Being one of the minority that doesn't believe that we, as people, have any need of government to live our lives, I often get asked this question. In fact, on my introductory post 
Notice: If you believe that governments are good and that everyone needs them, reading this article may well raise your blood pressure significantly. I'd caution against reading the following if you believe such things unless you have a firm understanding of what Cognitive Dissonance is. You won't change my mind and my intention is not to giver you a heart attack. Read at your own risk!
(image swiped from and possibly copyright economicnoise.com and hosted on my servers to avoid leeching their bandwidth)
Are you asking the wrong question?
Personally, I believe that rather than asking what the alternative to government might be, a better place to start is by asking why, specifically, we believe that government is necessary (some have said a necessary evil) to begin with.
Before we can start asking why anyone needs "the government", let us first answer another important question.
What is "the government"?
Our media, which is corporate and/or government owned, almost always refers to the men and women who call themselves a government as if they were, collectively, some kind of higher being.
Such terminology is a form of mind control designed to get people to glaze over the fact that any government is nothing more than a group of people.
When I hear (or read) media that says the following types of things, it immediately raises a red flag in my mind:
- The city of X thinks that...
- The state of Y think that...
- The federal government thinks that...
These types of phrases should realistically be translated to "A group of men and women who call themselves X collectively think that..." in order to avoid the mind altering effect that is intended by those that write such things.
In reality, all governments are simply groups of men and women that claim the following:
- They have the right to tell everyone else what they should or should not do, whether that be because of a constitution, devine right, or simply because they have a standing army and are willing to use as much force as necessary to make everyone else obey.
- They have the right to take property from everyone else, by force, and use it as they see fit. Typically this is done in modern times via taxation.
Government vs Leadership
Most governments in the developed world attempt to pass themselves off as leadership whenever possible, often claiming that they represent the people, obey a written constitution wherein the people have given them the right to govern, etc.
The fact is that leadership is not government.
Government is leadership via force. Take away the use of force (whether via coercion, duress, threat, or something else) and you no longer have government. You instead have leadership. I have no issue with leadership as under leadership you can walk away if you no longer agree with your leaders.
Having established what government is and how it differs from leadership, let us now take a look at the next question I would ask:
Why do we need government?
Almost everyone on the planet has grown up under some kind of government or another. I can only speak from experience having grown up in the area called The United States of America and apologize if the following is not true of where you have lived.
Having grown up in a land with a firmly entrenched group of people calling themselves the government (in fact, multiple layers of such people... the feds, the state, the county, the city, etc.), I grew up with the following all being true:
- I attended schools run by people calling themselves governments, spending most of my childhood in such schools.
- I watched television news and read newspapers and magazines published by corporations which are regulated (controlled) by those calling themselves governments.
- I had virtually no access to media that was not controlled by those calling themselves governments (e.g. I pre-date the internet)
With these things in mind, I was taught all of the following things over and over as I grew up, though they were rarely stated directly:
- Government is not only necessary, it is good
- People in government represent us and have our best interests in mind
- People in government are smarter than us and better able to govern us than we are
- Without government, we would have chaos and we would live in a world of might makes right
- People are greedy. Without government, services such as roads and defense could not possibly be provided.
Having been raised by an unknowing anarchist (e.g. someone who was self sufficient and didn't have much use for people telling him how to live his life), I always had a feeling that something was not right with the world, but could not put my finger on it until I was in my mid 20s.
It was at about that stage that I started asking hard questions and feeling the effects of cognitive dissonance for the first time (and my poor friends and family...). Let us take a look at some of the above preconceptions:
People in government represent us
Representation means to stand in place of another, speaking for them and holding their best interests in mind.
How, exactly, can someone represent a diverse group of different people (let alone 2 different people) that have wildly different ideas of what their best interests are? (hint: they cannot)
People in government have our best interests in mind
How many people do you know that hold your best interests above their own? (maybe your parents, maybe...)
Of those people, how many hold everyone else's best interests before their own? (hint: none)
Of the remaining group of imaginary people, how many spend more time trying to get themselves into government than they spend living their own lives?
The reality is the best anyone could possibly claim is to believe that everyone has the same rights and that they would do their best to protect everyones rights as that is in their best interest.
