This past winter I read the book, Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond’s explanation for why western culture has created such an excess of wealth compared to other cultures–the short, simple answer is luck.  I bring this up not to comment on the book, (although I highly recommend it) but as an explanation for how I came to my revelation about government.

While I was reading Guns Germs and Steel our government was sending out stimulus checks. I had various conversations with other citizens regarding this government largess and the points of view ranged from, “Where the hell is my check and why are some people getting more than I am” to, “I got the check and I don’t feel that I deserve it.”

I responded to comments of the latter sort by pointing out that the government is in the habit of taxing households for the purpose of redistributing the money to incompetent bankers, so why not give money directly to citizens? I did this, I’m sure, because I was rather keen to enjoy my own stimulus checks and prevent anyone else’s guilty feelings from rubbing off on me.

However, as is often the case with justifications arising from a sense of guilt, the arguments took on a life of their own and cross-pollinated with ideas I had read about in Guns, Germs and Steel. 

I’ll explain my revelation in as short a form as possible.

The entire project of government is, 1- to provide a system for the unequal allocation of assets and, 2- to maintain a mythological justification for doing so.

Ever since civilizations arose and started creating surpluses, whether it was of food, housing, knowledge, or power, the production and the consumption has been unequally created and unequally divided. Some people produce more and some people get more and those that get more are not necessarily those that produce more and the government creates and maintains the system whereby this happens. It has always been this way and always will be. 

This is not a moral judgment. It’s a fact and it cannot be otherwise. The cooperative or at least coordinated effort of any civilization and the surplus it creates is always unequally created because individual human beings have very different abilities. It is always unequally divided because the creation of surplus and its unequal division is the energy that drives civilization. 

The process of creating surplus and unequally allocating the resulting assets is structured by the government. Everything the government accomplishes, from building a pyramid, waging war and exploring space to more mundane activities like fixing streets, licensing dogs, and creating and enforcing building codes, is accomplished, directly or indirectly, by a system that allocates assets. Whether that allocation of assets is direct, like the stimulus check sent to me and the tax revenue that is directed toward space exploration or indirect such as permissions allowing people who have completed a certain level of training to practice a particular profession, the effect is always the same; the flow of assets created by civilization is pointed more toward one person or group and away from another. The various systems of governmental and economic power such as democracy, theocracy, capitalism or communism, mix and match as you will, they all perform the same practical function, to direct assets toward some people and away from others.

The second important function of government is to provide a myth or story which explains why the assets are allocated in that fashion and which also works as justification for the inevitable inequality. Perhaps the myth is the Divine Right of Kings and the framework is a hierarchy of power resting on a base of mostly powerless, illiterate serfs, or an autocracy/kleptocracy like Putin’s Russia wrapping itself in historical myths and enforced by assassinations and a misinformation machine. In our case, we maintain democratic and capitalist institutions. These are idealistic but messy and imperfect structures. Everyone knows that money buys votes and free markets are heavily manipulated by the major market players, but our belief in the idealized myth of democracy and the invisible hand and, importantly, the success these ideas have demonstrated by bringing safety and prosperity to many of the citizens of the countries that believe in and use these structures has helped us bridge the gap between the promise of the myth and the messy reality. 

The myth and framework make all the difference. Some work better than others and by this difference hangs the fate of civilizations. Over the course of our history, our system has been spectacularly successful relative to everything else that has been tried. However, starting in the early 70s we started losing wars and living standards for ordinary people stagnated or declined.    

The premise of Guns Germs and Steel begins when the author’s New Guinean friend asks him why the west has so much more stuff, “cargo” as he calls it, than his own culture, and Diamond sets out to answer this question. 

I don’t like the way the cargo is getting divided up these days. My question is whether we need to modify our existing myths and structures, and how, or whether we just need a whole new system.