Nothing Outside the State: Part II

In a recent post, I sketched the vast expanse of economic and social life that state functionaries (at all levels and in all departments and agencies of government) reach by their direct participation, regulation, surveillance, or manipulation by means of taxes and subsidies. No such sketch, however, can convey the actual mass of the government’s engagement in areas and aspects of life where private individuals and institutions once had decision-making discretion.

Because the full substance of the government’s actions is much too vast for any single person to grasp, I have sometimes found it helpful simply to list government agencies, laws, or regulations that contribute to the enormous aggregate that composes the state (see, for example, the appendices of my book Crisis and Leviathan). This tactic recommended itself to me recently as I was tracking down a statute in the U.S. Code, the official compilation of all federal laws currently in force.

The U.S. Code consists of 50 “titles.” It is published every six years, and in the interim between editions an annual cumulative collection of supplements is published to keep it up to date. Here is the present makeup:

Read the rest here.