ABSTRACT
Governments face different incentives from those faced by private individuals. Under a government, the people who make the decision to go to war are not the same people as those who bear the greatest burden of the costs of the war; and so governments are much more likely than private individuals to engage in aggression. Government is a monopoly: it prohibits competition and obtains its revenues by force. Centralized government poses yet another threat to a nation's liberty. Political authors from Livy to Machiavelli have warned against the use of foreign mercenaries rather than citizen soldiers, because it is easier for a government to turn foreign mercenaries against its own citizens. The citizens of a free nation would presumably be armed; and the freedom of any people against an encroaching government rests, in the final analysis, on their possession of arms and their willingness to use them.
