Security is a basic human need.
It is the assurance of survival, literally, but also figuratively, in the forms of financial security, emotional security, and the like. Many, perhaps most, people will give up much, including degrees of freedom, in exchange for a sense of security. After all, survival is fundamental: if one must submit in order to survive, one can still hope to achieve freedom later; but if one dies one's freedom dies too. In some domains, giving things up to gain security may well be wise, even necessary - exercising prudence and discipline in one's financial affairs, for example, reduces one's freedom of action in spending in the short term in search of substantially greater freedom of action and security in future.
When this very natural instinct to seek security is applied to making political decisions as a citizen, it can result in choices that result in the loss of both freedom and security. The danger is that people come to regard the state, or a demagogue, as the source and guarantor of their security or means of living, and therefor may be willing to trade personal freedom for whatever the state provides or the demagogue promises. Then there is no longer an effective electorate watchdog controlling the political leadership and bureaucracy that actually constitute the state. Yet the leaders and bureaucrats comprising the state, as we have seen, are all too often tempted too much by power hunger and corruption, and constantly tempted to expand the power and resources available to the state and therefor to themselves at the expense of the rest of society. The more powerful the state becomes, the more obsessively and ruthlessly those who seek power over others will strive to control it. Even the well-meaning are tempted to increase control over others' behavior and coerce desired behavior they deem, rightly or wrongly, to be necessary for the greater good. For them, the need for security can becme an extremely effective lever for gathering more power. Obviously, those in power need effective pushback and boundaries. This is a problem in a society that places a high value, or any value at all, on individual freedom.
Preserving individual freedoms is complicated by the fact that the fundamental purpose and justification for the state is security. That is what makes the state necessary, whether it is defending the society against foreign enemies; or protecting citizens against criminals; or coming to citizens' aid in the event of catastrophes either natural or manmade. Abolishing the state, or so weakening it that it cannot perform these essential functions, is obviously out of the question. There is evil in the world, and it can organize. That makes it fundamentally necessary for people to organize as needed to protect themselves. The result is, after a certain size of organization is reached, a state, as the term is being used here. Then the question arises, how do the citizens protect themselves aginst the state when it becomes coercive, oppressive, and/or corrupt?
A further complication: Government has proved to be useful for providing some services, especially those that contribute to general welfare but which the recipients cannot, or find their personal benefit so small they will not, pay the cost or otherwise marshal the resources needed to provide them. Urban mass transit and roadbuilding are familiar examples. It can be all too easy to start believing the state is entirely benign. Finally, as the state grows in power and resources, increasing numbers of people and even private institutions find their livelihoods depend, if not completely at least in great part, on the power and money of the government.
It is complicated yet further by the fact that human beings are by nature social creatures, who instinctively look to groups for help and security. For most of human existence on this earth, we lived in small groups of hunter-gatherers who depended on each other for mutual survival - men hunting game and defending the women and children in war parties of men who depended on each other un battle, women producing and mothering children and providing the social glue binding the group's families together, the elderly imparting experience and wisdom to the young, and a leader personally related to or at least familiar with the rest of the group giving needed direction. In times of trouble or crisis, it is inherent in us to look to groups we belong to or can organize for support, and natural to favor the groups that provide the strongest support. The trouble begins when a group becomes too large for those holding power at the top of its hierarchy to know or be known personally by those at its base.
If one considers decentralization of power where feasible to be a desirable goal, what is to be done about mitigating this tendency and striking a balance?
The most important thing of all is to instill in the population at large the concept that they inherently are, or ought to be, free, and that governments must serve their citizens and be limited by rule of law. The institution of freely elected representative government limited by rule of law in light of that fact was an essential contribution that needs to be nurtured and protected from assault. It is also important that people be made aware that governments are not only benign dispensers of goods and services, but also, because of their inherent coercive powers, potentially and all too often actually threats to both the freedom and the security of individual citizens such as themselves. The citizens need to be wary, and therefor they need to know that they must be wary.
One must also look for ways to add to citizens' sense of security that lie outside government and, when possible, are under the control of the individuals themselves. That lessens (though of course does not eliminate) the citizens' need for government and thus their willingness to surrender freedom to it.
The traditional mainstays of society, family, religious institutions, and the like, are obvious choices. Encouragement should also be given to voluntary groups conceived, organized and maintained by interested individuals themselves, including novel sorts of groups not previously in use or even thought of that supply members' wants or needs.
Coupled with that, making sure that individuals have capabilities and resources under their control on which they can rely is important. The rise over time of general prosperity has helped greatly in doing just that. It would be useful to create or enhance more institutions that add to or protect individuals' material means. The invention in the US of IRAs and 401(k)s, for example, was a significant contribution, giving individuals able to put money aside a vehicle designed to preserve from taxation and invest savings under the individual's control and therefor provide themselves enhanced financial security. More ideas of that sort are needed.
The more secure people feel in themselves, and the more means of security are available to them outside government, the less vulnerable they will be to political calls for lessened freedom, and the less willing to tolerate attempts at such lessening.
But most of all, the people must want to be, r remain, free.
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