A perfect statement about the balance of power between government, citizens and business
Bookworm on Jan 16 2010 at 10:21 am | Filed under: Government
As I’ve mentioned before, almost without exception, my “real me” facebook friends are liberal. This is true both for the friends I trace back to my school years and for the ones who are part of my daily life today.
Occasionally, I like to tweak my facebook friends a little, not with “in your face” confrontations, but simply by dropping into my updates news squiblets they might not know living, as they do, in their hermetically-sealed New York Times/NPR/New Yorker world. Recently, I linked to a news item about Coakley’s fundraiser in D.C., which was attended by Big Pharm and Health Insurance lobbyists. I suggested, politely, that this indicated that the cat was out of the bag about who the real beneficiaries of health care reform will be.
That little post, and my one sentence, yielded very interesting information: one of my high school friends, who is now an entrepreneur, is a classic libertarian. He and another of my friends, an incredibly sweet and kind, but ultra liberal attorney, have been having an extremely intense, but still polite, back and forth about the virtues of the health care bill.
My high school friend thinks, as you and I do, that reform is necessary, but that the bill is fatally corrupt, especially to the extent it vests power in the government. My lawyer friend thinks that the bill’s flaws, which he acknowledges, are worth it so as to invest power in the government, and take it away from the evil business establishment. (Either he has lost track of the fact that, right now, the evil business establishment is rooting for the cash flow the bill sends it or he believes, probably correctly, that the government, once in the driver’s seat, will quickly invest all power in itself.) In response, my high school friend wrote the following defense of individual liberties. I only wish I could have written something half as good:
Think about what government is. It’s a giant corporation, with incredible powers… Confiscatory taxation. The power to create and enforce laws, giving it complete control over your life, liberty, and property. Military and police powers and personnel to enforce its will. The ONLY thing standing in its way in trampling every right and freedom under the boot of whatever the little kings and queens in Washington DC believe is best is our Constitution. I don’t fetishize that, but it’s a literal truth — the only thing that maintains our freedoms is the extent to which citizens take their rights seriously. It is absolutely critical to our actual personal well-being that we vigilantly limit the size and power of govt. Because it is so much more powerful and dangerous than any corporation, by 1000x.
Against that in your theory are business corporations, which have basically zero power over consumers or citizens. They can offer services and hope people buy. That’s it. The only way they have any more power than that is when they make corrupt deals with government, to put the power of government behind them. It happens all the time, and it’s bad. Both sides are at fault; they are often the same people. I happen to have some direct insight into corruption of that kind in Treasury, for example, and it’s disgusting, and incredibly expensive to all of us, enriching a few. But the problem occurs when we let government act without transparency, and take powers it does not rightfully have. The current health care bill makes that much much worse, with a horrible system imposed on businesses and individuals, preventing other better systems from evolving. It is much worse than nothing, and is unconstitutional. It would be much better to remove the existing government constraints on real and effective competition.
I will say that government does have a real role in preventing corporations from harming people by usurping common property… i.e. by polluting, or selling secretly unsafe products. So entities like the EPA, the FDIC, and the FDA make perfect sense, and there are others as well, that implement our social compact, governing our common resources while enabling the maximum possible freedom. I’m a big fan of National Parks — setting aside national treasures from the potential for harm — and similarly a fan of the national highway system and the Internet. As long as those initiatives or research efforts are approved by voters in simple proposals — we are willing to pay X as a common tax-funded program because it is a wise infrastructure investment that is better commonly owned than privately owned, and it would be hard to get private investment on that scale. But of course we properly let private alternatives evolve too — toll roads, private networks, alternate currencies, etc. — and these private innovations often work better. I believe the role of govt in all cases is to establish standards, and then let private business and individuals operate as much as possible, limiting it’s own scope, powers, and need for taxation as much as possible.
