Government and Property
the practicing thief but is a characteristic of the human being, and therefore in every community quarrels arise over the question of ownership, all the more so as the intricacies of trade develop. In the interest of that tranquillity without which production becomes difficult, to the discouragement of accumulations, the community sets up an impartial third party to adjudicate these and all other disputes. The tribunal is Government. Thus, the institution that grew out of the need for a protector of property takes on the related duty of judge.
The policeman-judge institution makes its appearance soon after every Society is born, and along with it there emerges from the experience of the group a set of rules of behavior for the guidance of its members, all to the end that the pursuit of happiness shall be facilitated; the occupation of this institution is to see that these rules are observed. This singularity of Government sets it off from all the specialized services that make up Society. To repeat, Society consists of a number of producers, each contributing to the general fund of wealth, and each depending for acceptance of his goods or services on the free vote of the market place; he has no power of compulsion. Government too is a specialized service, differing from all the others in that it contributes nothing tangible to the market place and is endowed with the monopoly of coercion. That is the peculiar characteristic of Government wherever we find it; by common consent it enjoys a monopoly of coercion so that it can prevent the indiscriminate exercise of coercion by the members of the community. It cannot be subjected to the competitive conditions that promote productive enterprise, because competitive coercion is competitive violence, the very condition that
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