People in government are smarter than us and better able to govern us than we are
I'm no moron, but even were I the smartest man in the world, how would I possibly know what you want out of life better than you do?
If you really think that those calling themselves the government are amazingly more intelligent than the average people, you should really stop and listen to them sometime. Yes, many of the most powerful are good talkers, but not many of them are brilliant.
Of course, it really doesn't matter how smart they are. What really matters is whether or not they have the character to not use what power they manage to attain for their own benefit at the expense of others.
People are greedy.
I won't argue this point, but would point out that if people are greedy then why would people give other people the right to rule them (e.g. the right to force them to do what they want them to, take their things, etc.)?
It seems to me that the real issue is people having the perceived right to force other people to obey them. Take that away and suddenly the world looks very different. Why would you create governments of people if people are greedy and unable to govern themselves?
Services such as education, roads, power, and defense can only be provided by government
Anyone that states these things really needs to read up on some history and ask themselves a few questions:
- What makes a group of people calling themselves a government more special than a group of like minded people working towards a common goal?
- Where competition is allowed, what services are provided by groups of people called governments more efficiently and/or at a lower (non subsidized) cost than by the marketplace?
I've never seen any instance where a government has provided a service more cheaply and more efficiently than their competition. In fact, if you let people calling themselves the government provide a service, you have to not only pay the people doing the work, you have to pay for the people calling themselves the government as well. You also often have to pay for their friends or others they have made deals with.
Without government we would live in a world of right makes right
This is the exact opposite of the truth.
Without government, there would be no pretense that some people have the right to force other people to do what they want them to.
If you wanted to take from someone else by force, you would have to go do it yourself and be openly seen by others as someone who takes by force. You might well meet an untimely end doing such things.
Is government really necessary?
I'd say no.
Without governments, could you have...
- large scale wars?
- mass exterminations (Mao, Hitler, or any other crazy political leader that has starved or rounded up and killed their own people)?
- massive theft (taxation + inflation via fiat currency)?
- any of the other crimes perpetrated by people calling themselves government?
I'd say no again.
What would the world look like without government?
Well, provided that we, as people, could wise up a bit, it might not look nearly as bad as we are typically taught to believe.
Take way the right to force other people to do what you want and/or take the fruits of their labor and you end up with people either living their own lives or working together with leadership that they themselves have chosen... and the right to walk away should their leaders suddenly become greedy, overbearing, etc.
Is it possible to live without government?
Certainly. If not, governments could never have come into existence.
Of course, we are a long way from such a thing happening and there is no way to wave a magic wand and suddenly have all of the power hungry people controlling others around the world give up their power.
I used to try to convince people of my beliefs, but eventually realized that it is much more important to simply do what I can in my own life and not worry about convincing anyone else.
The more blatantly those in government tend towards criminal action, the more people will come to see the truth for themselves, no matter how painful. Once they start to see the truth they generally become more open to discussion and start looking for more information themselves.
You can't make anyone take the red pill, so don't worry about trying.
Myself, I live my life each day, do my best to not cause harm to others, and worry about improving myself. If a friend seeks out advice or wants to hear what I think about something, I'm always happy to answer, but I don't worry about trying to convince anyone else of these things.
Parting notes
Hopefully you have found this at least someone interesting. If you want more information simply do a search for anarchism, visit sites such as Strike the Root, or read the writings of people such as Lysander Spooner.
If you strongly disagree with me, to each their own. Neither one of us is going to convince the other of our beliefs unless and/or until we are ready to challenge the underpinnings of our own beliefs. I was once a statist (one who believes in the power of governments and states)... and I took a hard look at my core beliefs and found them lacking.
If you really want a mind trip and haven't done so, start looking into how our money supplies are created. Crypto currency holds some hope for the future. The alternative looks to be utter collapse (see USSR, Nazi Germany, and many other countries that have experienced hyperinflation) or abject slavery under a cabal of corporations and governments controlled by the money powers. If we are really lucky we can slowly move away from the mechanisms of control towards a future that would be bright for everyone.
Whatever comes, live today and enjoy your life.
If you have questions about anything in particular please feel free to ask.
If you just disagree with me, please realize that I'm not going to get into a huge debate here. I just wanted to offer some perspectives that you don't normally see espoused publicly so that at least some might come across them and find them worthy of consideration.
Be well,
Tony.