{"id":3,"date":"2009-08-22T20:32:30","date_gmt":"2009-08-23T00:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/?page_id=3"},"modified":"2010-07-15T16:14:42","modified_gmt":"2010-07-15T21:14:42","slug":"on-civil-society","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/on-civil-society\/","title":{"rendered":"On Civil Society"},"content":{"rendered":"

What happens to civil society when we create a government that seeks to \u201cdo something\u201d about so many aspects of our lives?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Many people believe that to better society, we need to elect \u201csmart people\u201d, who will put \u201csmart policies\u201d into place.\u00a0\u00a0 It certainly sounds compelling.\u00a0\u00a0 But examine the chain of events that is now set into motion\u2026<\/p>\n

As the role of government expands, the incentives for people to petition the government for their particular issue or value expands as well.\u00a0\u00a0 Under a politicized decision making process, there is by necessity a public debate over the allocation of resources and ultimately, the underlying value systems themselves.\u00a0 We set ourselves up for a \u201ctyranny of the majority\u201d situation.\u00a0\u00a0 Why has government lobbying expanded so dramatically over the years?\u00a0\u00a0 Because it works.<\/p>\n

The resulting government, ever increasing in scope, also by necessity becomes ever increasing in cost.\u00a0\u00a0 It can use any combination of three mechanisms to cover these costs.\u00a0\u00a0 It can raise the money via taxes.\u00a0\u00a0 It can borrow the money.\u00a0 Or it can simply print it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Taxation raises the issue of who should be taxed, and by how much.\u00a0 From there it\u2019s often a short trip to class warfare.\u00a0\u00a0 Borrowing the money might make sense, if the rate of return on the resulting expenditure exceeds the cost of the borrowing.\u00a0 But ultimately borrowed money must be repaid, so it also represents a form of deferred taxation, and\/or a deferred reduction in consumption.\u00a0\u00a0 Lastly, printing the money simply reduces the value of all of the existing money \u2013 it is the most insidious funding mechanism of them all.<\/p>\n

So we now have incentives in place to argue with each other over how a large amount of public money will be spent, and how we will raise the money to do so.\u00a0\u00a0 Society splinters into a myriad of groups that share various characteristics and causes, each attempting to assemble the necessary forces and armaments to defeat their ideological adversaries.<\/p>\n

But perhaps worst of all, for all of the best intentions, none of the above can actually succeed.<\/p>\n

Do the \u201csmart people\u201d who are orchestrating all of the above really possess more knowledge and brainpower than the collective decision making power of the entire society? The \u201cwisdom of crowds\u201d would say they cannot.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No collection of government officials and bureaucrats elected or otherwise, could possibly know the intricacies of why people seek to interact with each other in all the ways that they do.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s what Hayek called \u201cThe Fatal Conceit\u201d<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 And if along the way they decide that their decision-making might be improved with \u201cbetter information\u201d, serious issues of privacy begin to be raised.<\/p>\n

In practice, there is little incentive for government to succeed as well.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In many cases, \u201cthe customer\u201d is a captive audience with no alternatives, by design.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cSuccess\u201c in a program might mean that a problem has been solved, and that a group of government employees are no longer necessary and should therefore, lose their jobs. \u00a0\u00a0\u201cFailure\u201d might easily be blamed on a lack of funding or resources, which exerts more pressure to grow the government. \u00a0\u00a0Who decides<\/em> what success or failure is in the first place?\u00a0\u00a0 We are back to a contentious debate.<\/p>\n

There is a clear answer to all of the above:\u00a0 Freedom and limited government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe free market\u201d is a much-maligned term these days.\u00a0\u00a0 What many people derisively refer to as \u201cthe free market\u201d is often instead a highly regulated situation where success is overseen by politics and failures are rewarded with subsidies.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 By contrast, it is critical to understand that when two parties are considering a transaction in a truly \u201cfree market\u201d, they will only do so if they make each other better off, according to their own respective value systems.<\/em> The implications of that simple fact are enormous.\u00a0\u00a0 Each party is incentivized to understand the needs of their counterparty.\u00a0\u00a0 Two or more sellers might compete to better understand the needs of a buyer, with the buyer deciding which seller best meets their needs, according to their own definition<\/em> of what those needs are.\u00a0\u00a0 Other buyers with other needs will attract different sellers.<\/p>\n

As long as in the course of their transactions, these buyers and sellers do not infringe on the property rights of others, the entire system is self-reinforcing, self-regulating, and best of all, provides an ever-increasing standard of living to all parties. \u201cSuccess\u201d in a truly free market is demonstrated by the existence of happy buyers and sellers.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cFailure\u201d is likewise clearly shown to be the opposite, and exists in the open for all parties to learn from and to improve upon.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Also keep in mind that throughout history, the people who have typically amassed the most material wealth are the ones who have made the most people better off.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Lastly, note that there is great incentive for peace \u2013 you don\u2019t go to war with your trading partners.<\/p>\n

So when people call for \u201cchange\u201d in government and its policies, the correct response is: \u201cChange to what?\u201d<\/em> Change to a system that challenges our collective civility, is ever increasing in cost, and has been proven to not work?\u00a0 Or do we change to a system that acknowledges that people, when left to their own devices, under the rule of law, have every incentive to improve the lives of their neighbors?<\/p>\n

To the original issue of asking our government to \u201cdo something\u201d about everything, we must be smart enough to understand that we will never be smart enough.\u00a0 That role is reserved for God.<\/p>\n

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What happens to civil society when we create a government that seeks to \u201cdo something\u201d about so many aspects of our lives?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Many people believe that to better society, we need to elect \u201csmart people\u201d, who will put \u201csmart policies\u201d into place.\u00a0\u00a0 It certainly sounds compelling.\u00a0\u00a0 But examine the chain of events that is now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16,"href":"http:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3\/revisions\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}