Economics Volume II: Modern Economic ProblemsFetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
General
Economics Volume II: Modern Economic Problems
Fetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
Economics
§ 2. #The police function.# The police function is that of public
defense and the maintenance of domestic order. In family or
patriarchal communities all share a common income and combine in the
common defense, but self-preservation often has compelled such small
communities to form a larger, stronger state for the common defense.
Public defense requires sacrifice of some independence on the part of
the family and of the individual. Personal service in the field gives
place later in some measure to the payment of taxes, so that a regular
income may permit the government to attain a more regular, continuing,
and perfect organization of military forces.
As political unity and power grow, the citizens need less often
protection against foreign foes, and they need more often, relatively,
defense against the aggressions of some of their own countrymen. The
preservation of domestic order requires police, courts of justice, and
other agencies. The ideal of the anarchist to do without government
is nowhere realized. Everywhere there must be government to preserve
peace and to protect property. Unfortunately, this need grows with the
growing density of population. Crime increases when men swarm in
great cities. The courts which settle disputes between men, and which
interpret their contracts, are agencies of peace, displacing physical
contests. To maintain and operate the various parts of the social
machinery requires ever increasing governmental revenues. From many
causes government has, in modern times, grown increasingly costly.
§ 3. #Social and industrial functions.# The social and industrial
functions of government seem naturally to grow out of the primary
ones just mentioned. In a democratic society, popular education is
a necessity, as it appears that domestic order is not possible in a
democratic state without intelligent citizens. The system of public
education has, in many states, expanded to include a publicly
supported university as the dominant educational and scientific organ
of the community. Some industrial functions are performed by the
government in connection with the primary needs. Lighthouses are
necessary to guide the navy, but they also serve to guide the merchant
marine and to aid industry. The post was established as an agent
of political and military government to connect the ruler with the
outposts (a fact the name post indicates), but the postal service has
grown in every country to be a great industrial and social agency.
The consular service, originating in the political need of keeping
official representatives in foreign lands, has become a valuable
economic agency; consuls are commercial agents, advancing the business
interests of their countries in all quarters of the globe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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