming brute force.

Not completely, but society still heavily relies on it. The majority of people obey (most) laws because they believe it's the right thing to do, not because they're afraid of punishment. And if they didn't, we'd very quickly find that the existing police forces are completely inadequate to keep control of a herd of psychopaths.

Companies are a little different, since their decision making is often disconnected enough that the individual morality of their employees isn't necessarily reflected in their overall behaviour.

... and militarized police swat teams would never be used to, say, raid a barber shop and enforce up-to-date barber licenses. Oh, wait.

http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/13/the-swat-team-would-li...

That's right. Floridian police raided several barber shops, with a warrant to ensure the barbers were licensed practitioners, and while they were at it they handcuffed people, held them at gunpoint, and even arrested several for unrelated crimes (coincidence?!).

And if only such an event were an outlier ... sadly, it's become common, around the country.

Don't forget SWAT teams and farmer's markets:

https://www.google.com/search?q=swat+team+farmer%27s+market

Eventually, they will, if you resist effectively enough. They don't need to use large amounts of force most of the time.

Violence. Guns. These are the threats behind every piece of legislation. Comply, or we'll send the goons with guns to make you comply. That most people go ahead and comply without making the government resort to using violence doesn't mean the violence isn't right there behind every bureaucrat's pen.

If a 'normal' organisation is able to take over these roles, this organisation becomes a defacto government and most people won't resist it, as long as they are able to live within the system. People's revolutions are relatively rare in the grand scheme of things.

I should have mentioned that the reason most people don't resist government isn't simply that resistance is futile (in the way a person likely won't resist a mugger with a gun), but rather that they don't feel like they are being wronged at all.

That's a good point. In countries like France and Canada, that's how sharia works. For the people who accept it, it becomes a de facto alternate government (officially, subject to the laws of the land in which it operates, but in practice, a law unto itself).

The government is granted those powers because of the legal and social contracts we enter into as citizens of the country... it isn't, won't, and shouldn't be just like any other actor in a market. It's an organized, representative extension of the population of the country.

>The government is granted those powers because of the legal and social contracts we enter into as citizens of the country.

That's bs post-hoc justification. There is no contract and few people agreed to it. Government is accepted because it works better than no government. We haven't found the perfect way to organize society (and it may not exist), so we stick around in the local optima.

>It's an organized, representative extension of the population of the country.

This is true in theory. In practice it's a big mess. Voters don't actually have that much control. Just a single bit of input "which party do you like more right now?" And maybe they shouldn't they because direct democracy isn't that great either. The real advantage of democracy is that if the rulers really screw up, if they make the population really angry, they will eventually lose their power when the next year divisible by 4 comes around. It also encourages the politicians to make an effort to be popular (which isn't necessarily what's best, but it's better than nothing.)

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