"consent of the governed"

I was musing over this phrase, "a government rules by consent of the
governed" which popped up in an earlier essay on digital cash (microcurrency)
I wrote here and deserves further elaboration. 
it seems like a basic and obvious truth on some levels, a concept 
held sacred by our founding fathers, but on the other hand its exact 
meaning has escaped precise analysis for many centuries, and in various
sense our government seems to have strayed far from this promise. 
what does it mean?

does it mean, "majority of the governed?" how exactly is consent 
expressed?

Barlow brings up this topic in his recent "cyberspace declaration of
independence" (which can clearly be criticized as out of touch with 
physical reality but is nevertheless compelling). the essay comes 
close to the major point I want to make:

I believe that the phrase "a government rules with the consent of the
governed" is one of those magic statements that is going to become
increasingly defined by new technology. 

often, the clear intent of
a law is not obvious until new technology is introduced that tests
its meaning. for example,
the "right to bear arms"-- does that mean submachinegun, handguns?
what about armor-piercing bullets? new technology is always constantly
forcing a new interpretation of laws.

or how about "the right to free speech" -- is cyberspace a place for
"speech", or is it something where things are published? which laws
apply? does it mean I am free to encrypt anything I want in any way
I choose?

interestingly, does the "freedom from illegal search and seizure" apply
to cryptographic encoding? in other words, is there such a thing
as search and seizure of bits (plaintext) in encoded messages?

these are all questions that have various answers (and I'm not really
too interested in debating them), but which in one
sense anything besides what a court decides is not relevant. and most
of these above questions could take decades to sort out in courts, if
ever.

===

anyway, my main point here: I believe that "a government rules with
the consent of the governed" is a phrase that is going to be tested
in the next few years, and more closely defined, because the emergence
of new cyberspatial technology. it seems to me
that libertarians would tend to say, "oh yeah, wouldn't it be great
if that were true. no one ever asked ME if I wanted to be in this
system". well, what if there was an actual overt choice of government
that when on with the citizen? what if we really could choose our
government? would be tend to believe that all governments are corrupt
inherently, or could new systems based on voluntary cooperation from
the start work?

in a sense, any government that uses force on its populace is violating
a charter rule, (if it was one), that a government rules by the consent
of the governed. if some segment of the populace is resisting this 
government, then obviously there is no consent among that sliver.

all this raises the question of how much a government can be split up
over a population. what is the "granularity" of government? to date,
governments are based on geographic region. they are often circumscribed
by various geographic features such as oceans or continents. but
would it be possible to construct a governing system in which 
geographic location is irrelevant? such that anyone, anywhere, can
pick whatever government they want? surely if such a thing is possible,
cyberspace comes the closest to facilitating it. but it would not
really be a government in the current sense of the word.

===

in my digital cash essay, I introduced a radical new interpretation
of the phrase "consent of the governed" that went largely unnoticed but
deserves further thought. in it, I proposed that "consent of the 
governed" is measured by whether people pay their taxes to a government.
in other words, not paying taxes is a basic test of whether an individual
does not subscribe to a particular government system.  there are other
obvious tests such as civil disobedience, but I believe this one is
going to serve as the basic operative test of the future.

this is radical for the following reason: today supposedly a government
has the authority to coerce "inhabitants" to pay their taxes and punish
them if they don't. interestingly, our whole country was started as
a sort of tax revolt, and yet today our taxes are arguably just as 
onerous and oppressive as any other country's. it is a heresy within
government circles to propose that citizens should have a choice in
paying taxes. "we could never permit it. it would never work". "nobody
would pay them". but is that to say, admittedly, "we do not have the 
consent of the governed"?

I believe that digital cash will give rise to the ability to have
completely "black" economic systems on scales far larger than ever
before practical. what this means is that anyone who wants to can
simply "opt out" of being seen by the existing government in their
economic transactions. I think this may actually lead to "underground
governments" in which people voluntarily subscribe to certain 
communities and their "laws" while at the same time opting out of
participation in the "overt" system they are geographically constrained 
to.

hence "we could never permit it" said by bureacrats may be true, but
not relevant-- their permission has nothing to do with what technology
permits. "it would never work" may actually be tested outright by
new technology and systems of mass cooperation (in a sense, the basic
point of government) developed in cyberspace.

in any case, I do believe Barlow has some very important points and
that we are on the verge of new forms of government that remove many
of the nagging difficulties of earlier human models. much of this
innovation will center around new definitions/explorations of the 
basic concept that "a government rules by the consent of the governed",
and the approach to collection of dues, or taxes, and the way that they
are allocated based on group decision processes, will be a chief area of 
experimentation and new approaches.

You're taking this phrase out of context. What the Declaration said was:

1. There are certain universal human rights, like life, liberty, and 
   property^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H the pursuit of happiness.
2. To protect these rights, people form governments. Only the baddest kid 
   on the block can protect her own rights, and only if she never sleeps. 
   The rest of us need the police.
3. Ergo, government derives its just powers from the consent of the 
   governed. I read this more as a conclusion than as a premise.

This is all that Hobbes, Locke, and Montequieu said. Rousseau was 
different, but he was a kook.

This is quite different from saying, "The government has the right to do
what the majority says it can do." Government doesn't have any rights,
only delegated powers.

A utilitarian like Mill or a positivist like Comte or a trader like Smith,
or I, would say that government power shouldn't be restricted to the
protection of basic rights. Public goods should also be pooled to do
things that people can't or won't do by themselves -- garbage collection,
health and disability insurance, protecting "the commons" with
environmental regulations, etc. But these utilitarian-type interests 
don't really fall into the power/rights game.

-rich

Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu>

>You're taking this phrase out of context. What the Declaration said was:

true, I didn't put in the associated reasoning.

>1. There are certain universal human rights, like life, liberty, and 
>   property^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H the pursuit of happiness.
>2. To protect these rights, people form governments. Only the baddest kid 
>   on the block can protect her own rights, and only if she never sleeps. 
>   The rest of us need the police.

I tend to define government more liberally in that it does not
merely exist to protect rights-- the 20th century saw a rise in
government that tried to be a social force. this may have failed, 
but it does point out that people want a government to do more
than merely protect their rights.  in other words, the 1776 definition
of government is reasonably slightly modified. government in its
essence is a form of organized human collaboration/cooperation imho.
it is a nervous system for a society.

>3. Ergo, government derives its just powers from the consent of the 
>   governed. I read this more as a conclusion than as a premise.

I think it is both. it is a conclusion of the reasoning and the 
premise for government. if the government does not have the
consent of the governed, it is not a legitimate government-- that
is the basic implication.

>This is all that Hobbes, Locke, and Montequieu said. Rousseau was 
>different, but he was a kook.

ah, but all great visionaries are usually first considered kooks.
the whole idea that government exists by consent of the governed
was a quite radical idea challenging the existing dogma of divine
right of kings.

>This is quite different from saying, "The government has the right to do
>what the majority says it can do." Government doesn't have any rights,
>only delegated powers.

that's what I tried to point out. it all hinges on the phrase, "the
government exists by the consent of the governed".

I don't really see how any of your points are contrary to anything
I wrote in the essay, despite your seeming to present them as if they
are.