Why is limited government a floating abstraction?
Why is a limited government a floating abstraction? Because it must either initiate force or stop being a government. Let me present a brief proof of this. Although I do not agree with your definition of government and think that it is epistemologically mistaken (i.e., you are not identifying its fundamental, and hence essential, characteristics), I shall accept it for the purpose of this critique. One of the major characteristics of your conception of government is that it holds a monopoly on the use of retaliatory force in a given geographical area. Now, there are only two possible kinds of monopolies: a coercive monopoly, which initiates force to keep its monopoly, or a non-coercive monopoly, which is always open to competition. In an Objectivist society, the government is not open to competition, and hence is a coercive monopoly. The quickest way of showing why it must either initiate force or cease being a government is the following: Suppose that I were distraught with the servic
