I think it is a mistake to assume that the motivations of all people in government, or most of the people who vote for governments, is knowingly malevolent. Most people want to believe the policies they support are ‘helping people’ because voting or passing a law makes them feel good about themselves as they are ‘doing something’. Consequently such people really dislike having it pointed out that their ‘something’ actually makes things worse more often than not, regardless of what their motives are.
That said, I think there are indeed quite a few people who understand full well the real harmful consequences of what they do, and they do it anyway because all they care about is maintaining the political apparatus from which they benefit at the expense of others. Those people will also react angrily to this being pointed out, because what they do requires their motives to be thought of as benevolent by the wider public whereas in reality it is just a force backed appropriation that benefits a favoured constituency at the expense of those less favoured.
My view is that ‘doing something’ via the state is sometimes the correct thing in an emergency (most obviously during a war, plague or natural disaster). Alas people often then apply the same logic to normal civil society outside the context of the emergency, acting as if the social logic of the lifeboat and normal civil society were one and the same (libertarians of some ilk often make the same mistake but from the opposite direction). A leitmotif of the post war British election in 1945 was “Look what we achieved together in wartime, think what we can do in peacetime!”… as if life in a total war and life in the social context of peacetime were much the same thing. The same logic used when being threatened by a totalitarian state is then applied to the ebb and flow of normal social life generally with monstrous results.
But cynical politicians who know full well the real consequences of their actions have powerful reasons to misrepresent the truth bacause all they care about is maintaining their personal power and influence and they do this by playing to people’s need to feel good by ‘doing something’… and they are the people who will do it. For this reason I think it is very important to keep pointing out the true effects of actions that governments take, and the consequences of participating in a process designed to lead to those sorts of interventions in civil society. Sometimes it is important to make people feel bad about themselves for ‘doing something’.
The people — who I believe are very few in number — who truly seek to be “public servants,” rather than to seek power for power’s sake, are suffering from very severe hubris, too severe to actually allow them power in the first place.
Hubris is a character flaw, indeed a psychological defect, that is arguably as pathological as power lust.
Stated differently, the “benevolent” half of “benevolent dictator” is no less dysfunctional than the “dictator” half.
Wasn’t the key to what happened in war time that the people of Britain voluntarily put aside their differences and pulled together ?
No; the key difference in war time was the press was firmly censored so crime, strikes, malnutrition and dissent didn’t officially happen.
B’s freak and guy herbert,
Both your statements are true.
I think the vast majority of people, both in the electorate and those actually working in the government, are trying to do the right thing as they see it. The problem is that none of us know what the right thing to do is in every particular instance. In many cases, nobody, anywhere knows the right answer to a particular problem.
The pattern one finds in people’s support for government is that (1) they are quite convinced that the government is totally incompetent or actively dangerous when it comes to regulating whatever it is they do for living but (2) the government is quite capable of regulating whatever it is that others do for a living.
So, Artist think that government can regulate business but that government regulation of the Arts would be a disaster. Business people think that government regulation of business is a disaster but that it should take at look at some of that Art.
We end up with a sort of Peter principle of government action wherein the government is given the most responsibility for those areas of life which the general electorate (or anybody) understands the least.
A good example is the economy. Nobody, anywhere understands how the real-world economy works to the point that they actually make concrete predictions about it. For example, nobody anywhere can predict a recession a year in advance. Yet everybody clamors for the government to “do something” about the economy. The fads in economic theory have changed radically over the last two hundred years yet every generation acts like it knows what’s going one.
It takes more than a sincere wish to the right thing. Most people have that. It is much, much harder to know exactly what the “right” thing is.
That is exactly right, Shannon, and why it is so important to have the role of the state narrowly defined so that no one gets to ‘do something’ about a whole raft of thing that are currently on the political menu.
A lot of people who are quite socialist that I know are decent people who believe that their beliefs are not only right, but in the interest of the population. They are sincere decent people that I can enjoy a drink with. They care about others in the same way that I do.
Socialism is quite emotionally persuasive. Helping “the poor” to live well is an honourable thing, having centralised planning will reduce waste, right?
In many ways, quite strong moral socialists and libertarians care about the same thing. They just see a different path.
The problem is that I think it often takes experience of many organisational cultures to realise that centralised planning doesn’t work, that small is mostly beautiful, and that often the best way to find good answers is by trying hundreds of things. The “try a hundred things” is the market way, unlike government that tries to “try it one way” meaning that nothing is ever learnt.
