The Minimal State

I just returned from a Liberty Fund Seminar where we examined self ownership or property rights in our selves. I was quite surprised to find that even people there are reluctant to question the role of government in providing defense, so-called public goods and externalities, and others. The problem is that once you admit there is a role for a state, you have a difficult if not impossible task in limiting the state. Read The Cult of the Presidency by Gene Healey and you will realize how the state feverishly works to grow, particularly in times of war and crises. In reading Hume or Mill, Locke or James Buchanan, I think you must continually question whether they have in mind some aspect of life they desire others to follow and thus fall into the fatal conceipt of assuming what they want must be good for society.