what do you fear?
Interview with Robert Higgs
In what ways do governments use fear to their advantages?
This is a big question, to which no brief answer can be sufficient. I have written about this matter at length in various places. My most focused discussion appears in the article “Fear: The Foundation of Every Government’s Power,” which is available online at
http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_10_3_10_etc.pdf .
The short answer is that governments in their normally understood (involuntary) form cannot exist unless the people subject to them are afraid. (1) Afraid of the government itself, and therefore willing to obey the government’s rules and to surrender their money and other resources as the government demands in taxes, fees, fines, and so forth. (2) Afraid of various threats to their lives and well-being, and therefore willing to submit to the government in exchange for its promise to protect and assist them. If people were not afraid—if they believed in their own ability, perhaps in voluntary association with others, to defend themselves and to provide for their needs in adversity, they would refuse to obey (at least, many of) the government’s rules and refuse to surrender their resources to the government, especially “in exchange” for goods and services they do not value or do not value as much as the government’s tax-price for their provision.
Does the extent in which fear is used depend on the form of government?
To some extent, yes. Totalitarian governments use fear more directly than less oppressive governments do. Totalitarian states use more -- and more brutal and direct -- violence. Less oppressive governments rely more on the people’s belief in their legitimacy and on extortion—the use of threats (including threats of violence), rather than direct, immediate violence.
What are your thoughts on Machiavelli's famous quote: "it is better to be feared than to be loved"?
Machiavelli believed that the ruler could not rely on the subjects’ love, especially when the ruler made great demands of them. So, he concluded that the ruler would gain more obedience if the people feared him than if they people did not fear him, but loved him. Whether this proposition is true or not may depend on the time and place. As an empirical statement, it is probably true more often than it is false. Given the nature of government, gaining the people’s love is an uphill struggle for any ruler—after all, why should people love the leader of the gang that – all things being considered -- is exploiting them?
How did 9/11 affect public support for the war on terror? Did George Bush use this fear for his own gain?
The attacks of 9/11 greatly increased the U.S. public’s support for the “war on terror” (a silly term, if you think about it). The Bush administration made this support the political foundation for its increased military, intelligence, and surveillance spending and for its various attacks on the people’s liberties (always in the name of security, of course). Especially in Bush’s 2004 campaign for reelection, the Republicans exploited the public’s fear of terrorism relentlessly, making it the foundation of the entire reelection strategy. This strategy obviously worked.
Would you think that no matter what form of government and where, the government takes advantage of our fears?
Any government in the “normal” (involuntary) form must rely to some extent on fear, as I explained earlier. If government were provided contractually, however, if it were an arrangement binding only on individuals who had consented to its terms of governance voluntarily, explicitly, and individually, then no fear would be required, aside from the fear of exclusion from the arrangement in the event that an individual failed to keep his part of the bargain (say, by paying agreed-on dues to the government for its contracted services).
You have previously made the analogy that a government is to a citizen as a shepherd is to a sheep. You have also stated that the shepherd's (government's) responsibility is to protect its sheep (citizens), however, governments instead do whatever they need to do for their own interests, even if it is slaughtering your own people. How does this apply to suppression in Italy when Mussolini was in power and in Russia when Stalin initiated the purges all in the 20th century?
I do not say that the government’s “responsibility” is to protect the sheep, but only that, like a shepherd, it may do so in its own interest. (You can get neither meat nor wool from the sheep if they are injured, killed, or lured away.) Governments under Mussolini and Stalin had to pay attention to protecting their people. Both those governments, however, believed their rule to be under grave threat from people who sought to replace them as rulers or, at least, to subvert their authority and weaken their control over the people and their resources. Mussolini’s government was much more cunning in this management of the people than Stalin’s government. Stalin and his chief henchmen felt besieged by internal enemies at all times and therefore repeatedly chose to imprison and slaughter Russians and others by the millions. The Soviet leaders sometimes appeared to have been irrational in their ferocity, but, in view of their paranoia, their actions made sense to them, especially to Stalin himself, who famously remarked, “No man, no problem.”
