The age old maxim ‘Don’t bite the hand that feeds you’ still remains relevant today.
When examining government and determining the factor which they rely on; it is important to analyze the purpose of government.
This is an issue which many disagree. Some state that their purpose is progress, while others say it is welfare. Others state it is conquest, when others state it is cultivation. The fact of the matter is that in all these cases, the role and purpose of government is the maintaining of order.
Governments and states rely on many things in order to function. They rely on finances, resources, the trust of their citizenry as well as the power of their armed forces – but this is all for naught if they are unneeded.
Order can only be maintained when chaos threatens to overtake it. Otherwise there is no point in maintaining order. Chaos – crime, war, disaster, poverty – is anything which destroys the balance of society. It is a government’s job to handle these issues and protect order.
Yet if there was no chaos, then would there be a need to defend order? Let us assume that poverty in a nation could be fixed with one simple solution; a solution that would make the population independent and financially stable. Many governments give out welfare packages to the poverty stricken. These welfare packages build up reliance towards government which will never allow the stricken to exit the poverty cycle.
The reason for this is that the government needs these welfare citizens in order to remain relevant. Do not bite the hand that feeds you. Those who rely on welfare to survive will not risk biting the hand of government, and therefore the government maintains control over them.
The only control that the government can maintain is the power of relevance. They maintain this relevance through money, force and most importantly – reliance. Without chaos, government would have nothing to combat, and therefore there would no longer be any need for them.
By this, we can see that the government annihilating chaos and truly solving the issues they claim to combat is in fact counterproductive to their very survival. Chaos is needed for Order to need protection. If government wishes to remain relevant, it needs to perpetuate chaos through not solving the problem at all.
Meaning – chaos remains.
Nicholas Woode-Smith is the Managing Editor and a Co-Founder of the Rational Standard.