Government invariably causes problems and does harm to some at the expense of others, no matter where it treads, because it is an evil mix of power and politics. The only solution -- as every libertarian knows -- is to severely limit the power and scope of the state.
Reagan naturally understood that. So did the great classical-liberal political theorist Herbert Spencer. He tried to warn about the "proper sphere of government" way back in the 1840s.
Government, Spencer wisely wrote, should not be used to do such impossibly complex things as regulate commerce, educate the people, provide charity or even make roads and railways.
It should be used "simply to defend the natural rights of man -- to protect person and property -- to prevent the aggressions of the powerful upon the weak -- in a word, to administer justice. This is the natural, the original, office of a government. It was not intended to do less: it ought not to be allowed to do more."
Too bad nobody listened to old Herb. It would have saved us a lot of problems.
Bill Steigerwald
Bill Steigerwald, born and raised in Pittsburgh, is a former L.A. Times copy editor and free-lancer who also worked as a docudrama researcher for CBS-TV in Hollywood before becoming a reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and a columnist Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Bill Steigerwald recently retired from daily newspaper journalism..
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