Re: Bad govt represents bad people?
... the problem is more than just people in government. I was just contradicting the idea that (as Tim May says) people get the government they deserve. Certainly not all people, maybe not most "deserve" this deal.
It was once said that (and I quote -very- loosely) "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance", therefore, 'bad government' is probably not a result of some kind of evil or malicious people, but just people who do not guard their rights. Obviously, there will be people in a society who will do their best to protect their rights, but I speak of "people" as a society as a whole, and therefore, if the isolated persons who stand up for their rights are unable to make an impression on society at large, they will also be subject to this 'bad government'. Government will continually encroach upon its citizens' rights if the people do not stand up for their liberties - therefore, if the citizens do not protect their liberties, the liberties will be lost, and the people will be responsible for this loss of liberty. ---------------------------------------------- Delivered by the NLTL Internet Gateway
Rachel_P._Kovner@gorgias.ilt.columbia.edu says:
It was once said that (and I quote -very- loosely) "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance", therefore, 'bad government' is probably not a result of some kind of evil or malicious people, but just people who do not guard their rights.
Actually, as public choice economic theory has shown, bad government tends to be the inevitable result of the evolutionary pressures on government and government officials. This is not to say that some government programs are not occassionally well run or that some government officials are not legitimately "trying their best", but that the pressure on the whole system is to go towards maximum corruption, just as the evolutionary pressure on organisms is to only follow survival-prone strategies. As just one simple example, take subsidies. If you have a chance of getting a $1,000,000 subisidy for your company, you can afford, economically speaking, to spend up to $999,999 on lobbying to get it and still have a profit on your hands. If, on the other hand, you are Joe Taxpayer in a nation of 250,000,000 people, you are losing only $.004 because of the subsidy -- it is not even economically worth your while to spend a single stamp on trying to stop the subsidy. For this and a myriad of similar causes, the evolutionary pressure on governments is always towards evolution in an unsound direction. This is not because anyone involved is evil but for the same sorts of reasons that only organisms with healthy drives to reproduce are found on the planet. Perry
Much of the interesting development of these ideas was done by Mancur Olsen, in several good books, and was addressed again recently by Jonathan Rochkind entitled Demosclorosis. Both authors are worth checking out. Adam Perry wrote: | Actually, as public choice economic theory has shown, bad government | tends to be the inevitable result of the evolutionary pressures on | government and government officials. This is not to say that some | government programs are not occassionally well run or that some | government officials are not legitimately "trying their best", but | that the pressure on the whole system is to go towards maximum | corruption, just as the evolutionary pressure on organisms is to only | follow survival-prone strategies.
Not to denegrate either of those individuals, but the "original" work on public choice economics was worth a Nobel Prize some years ago to Buchannan (sp?). Its only been recently that the ideas have been popularized by others. The concepts are more or less inherent in the work of the Austrian school economists as well, so I suppose one should credit Mises, Hayek, and the rest... Perry Adam Shostack says:
Much of the interesting development of these ideas was done by Mancur Olsen, in several good books, and was addressed again recently by Jonathan Rochkind entitled Demosclorosis. Both authors are worth checking out.
Adam
Perry wrote:
| Actually, as public choice economic theory has shown, bad government | tends to be the inevitable result of the evolutionary pressures on | government and government officials. This is not to say that some | government programs are not occassionally well run or that some | government officials are not legitimately "trying their best", but | that the pressure on the whole system is to go towards maximum | corruption, just as the evolutionary pressure on organisms is to only | follow survival-prone strategies.
participants (3)
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Adam Shostack -
Perry E. Metzger -
Rachel_P._Kovner＠gorgias.ilt.columbia.edu