Governments are formed not to create goods and services for their citizens but to impose force on people. This truth may seem elementary, but its full implications are sufficiently subtle to have eluded the miscast debate over limited government versus orderly anarchy.

Randall G. Holcombe is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute, DeVoe Moore Professor of Economics at Florida State University, and author of the Independent book Liberty in Peril: Democracy and Power in American History.
Bureaucracy and GovernmentEconomistsEconomyFreedomGovernment and PoliticsGovernment Waste/PorkLaw and LibertyPhilosophy and ReligionPolitical TheoryPublic ChoiceSocialism, Communism, and Collectivism
Other Independent Review articles by Randall G. Holcombe
Winter 2023/24 Rethinking Economics as Social Theory
Spring 2023 Generation Gap: Why Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture
Winter 2022/23 Handbook of Alternative Theories of Political Economy
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