The Grand Illusion
The simple answer is: Because too many people are greedy, careless, self-centered, and stupid.
Virtually every government function is there to protect people from themselves, because while James Madison said, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” men and women are far from being angels.
We have a large bureaucracy devoted to regulating and policing the food industry because too many food producers were producing contaminated, spoiled or tainted food, or food with unhealthy or poisonous additives, or using preservatives that essentially poisoned consumers, largely because it was cheaper, and that increased their profits.
We have safety standards for vehicles for similar reasons. We have air pollution regulations because industrial fumes and exhaust once made the air so toxic it killed people, and water pollution regulations because rivers were once sewers that could also catch fire. We have drug regulations so that pharmacists don’t poison people. We have building standards and inspectors so that houses and buildings don’t collapse, as thousands of structures did in Turkey in the recent earthquake, apparently partly because corrupt inspectors were bought off to allow buildings to be constructed that didn’t meet the building standards.
The list of regulatory agencies seems endless, but that’s because every advance in technology also advances the possibilities for the greedy and the unscrupulous to prey on those without the knowledge or means to protect themselves. And because there are so many unprincipled individuals, those regulatory agencies also have to devote resources to assure that they’re not being corrupted as well.
Extensive government isn’t as necessary in lower-tech, low population density societies, where a failure of a building or a bridge harms only a few people. But in our society today, failure of a single bridge can kill hundreds, and damage an entire region economically.
Another reason for regulation is to make sure that cost-cutting doesn’t jeopardize safety.
An aircraft design with flaws, such as the 737-Max, can kill hundreds. Boeing presented the 737-Max to the FAA as a slightly updated version of the 737, rather than one with considerable modifications, in order to reduce the regulatory costs and possible delays.
A design flaw in a mass-produced automobile, such as Ford Pinto, which led to hundreds of deaths, could have been minimized or eliminated by the installation of a plastic buffer pad that cost all of one dollar. The buffer, which Ford tested, was rejected for cost reasons, saving Ford about $4 million over the production years before the gas tank problem was fixed.
So… if you want smaller government, you have two options – accept a far more risky and likely shorter life or find a way to make your fellow humans more responsible and less greedy, careless, and self-centered.
Personally, I’m not fond of the first option, and I find the second a practical impossibility, which leaves me with reluctant acceptance of large government.
LEM,
I agree with all that you’ve pointed out. I might also add that the government also does things that improves our lives in addition to making things safe. An obvious example is the parks system.
Often missed by many who want smaller government is the fact that the government is a VERY large industry in itself and that provides countless jobs and opportunities for other industries to thrive (and spur startups as well).
Government employees, after all, are citizens too.
“… find a way to make your fellow humans more responsible and less greedy, careless, and self-centered. …” brought to my mind the recent decision by SCOTUS regarding ‘The Supreme Court just shot down the use of race-based admissions in a move that will force many colleges (schools) to change the standards by which they admit students.’ That decision will make no difference to the quality of the education system’s product – the citizen.
We have discussed teacher, student, and school, quality at various times; mostly concluding that quality of schooling varies depending on type of school, cost of teaching, and demands from administration.
Private schooling is more expensive, available only to those with the financial means and frequently limited in subject options. But private schooling is frequently sought for children because the government is neither interested nor willing to produce educated citizens through quality public schooling. This is so despite the fact that the economy depends exactly on such citizens. The government avoids this responsibility to the extent that schooling quality is left as a responsibility of the citizens themselves: who are …” greedy, careless, self-centered, and stupid.”
As with government size, so with private schooling, all nations should seek quality. A national government has the responsibility to improve the circumstance where by the citizens can continuously improve the quality of their lives. By improving the quality of the “average” citizen through education one should be able to decrease the number of “… people (who) are greedy, careless, self-centered, and stupid. …”
The other reason of course is that due to the States you have a thick layer of middle management in your government system, where many areas of expertise at a federal level are replicated at a state, county and municipal level, and can go all the way down to street level with HMOs.
Obviously, that’s less efficient.
And as usual many people who want smaller government are usually pretty vague about the specifics of which governing entities they want gone and how. Often their views tend to boil down to “I want to do what I like and to hell with anyone else” which is where the “I got mine” parties come in.
Neither endlessly increasing regulation and government power, nor compelling people to be maximally virtuous, is acceptable.
Find another answer, one that doesn’t treat liberty as the first thing to be sacrificed, but rather the one thing to be _least_ sacrificed, save in voluntary service.