It’s nice to know that such people are out there. I liked this guy a great deal in high school — he was nice in a way that often eluded urban teenage boys — and I deeply respect him now.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
Related posts:
- Liberals laugh at business — even when they concede that it functions better than government
- Government versus private business — and the dictatorship of one
- Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely — or Wag the Dog
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14 Responses to “A perfect statement about the balance of power between government, citizens and business”
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“Progressives,” and even old-line liberals, tend to think of government as an idealized parent. They see it as something which exists outside the game, and ensures equity in the game like a perfect umpire, failing to understand that people in government are themselves economic actors, pursuing their own desires for money, status, adulation, and security. This is true of elected officials, high-level appointed officials, and low-level bureaucrats. It’s interesting to slychologize about what would make a person think this way. My slychological theory is that these people typically either (a)had unhealthily-dependent relationships with their own parents, or (b)had very distant relationships with their own parents, and are looking for a substitute. Also…Book, hope you don’t mind a little self-promotion…I recently put up a long review of what I think is a very important book: Sebastian Haffner’s memoir of growing up in Germany during the First World War up though the coming of the Nazis. I think Haffner has a lot of insight into the factors that lead to totalitarianism; he is also a very good writer. Two-part review: Part One http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/11181.html Part Two http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/11252.html
Apropos your “self-promotion,” David: I don’t mind it at all when my blog friends have something interesting that they want to share with other readers, and that’s true whether it’s their own writing or someone else’s. Indeed, I appreciate the breadth it gives my blog.
What I don’t like are trolls who plant obviously pre-rehearsed, and always lengthy, political speeches in my blog. Those posts (or, sometimes, endless series of links), constitute an attempted takeover, not a contribution. You are not a troll, so anything you want to share here is okay.
I love what your friend wrote!
Something I’ve noticed over the past year or two is that many on the left, in an attempt to defend Obama and other statists, insist that corporations and Wall Street are to blame for the financial mess in which we find ourselves. Indeed, many even come right out and say, “Capitalism is a failure.” It rattles me when I hear this because the people saying this tend to be influential to others – they can sway the opinions of others.
I always reply that, indeed, big corporations can be bad but big government is much, much worse because there is no escape from it. There is no recourse for people when government controls everything. History shows us this in a variety of countries but historical evidence holds no sway for way too many.
I wish more people understood what your friend said so well.
Deana
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I really like what your friend wrote as well, Book. Do your everyday friends view you as being politically neutral, as you listen carefully and collect information for your posts?
No, Danny, everyone in my circle assumes that everyone else is liberal. I listen carefully to people, though, and discover the little verbal tics, the signals, that indicate that they’re not on board with the liberal agenda. That’s how I discovered that some people at the school are conservatives.
<B>he was nice in a way that often eluded urban teenage boys</b>
That’s cause most teenage boys think power is about aggression and controlling people, because they are too insecure to figure out other ways of interacting.
“I listen carefully to people, though, and discover the little verbal tics, the signals, that indicate that they’re not on board with the liberal agenda”
Reminds me of something in the Sebastian Haffner book I recently reviewed. Here, the author is describing his experiences during the first year that the Nazis controlled Germany. At the times, he was working as a junior lawyer in the highest Prussian court, the Kammergericht:
You had to choose your words with care and conceal your thoughts to avoid going to the concentration camp instead of the ministry of justice…The opinions that were expressed sounded a bit like exam responses learned by rote. Quite often the speaker broke off suddenly, and looked around to see if someone had perhaps misinterpreted his words.
Pretty scary that we have now reached the point in the U.S. where in many circles people feel unable to express their true thoughts/feelings openly, and these must be derived from various nonverbal signals.
[...] Bookworm Room – A perfect statement about the balance of power between government, citizens and business [...]
This week’s Watcher’s Council submissions…
American Digest – Bring. It. On. Bookworm Room – A perfect statement about the balance of power between government, citizens and business Joshuapundit – Pat Robertson, The Devil And Me Rhymes With Right – Getting It Right On Palin The……
Submitted 01/21/10…
This week’s Watcher’s Council submissions are up. Council Submissions American Digest – Bring. It. On. Bookworm Room – A perfect statement about the balance of power between government, citizens and business Joshuapundit – Pat Robertson, The Devil An…
[...] Sixth place with 2/3 points – (T*) – Bookworm Room – A perfect statement about the balance of power between government, citizens and business [...]
Watcher’s Council Results…
It was a good week at the Watcher’s Council, with some fine entries on both sides of the competition. Here are the final results. Winning Council Submissions First place with 2 1/3 points! Joshuapundit – Pat Robertson, The Devil……