How Government, Society, and Freedom Relate
The opposite of freedom is oppression. Man is born into a state of freedom. Through a man’s interactions with the world, he finds himself oppressed or restricted in ways that limit this natural freedom.
Man ought to introduce government in accordance with the principle that a society is only as good as the most oppressed man within the society. Participation in a governed society can be incentivized by the prospect of safety from oppression.
It is possible for a governmental structure to create a surplus of freedom such that all governed constituents are more free than if they were to remain in their base state of anarchistic freedom. That is, it is possible for the least free governed man to be more free than the most free ungoverned man.
A society improves on some other society if the least free man in this society is freer than the least free man in the other society. Corollarily, the most oppressed man is less oppressed than the most oppressed man of the other society.
No single society holds precedence over any other single society. This is because the minimal society is the individual. If this were not so, we might be incentivized to subject less populous societies to oppression to serve the needs of a more populous society. This would be a disimprovement on the less populous society as well as the society containing the union of both societies.
A government is an organizational structure that acts on a society. From the perspective of some government, it is permissible to force a man into its constituency if the society including this man is an improvement upon the society that does excluding this man. A man may participate in multiple governmental structures. A man necessarily participates in all possible societies that include him. All men are participants in a universal society.
A government is only interested in improving the set of societies which are entirely made up of its constituents.
A man is beholden to all governments and societies of which he is a member.
The universe is the society containing all other societies. The universe regards societies as societies regard men. The universe is improved by a Pareto improvement across its constituent societies.