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As long as politicians think it necessary (beneficially or not) to meddle in the economy, those affected by that meddling will attempt to get the inside track. Market competition is hard work, political coercion is much easier. As long as the politicians are selling, there will be buyers. Only when the economy is separated from the state (like religion and for essentially the same resasons) will the need for lobbying go away and cease to be a problem.
When politicians deliberately violate the rights of some to benefit others, they are corrupt and no amount of window dressing will paper over it. Their intentions are in such matters irrelevant and overridden by the actuality of their deeds. There is no such thing as "the public interest" only the individual interests of each of us.
I forgot who said it, but:
"You'll never get the money out of politics until you politics out of money."
If we limited government to securing our rights, would anyone need or want campaign finance laws?
No, Jimmo. So the question is how do we truly shrink the size of government? Privatising social security (and its more financially disasterous sister, Medicare/Medicaid) would remove huge amounts of money from government. At the same time a very large section of the population would no longer be dependent wards of the state.
I don't know how to achieve that, however, without getting a substantial majority of people in favor of the idea in a vocal way. To interrupt the current momentum and substantially redirect public opinion is very difficult. Unfortunately, our individual rights were not properly protected by Congress or the Supreme Court and now we are faced with overcoming those errors.
Let's accept as given that reducing the size of governemnt is good. Further let's accept as given that the sortof of radical privitazation that libertarians suggest has no chance of actually being enacted within our lifetimes (as evidenced by the trivial percentages received by libertarian candidates.) Thereforee, the questions I have for the group are
(1) What reforms should be proposed that have a decent chance of seucring a majority (of voters) and defned why your proposal has a reasonable chance of securing a majority.
2) Alternatively are we better off with no reform so that people will become so disenchanted with government that they will accept radical reform. If provide reasons to support the belief that this will occur (bonus points for anyone who can identify the major thinker associated with this type of belief).
3) Are we better off ranting about changes that have no chance of securing a majority but allow us to remain ideologically pure. If so defend why this is better than realistic change.
(1) For example, how long will it be before Social Security implodes?
(2) Democracy is not "majority rules". Democracy is in fact "minority rules".
Read Charlotte Twight's "Dependent On D. C." if you haven't already.
jimmo: In resposne to (1) the answer is it depends on the assumptions you use to project future growth. If you use conservative assumptions which SSA is required to by statute you get bad things in about 2040. Less conservative projections (e.g. similar to the last 40 years) implosion never happens. Depends how much "faith" you put in future gorwth of a capitalist economy.
Have not read twights book. Why is democracy a "minority rules" situation. Is it the standard public choice interest group story or is it something beyond this?
Bingo!
But read Twight's book anyway. You'll be glad you did!
mwebb,
A review of Twight's book is at http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0308c.asp. The article also includes a review of Robert Higgs' "Crisis And Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government".
I don't get your "bingo comment"
"Bingo" = "yes", democracy is "minority rules" largely for the reasons provided by public choice.
MWebb:
(1) The reforms to propose are those that will reduce the size (or scope) of government. Those proposals should be made often. Actual reform efforts should be focused on just a very few things at any one time. There is a need to build a snowball and get it rolling. Each reform needs an articulate champion--something Bush (or anyone else) failed to become with the issue of social security.
2) No reforms could very well lead us to the French example or worse. If things get really bad, the likelihood is that some totalitarian might be put into place to "fix" it. However, a public perception that a situation is no longer tolerable, does open the door to consideration of alternatives.
3) If we must work for small steps, we do not have to give up the larger goal, nor do we necessarily have to be quiet about it. In a free society our only method of gaining acceptance or support of ideas is persuasion. If that means is blocked, then the game is over.
I see a few major issues in which reform could reinforce further reforms:
1) Private ownership of retirement and medical funds (or at least reduction of government involvement to means-tested recipients) to wean a huge segment of the population off the "comfortable" government teat.
2) Parental choice in education to bring market competition to a moribund industry (and in the process improve the general level of education which hopefully might lead to better politics, a better understanding of fundamental issues).
3) Removal of restrictions on speech (including campaign reforms and other paternalistic sleight of hand).
4) Term limits to abolish the notion of political careers so that our politics is done by people who are citizens first.
5) Always push for free trade and removal of subsidies and tariffs, even unilaterally.
I could probably make this list longer, but these are very important long-term issues.
Al (3) and (4) conflict. How do you resolve this tension?
MWebb: Interesting question and an interesting problem. Freedom of speech, however, is not equivalent to the number of congressional terms. We have limited the presidential terms [Amendment 22 was ratified in 1951] and could do the same for congressional representatives and senators. Avoiding the establishment of political careers would be a moot point if we ever separated economy and state (an unlikely event anytime soon) or re-established the primacy of individual rights.
Another reason democracy amounts to "minority rules" is that the majority is not paying attention to what its government is doing.
See Jim Bovard's "Attention Deficit Democracy", reviewed by Anthony Gregory at http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/
gregory114.html.
Jimmo: Apathy is a problem. People do not take positions on issues unless they see that issue as pertaining to them. Also, in some cases, there may be a feeling of "you can't fight city hall." So, absent direct issues, there is most likely a sense that the circus is inside the beltway and as long as the clowns stay there and don't do anything too awful we'll muddle through.
Al,
Only problem is that the clowns inside the beltway do awful things like imposing sanctions on Iraq during the 90s, which led to the deaths of perhaps as many as 500,000 Iraqis (many/most of them children), which led in turn and in part to 9/11. (NOTE: I am NOT condoning the 9/11 attacks. To explain is not to excuse. And there is no excuse for what the 9/11 attackers did.)
Rational ignorance makes sense until it kills, then it is no longer rational. And rational ignorance may become irrational far short of the point at which innocent lives are snuffed out.
If we limited government to just securing our rights, there would be relatively little for government to do and there would be very little about which to be rationally ignorant. It would be a minor problem for citizens to pay attention to what their government was doing because their government would not be doing very much!
Jimmo, I don't think we disagree about the proper role of government. But, we are not going to have some major widespread epiphany that government should shrink to about one third and extricate itself overnight from regulation of the economy. The goal of smaller government, if it ever is achieved over the long term, will be a slow incremental process with occasional misteps in the other direction. Instant repair will not happen; indeed, we probably don't want the dislocations and chaos required to fill such a huge vaccuum in converting to a more desirable civil society.
That's not to say we should not always keep our eyes on the prize and explain the goals and the possible means to achieve them.
Al,
You could be right! And if we do move toward liberty in teeny, tiny steps I agree with you further that we should keep our eyes on the prize.
Jimmo, yes indeed. The important issue is to move in the direction of liberty since we are not likely to suddenly wake up someday automagically in such a state.
I don't care if politicos think it necessary to meddle in the economy, my work shall be done when the believe and understand that they will not, must not, and cannot.
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Hi,
From my opinion, politician should be honest and transparent in whatever they do in order to ensure that don't do the wrong thing. I dont care whether by lobbying or by whatever way they use they must do it for the benefit of their country and their peoples not for themselves.
Cheers,
Pet Treadmills
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