“I heartily accept the motto,—‘That government is best which governs least;’ and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe—‘That government is best which governs not at all;’ and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.”
In 1846, the American writer Henry David Thoreau refused to pay a tax to support his country’s then-ongoing war with Mexico. He believed that the war was not only unjust in and of itself, but that it would even create new territory into which slavery could expand (a real danger at that time). His fears were not unfounded, and had some sympathetic aspects to them. But they prompted him to write one of the most influential attacks on government ever printed. He lived in an era when government in the United States was already quite small – far smaller than it is today. But Thoreau was suspicious of the idea of having any government at all, and said so in “On Civil Disobedience” (as quoted above).
Henry David Thoreau
This audiobook gives a brief biography of Thoreau – mentioning his love of nature, and his friendship with fellow writer Ralph Waldo Emerson. But they also discuss the events that led up to the writing of “On Civil Disobedience.” Specifically, Thoreau spent a night in jail for refusing to pay this tax. He was treated quite well while he was there, and he was soon released when his friends paid the tax for him. His friends’ payment of the tax angered Thoreau, since he (again) considered the tax to be immoral. He would rather have stayed in jail, as a protest against the war. He even went so far as to attack these friends in his work “On Civil Disobedience.” He wanted to make a statement about slavery and imperialism, and he believed that his friends had “deprived” him of his best opportunity to do so. Thoreau believed that if a law was unjust, one had the right and the “duty” to disobey it. He sympathized with people who followed unjust laws anyway out of fear, but he had no sympathy for those who did so out of genuine respect for law.
Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau had a positive influence upon some twentieth-century political figures, including Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Like Socrates before him, he believed that one should sometimes break laws, but that one should then submit to the consequences of breaking them. This influenced the sit-ins of Martin Luther King, and the hunger strikes of Mahatma Gandhi. But Thoreau went farther than either of these famous disciples, since he called for eventually having a total abolition of government. He even made the statement: “That government is best which governs not at all,” although he later added that “But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government.” Nonetheless, his long-term goal still seems to have been total abolition of government – a classic anarchist idea that is hard to swallow.
Henry David Thoreau
Even with these qualifications, I find anarchist ideas – even distant long-term ones – to be rather silly. I believe in government (albeit small government) and the rule of law. In fairness to Thoreau, I acknowledge that our government has become larger than it should be. Government may have been too small in Thoreau’s own nineteenth century, but it has grown rather large since then. Nonetheless, I remain skeptical of any form of anarchism, and find much of Thoreau’s philosophy to be rather silly as a result. But I’m still glad that I listened to it in this audiobook, and agree with the audiobook’s take on these ideas – since, like me, they are rather critical of anarchist ideas, and any attempts to “justify” them with sweeping anti-government arguments.
Incidentally, this short presentation is coupled with a similarly short program about William Lloyd Garrison’s “The Liberator.” Since both Thoreau and Garrison were Americans campaigning against slavery, there is reason to couple them together here as they do. The latter audiobook is also quite small, and I review it here, for anyone who is interested.
If you liked this post, you might also like:
Part of the audiobook series
The Giants of Political Thought
Henry David Thoreau’s On Civil Disobedience
Others to be covered later
See also the audiobook series
The United States Constitution
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