There’s at an absolute minimum a lot of room to rationalize and simplify the law without preventing any dastardly deed from being forbidden (not that forbidding it actually prevents it…).
Cars and airplanes are both heavily regulated, and were even in the days of the Pinto. It still took a body count to get problems fixed. Regulation provides an illusion of safety, but it’s chasing behind the problem and cannot catch up. Try radical transparency (with extreme penalties holding executives and investors to account) instead of constantly fighting the last war with new regulations. But everybody needs to look out for themselves, “buyer beware” and all that. Transparency would at least enable that, and weed out those who don’t for free. Outcomes are everyone’s responsibility, not just governments and businesses, but regular folks who are just employees or independent contractors or consumers. Even kids (that are likely to survive, assuming their parents care) are taught to look both ways before crossing the street.
High body counts are going to happen regardless of regulation, unless we’re all good little drones, tightly constrained to only do what’s safe for us and everyone else.
A long life of safety and no needs for all is not possible. There aren’t enough resources, or enough competent let alone incorruptible supervisors to run everything and everyone that well. And if someone could be an effective neighborhood safety and needs supervisor, why should they bother? They could just sit back and collect subsistence and let someone else (who?) do it.
Preventing difficulties and guaranteeing basic needs does _not_ promote virtuous (golden rule, if you wish) conduct. It almost certainly undermines it, if anything. A disaster say 20x as bad as COVID just might teach enough of the survivors manners.
High body counts are going to happen regardless of regulation, unless we’re all good little drones, tightly constrained to only do what’s safe for us and everyone else.
So that is your description of every other country in the world. Wow.
It sure must be nice to have the secret for promoting virtuous conduct and manners. I have to say that you’ve kept the secret well. I’ve read many of your rants, and manners are absent from pretty much all of them.
And don’t forget the DoD, one of the biggest behemoths in the government.
I appreciate the noble sentiment that we shouldn’t have nuclear weapons, the army, all those ships, etc., and “can’t we all just get along?”
But if you go with practically no military, you get the War of 1812. A poorly funded military in an isolationist era, Pearl Harbor. A military focused on the Soviet Union, Vietnam; a military focused on counterterrorism and counter-insurgency, something like Ukraine.
The rest of the world is as prone to being unscrupulous as any American. If you don’t want things like 9/11, and of course no one does, it’s going to cost.
I would submit that because we had the US Military we recently averted another civil war. This may yet happen and it would be fought for the same reason as the last one: confederation versus federation.
All to no purpose as our problems today are not isolated but are world-wide. Yet we continue our sovereign pas seul oblivious to other people around like the crowd in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. We had our chance at the time of 9/11; we shall see if China or India will do any better.
From https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-america-broke-its-war-machine
‘… Shortages in production, inadequate labor pools, and interruptions in supply chains have hamstrung the United States’ ability to deliver weapons to Ukraine and enhance the country’s defense capabilities more broadly. These problems have much to do with the history of the U.S. defense industry since World War II. Creeping privatization during the Cold War, along with diminished federal investment and oversight of defense contracting since the 1960s, helped bring about the inefficiency, waste, and lack of prioritization that are complicating U.S. assistance to Ukraine today…. Although reforms are possible, there are no quick fixes to these self-inflicted injuries….’
While not applicable to all the reasons for our “Big” Government the article from Phillips P. O’Brien professor at Yale seems to present a cluster of reasons for why and where the US is today.
Okay, I guess it’s useful to dig a little. Apparently our US federal government size was capped officially around 2 million in the 1950s. Although that cap was repealed a couple times in the 60s, most administrations and congress have stayed close to that number. However, that cap does not count contract work and grants. According to Brookings Institute work, that’s where the reeal size of goverment has increased. Please read this short summary here.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-true-size-of-government-is-nearing-a-record-high/
So? The US population in 1950 was 158MM. It’s more than double that now at 330MM. There’s no getting around the fact that the presence of a whole lotta people makes ordered life a bit complicated. 🙂
Interesting.
“… Congress and presidents can no longer be sure that the right employees from the right sectors are in the right jobs at the right time at the right price and with the right skills. … Presidents and Congresses were more than willing to take a stand against big government through dozens of caps, ceilings, and freezes, including Trump’s recording-breaking 2017 budget freeze, but they could not find a way to count the contract and grant workforce. … The estimates of growth come from federal government inventories of contract and grant spending. Each purchase carries a Northern American Industrial Classification (NAICS) code that provides detailed information on what was purchased and in what amount. This data is then analyzed using the U.S. Bureau of Economic Affairs RIMS III input/output model of the U.S. economy to determine the number of direct (prime), indirect (sub), and employment created the spending associated with each contract or grant.”
