Civil government is an establishment designed to protect the life, liberty, and property of its constituents. However, as government continues to grow far beyond its intended and necessary bounds under guises such as promoting equality and benefiting the well-being of society, it has become increasingly popular for supporters of large government to default to the opinion that government should be responsible for this or that operation.

One may initially think of this as a good thing; a government doing something to help its people is commendable and benefits everybody, right? Herein lies our first issue. The politics of plunder, a concept Bastiat famously popularized, is the redistribution of wealth through coercion. The government’s sole source of funding is through this legalized plunder in the form of taxation. When the government uses tax money to, say, support specific special interest groups, this may benefit a portion of the population, but others may not have chosen to spend their money on something that personally provides them nothing in return.

The government also tends towards inefficiency with its money and resources. An example of this is the government postal system; sending a letter has only increased in cost since 1904 whilst the cost of electricity, a privately controlled industry, has fallen exponentially.

Let us take another example: roads. Government has been in charge of our road system as long as there have been automobiles in our country. With its track record, perhaps we would be better off if this were not the case.

Rather than imposing political plunder on the citizens under its jurisdiction, this situation could be resolved if the government could leave the free market to do its wonders as it has in countless other industries. While it is unclear what something like road systems would look like under voluntary arrangements, we can be sure that it would work itself out to far exceed the abilities of the inefficient government systems that are presently in charge. Private enterprises could be established which could then plan, develop, and manage roadway systems across the country, likely for much cheaper and without the tax burdens imposed on constituents. How this would work is a mystery that may or may not be solved, but we can see that it is certainly worthy of consideration. Leaving the government to do things is a recipe for wasted tax dollars and all-around inefficiency.🔹