Three Categories of Human Activity

& the Proper Role of Government

by Sam Wells

There are three (3) areas of human activity:

1. Private personal actions which involve no one except that person and his own self and property. (e.g., smoking pot in the privacy of his own home; or watching his own TV in his own home as long as the noise doesn't harm someone else; or thinking unorthodox thoughts in the privacy of his own brain),

2. Voluntary (market) relations -- any relationship in which the wills of the participants coincide (agree) with respect to the terms of the relationship. (e.g., voluntary sexual intercourse in private quarters; working for an employer in exchange for a salary; buying a loaf of bread at supermarket; lending money out to gain interest or dividends; offering a lower price for ones product to persuade consumers to buy it),

3. Coercive Acts -- acts performed by a human or humans against the will of another human with respect to that which is his own (his person or property) (e.g., murder; rape, theft; breech of contract; criminal tresspass; robbery; kidnaping; taxation; slavery; torture; embezzlement)

The proper function of government is to use its powers to protect against and retaliate against category 3 -- BUT to leave alone categories 1 and 2. (Hence, police protection, the courts, and national defense are legitimate functions of a proper government. Subsidizing tobacco farmers or chipmakers is not. Dictating who we may associate with or not associate with is not.) Government (other people in society) should keep HANDS OFF categories 1 and 2. Its only proper jurisdiction is suppressing category #3.

I contend (as did Algernon Sidney, John Lilburne, John Locke and Jefferson) that when a person violates the rights of others (murder, theft, rape, etc.) that person becomes a criminal (if convicted) and forfeits at least some of his rights to be left alone by the government. A peaceful person who does not initiate force against anyone does NOT forfeit his right to be left alone. People should be free (from coercive interference) in their private affairs and voluntary relationships; on the other hand, those people who violate the rights of peaceful people should not be free and should not be left alone. They should be arrested, tried, convicted, and punished and/or segregated from the rest of society through imprisonment.

It is because government by its nature has a monopoly on the legal use of force in society that it is such a dangerous creature, and why it must be bound down by rules ("the chains of the Constitution" as Jefferson might say). The wielding of force must not be left to arbitrary, capricious, and changing whims. It must be limited by principle.

It is the principle of individual rights to person and property that sets a rational limit to the proper jurisdiction of government (society's institution of legal force); otherwise, its power is logically UNlimited and there is no justification against slavery or death camps.