The Big Government referred to is related to size of the financial expenses of government hence the solutions are caps, ceilings, and freezes. Northern American Industrial Classification just identifies the work the Contract or Grant is to complete.
If I employ a plumber or electrician to do work in my home they do not suddenly become a part of the family. If my child does the local paper delivery he does not suddenly become a contractor or even employee because I pay the publisher for the paper which includes the delivery. So why on earth does the government consider contractors and grantees Federal Employees? They are government expenses, just like the electricity or paper which the government uses to a varying need.
The contractors and grantees may take up space but are not enlarging the government just as the air conditioning mechanic is not enlarging my family. The arguments about contractors and employees are used by businesses to, once again, avoid additional taxes this should not apply to the government itself.
So, to me the article confirms the stable size of the US government and does not solve the problem of efficiency or quality of government which should be one factor determining size of government.
The article does support the notion that some or even much of the work that is foisted on The Government may be dumped on the industries with quality control being the main function of the government agencies. That is what led to the 2 million employee Federal work force which Whitten’s 1950 employment cap envisioned (the number varying as the type of economy changes over time).
I really like how you phrased this. I’m personally at a kind of crossroads between regulation and freedom. As a small farmer, I see how good regulations become a genuine barrier to small farms, self employment, food security, and ecologically sound practices. As a Marxist-adjacent type with a keen interest in history and politics, I am all too aware of the need for some form of regulation. The good news is, progress is being made in many areas on developing regulations that take into account scale and the benefits of small farms while still requiring standards to be met. For example, the State of Maine has a comprehensive small dairy licensing process. They have licensing for raw milk, heat treated milk (which is what the layperson would call pastuerized but the equipment was not certified pasteurization equipment), and pastuerized milk. They also have a state meat inspection program which allows for in-state retail sale of meat from facilities which do not have USDA inspectors on site but instead hire state inspectors for the day. This removes a lot of the waste involved in USDA inspection (stuff like a plant must have separate bathroom for the inspector’s use, even if it’s a one person operation and a single restroom could easily serve the inspector as well). Some government regulations are just stupid- such as requiring licensed milk processing plants to have a shower on site that is not the farmer’s home shower even if the farmer is milking two goats and making half a pound of cheese per day. Maine is, as far as I know, the most advanced state in taking the regulations while maintaining high standards, but other states are beginning to make exceptions for small farms in the areas of meat, produce, and dairy. In many states you may sell the milk from a single cow or less than ten goats without being a licensed dairy. Which makes sense- food regulations were never intended to stop my from giving my neighbor a stick of butter from my cow because he ran short. Making that sort of common sense thing into a crime is just dumb.
Then we get to liability. The threat of a lawsuit has become a severe check on many unobjectionable practices. My state technically allows raw milk herdshares, but should someone become ill, there is no protection from liability- even signed waivers often do not hold up in court. I think liability could be a reasonable and useful check on doing dangerous things that hurt people, but I think there has to be a balance between protecting the consumer and protecting the industry. Some industries have a natural risk. For example, equestrian sports. A wonderful and experienced horse person teaching a lesson on a calm and well trained horse can still have a student die from the inherent risks of sitting on or being around a thousand pound prey animal that natural selection has made to run first and think later. Many states have enacted equine liability laws that allow injured equestrians to sue for negligence or recklessness but protect horse professionals from being held liable for risks that are simply unavoidable. I hope we see something of the sort in the local food movement- a limitation on liability that accepts a reasonable level of risk in consuming raw milk, or home pastuerized milk, or home butchered meat, while still allowing injured customers to sue in cases of negligence. Obviously, no matter how small scale the operation, a dairy which is milking animals with TB or not chilling milk within a safe timeframe should be liable for damages. But they should not be liable because someone bought raw milk, left it in their truck overnight and then got sick from drinking it in the morning. But, as usual, only the extremist get a voice. It’s either “get the government out of regulating mah freedoms” or “you can’t have a dairy without a paved road for the tanker truck even if you process the milk on site and no tanker trucks ever come to your farm and this is the best idea ever because Uncle Sam said so.”