The other thing is that we have to underline the message of helping others improve their lives, not by fat government jobs or handouts, but by themselves. That this leads that person to a better life.
Not all socialists are like this, but these are the ones that may be able to be turned.
The right thing to do is to violate no one’s rights.
Authoritarians of both camps routinely do so; the fact that one encounters a hissy fit when pointing this out betrays a guilty conscience. Usually, the vanity attendant upon using government force to promote social reform overcomes the salutary sense of wrong-doing, and few change their minds.
Deep down, authoritarians despise the people and do not recognize their rights at all.
I am really not singling out the left… remember it was the ghastly Ted Heath’s ‘Conservative’ government who were even happy to appropriate Thomas Cooks the travel agency by nationalising it! Simply imposing your views on civil society is a disease of politicians generally, not just the socialists.
The entirely understandable human desire to “do something” when a problem confronts the community is as ancient and noble an impulse as there is in the primordial psyche. When the clan, or village, was under attack, or threatened with some natural calamity, a natural response was the “militia” model, in which the leader(s) gave direction and focus, and each member of the group had their tasks to perform.
This was the human condition for untold millenia, and these same imperatives were translated into several variations of authoritarian social order down through the ages. Everyone had a place in the social order, and everyone knew who was in charge, especially when the fecal matter hit the fan.
The concept of an individual who could decide for himself what his place was, and how he would react to a problem, and then undertake solutions without permission, was radical and threatening to a great many people precisely because it so thoroughly disrupted the social model that had been in place since prehistory.
The response of the traditionalists, amusingly calling themselves the “progressive” and “revolutionary” forces, was to generate a new set of theories to justify the militia order, and re-establish the position of the leader to deal with social problems.
Thus, the constant stream of “crises” with which collectivists have justified every increase in state power; the incessant warfare, either literal or figurative; the obsessive demand that needs and weakness and vulnerability trump all individual rights; the elevation of compassion, especially when expressed in collective action, as the primary emotional springboard for all that is good and holy.
When those of us who believe individuals are ends in and of themselves, and their rights are sacred beyond the demands of others needs’ or wants, present this viewpoint to our fellow citizens, we are swimming against a current that has flowed strong and fast for all but the last few moments of human history. It is imperative that we understand the depths of resistance we face, and that we appreciate the truly radical nature of what we are asking others to understand and accept.
When nature, or human evil, casts us into a lifeboat, then, yes, we will subordinate our personal desires and pitch in to save the social order that allows us to live as human beings in a world of vassels, and worse.
But, and this is the demurer that the collectivists simply refuse to hear, all life is not lived in a lifeboat, and we do not concede our individuality indefinetly, nor for every trumped up social crisis that some pressure group tries to manufacture.
What we must do is show the ordinary person who knows no other model that they can also feel good as an independent actor, and, indeed, much better than as merely a cog in another’s wheel. And that is a task that will demand all the very best that each can give, in word and in deed.
Comment deleted by Admin. How many times do you have to be told you have worn out your welcome Dr. Vic/MT Wilkins/John Thomas/Venusian Quark/etc… ? You keep posting comments agreeing with eachother regardless of being told to stop, so now your remarks, under any name, are just deleted on sight regardless. We cast you out, Gadarene swine.
I think that socialism is getting too easy a ride on this thread. OK, I’ll agree that touchy feely equality and solving poverty for all time are attractive to a younger, inexperienced generation, but there is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for older and wiser people to not learn from the world around them, from history, and from experience of human nature.
I respect the exuberance and optimism of youth, but those who live through two generations without learning anything are contemptible.
I am willing to allow children to believe they are being helpful even when they aren’t. In general, they aren’t yet capable of understanding the wider range of factors that render their attempts to help less productive than doing a task myself. More importantly, I am investing in training them in the skills that will make them helpful and productive later.
I do not make that allowance for adults. I won’t praise anyone as good, helpful or benevolent who isn’t. Furthermore, if your motives are laudible, but the results of your actions aren’t and you refuse to change your actions, then your true motives are not your stated ones. Perhaps the old cliche should be reworded: “I’m from the government. I’m here to take credit for helping you.”
veryretired,
A splendid analysis. I can’t disagree with any of that (or Perry’s basic premise), which is mighty frustrating for an old contrarian like me…;-)