This is a big question, to which no brief answer can be sufficient. I have written about this matter at length in various places. My most focused discussion appears in the article “Fear: The Foundation of Every Government’s Power,” which is available online at
http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_10_3_10_etc.pdf .
The short answer is that governments in their normally understood (involuntary) form cannot exist unless the people subject to them are afraid. (1) Afraid of the government itself, and therefore willing to obey the government’s rules and to surrender their money and other resources as the government demands in taxes, fees, fines, and so forth. (2) Afraid of various threats to their lives and well-being, and therefore willing to submit to the government in exchange for its promise to protect and assist them. If people were not afraid—if they believed in their own ability, perhaps in voluntary association with others, to defend themselves and to provide for their needs in adversity, they would refuse to obey (at least, many of) the government’s rules and refuse to surrender their resources to the government, especially “in exchange” for goods and services they do not value or do not value as much as the government’s tax-price for their provision.
Does the extent in which fear is used depend on the form of government?
To some extent, yes. Totalitarian governments use fear more directly than less oppressive governments do. Totalitarian states use more -- and more brutal and direct -- violence. Less oppressive governments rely more on the people’s belief in their legitimacy and on extortion—the use of threats (including threats of violence), rather than direct, immediate violence.
What are your thoughts on Machiavelli's famous quote: "it is better to be feared than to be loved"?
Machiavelli believed that the ruler could not rely on the subjects’ love, especially when the ruler made great demands of them. So, he concluded that the ruler would gain more obedience if the people feared him than if they people did not fear him, but loved him. Whether this proposition is true or not may depend on the time and place. As an empirical statement, it is probably true more often than it is false. Given the nature of government, gaining the people’s love is an uphill struggle for any ruler—after all, why should people love the leader of the gang that – all things being considered -- is exploiting them?
How did 9/11 affect public support for the war on terror? Did George Bush use this fear for his own gain?
The attacks of 9/11 greatly increased the U.S. public’s support for the “war on terror” (a silly term, if you think about it). The Bush administration made this support the political foundation for its increased military, intelligence, and surveillance spending and for its various attacks on the people’s liberties (always in the name of security, of course). Especially in Bush’s 2004 campaign for reelection, the Republicans exploited the public’s fear of terrorism relentlessly, making it the foundation of the entire reelection strategy. This strategy obviously worked.
Would you think that no matter what form of government and where, the government takes advantage of our fears?
Any government in the “normal” (involuntary) form must rely to some extent on fear, as I explained earlier. If government were provided contractually, however, if it were an arrangement binding only on individuals who had consented to its terms of governance voluntarily, explicitly, and individually, then no fear would be required, aside from the fear of exclusion from the arrangement in the event that an individual failed to keep his part of the bargain (say, by paying agreed-on dues to the government for its contracted services).
You have previously made the analogy that a government is to a citizen as a shepherd is to a sheep. You have also stated that the shepherd's (government's) responsibility is to protect its sheep (citizens), however, governments instead do whatever they need to do for their own interests, even if it is slaughtering your own people. How does this apply to suppression in Italy when Mussolini was in power and in Russia when Stalin initiated the purges all in the 20th century?
I do not say that the government’s “responsibility” is to protect the sheep, but only that, like a shepherd, it may do so in its own interest. (You can get neither meat nor wool from the sheep if they are injured, killed, or lured away.) Governments under Mussolini and Stalin had to pay attention to protecting their people. Both those governments, however, believed their rule to be under grave threat from people who sought to replace them as rulers or, at least, to subvert their authority and weaken their control over the people and their resources. Mussolini’s government was much more cunning in this management of the people than Stalin’s government. Stalin and his chief henchmen felt besieged by internal enemies at all times and therefore repeatedly chose to imprison and slaughter Russians and others by the millions. The Soviet leaders sometimes appeared to have been irrational in their ferocity, but, in view of their paranoia, their actions made sense to them, especially to Stalin himself, who famously remarked, “No man, no problem.”
