Centralization of Government

I was talking to one of my distinguished classmates earlier today about various issues which all revolved around centralized power in government to one degree or another.

It is essential that any individual or group that does not desire to live in pure anarchy be willing to give up a certain amount of freedom to a centralized source. That source must be strong enough to effectively support the laws and regulations it passes. Otherwise, government acts as primarily an advisory board to a society living in anarchy. This was, to a certain degree, the US under the Articles of Confederation. At least, however, in that case each state had a viable government of its own.

I'm reminded of Hobbes and Locke. I disagree with Hobbes than anarchy (the state of nature) is inherently nasty brutush and short. However, I concede that it can be. I agree that any country in anarchy will eventually organize itself under some sort of governmental form. It is human nature to desire order from chaos and to institute means to prevent oneself from being cheated by one's neighbor.

To quote Spider-Man, "with great power comes great responsibility." The more power a government has, the greater its capacity to abuse that power without being checked. History has also shown us that the more vaste the government, the more inefficient and corrupt it is. Interestingly enough, those who see the expansion of government power as the expansion of corruption rarely see the expansion of a single business's power as an expansion of corruption. Now don't get me wrong, I am probusiness by every reasonable means. The government should not have the power nor should it be in the business of regulating companies...however, it is the government's duty to defend citizens of the United States, even if it is from themselves.

I admire Theodore Roosevelt when he said big business in itself is not a vice. However, since that power is easily abused, the government ought to keep tabs on business practices. He did not mean the regulation of businesses for the benefit of the government. What he did mean was that careful attention must be paid to powerful people and businesses so that, if they should start to abuse their power, exploit their workers, cheat in contracts, etc, there would be consequences.

In summary, power has the tendency to corrupt whether it be in government or in the business world. To paraphrase Federalist Paper 10, you cannot eliminate faction so the best thing to do is empower factions to compete against each other so that no one group becomes too powerful.