jadester

Yeah, I was making the wrong distinction between government programs and private programs: I interpreted government programs as the kind we have today, and private programs as ones that are privately funded, by voluntary donations instead of some regulated tax process. Zip's post cleared it up though. And I now see that the original poster said privately managed, so it probably should have been clear from the start

Thank you. Between the last two posts, all my questions have been answered (for now, anyway).

What's the difference? If the government is simply "an institution that holds exclusive power to enforce certain rules of social conduct", isn't the government essentially just the courts and the police? And they would be funded directly and by voluntary donations, so what distinguishes "a proper government system" from "privately managed alternatives"?

Yeah, sorry, i think I understand better now what "government" actually means in the objectivist lexicon; I was defining it simply a medium for funding things, not as an institution with a monopoly on force, as DaveOdden defined it.

. OK I can get behind that-- but how does establishing/maintaining the military fall under the category of "enforcing rules of social conduct" domestically? Shouldn't that be beyond the realm of government jurisdiction, as you've just defined it?

But again, if no coercion could take place in the system, why does it matter what the government does? Why not maximize freedom by allowing people to fund the government endeavors they want to fund (as long as said endeavors do not violate anyone's rights)? Apply the above response to this quote as well.

Yes, that's why I dont think the government should be doing things businesses do, i.e things that one can profit from. But how would this apply to social services?

. OK but you don't actually need a government to do that. You could just leave it up to people to take initiative and pool their money to fund the courts and the police, without acting through an intermediary organization (although I don't think this would be feasible for a national military). It's just that there's little practical difference between this and acting through the "government" in a world w/o taxes, except that acting through the government is probably easier. So what's the distinction between the courts&police, and everything else? Setting aside social services for a moment, what about current government functions that are as essential as the Big Three we've enumerated? Like, say, scanning items that are shipped into the country to make sure they're safe (thereby safeguarding against poisonous lipgloss, etc.)? Or providing relief in the case of natural disasters? Why bar the government from performing these functions as well? . But if branches of the government became corrupt, people could just stop funding them, couldn't they? Sure, sure, they exist, I'm just assuming that there aren't enough of them to give aid to all the people government programs like welfare do.

I could be wrong, but I'm fairly sure objectivism holds that the government can't force its constituents to support it (can't levy taxes and must rely only on voluntary donations for its funding). I'm also going to assume that said constituents would, in an objectivist world, be able to decide which government endeavor or branch to contribute money to. But Ayn Rand also said that the only valid functions of government are the police, the army, and the courts. But why? In a world without taxes, how are government entitlement programs actually different from the endeavors of private charities? Wouldn't government just be a medium, or an expedient, through which people could give their money to the poor without having to go through the trouble of setting up foundations themselves? The difference from the status quo being, of course, that no coercion would take place in such a process. This doesn't apply only to entitlement programs. Another example: I understand Ayn Rand was against foreign aid (gratis Atlas Shrugged)-- but I don't see the problem with it in a world where people could only choose to fund it. In short, why limit the functions of government to the extent that she did if it can only carry out the tasks people elect to give it the means to, and has been stripped of its ability to "initiate force" against its subjects? And also, I'm Jade. (: (this is my first time here). I apologize if I'm a bit incoherent: I'm a callow high-school student, etc.