If this method is to be successful we
must have not only suitable organizations but also
a diffused respect for liberty, and an absence of
submissiveness to government both in theory and practice.
Some risk of disorder there must be in such a
society, but this risk is as nothing compared to the
danger of stagnation which is inseparable from an
all-powerful central authority.
We may now sum up our discussion of the powers
of Government.
The State, in spite of what Anarchists urge, seems
a necessary institution for certain purposes. Peace
and war, tariffs, regulation of sanitary conditions
and of the sale of noxious drugs, the preservation of
a just system of distribution: these, among others,
are functions which could hardly be performed in
a community in which there was no central government.
Take, for example, the liquor traffic, or
the opium traffic in China. If alcohol could be
obtained at cost price without taxation, still more
if it could be obtained for nothing, as Anarchists
presumably desire, can we believe that there would not
be a great and disastrous increase of drunkenness?
China was brought to the verge of ruin by opium,
and every patriotic Chinaman desired to see the traffic
in opium restricted.
Pages:
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179