Big Government doesn't cause corruption -- huh?

So say Leftist apologists for statist government such as Chris Hayes. Hayes, on his MSNBC show this morning, offered northern Euorpean countries as examples. The reason this defense of Big Statist Government doesn't hold water is because it's not certain that these countries aren't experiencing more corruption than is normally assumed -- another reason is that it only makes sense that the more a government controls the economy, the more those with financial interests which are affected by regulation and government programs will attempt to influence government officials and policy -- since government officials in northern Europe are human and not saints, they are susceptible to corruption. The norms of a country also have an effect, and what one country calls corruption another might see as usual political business.

In the US, since the creation of pressure groups, the increase in lobbying has followed increases in regulations and control over the economy. US Government creates a larger and larger feeding trough and, thus, cronyism, bribery and general corruption propagate. The only way to stop this is to separate government and economy in a free market. Also, the size of the welfare state in northern Europe is not the issue -- how much a government regulates the market and intervenes in the market through monetary manipulation and such, however, is directly related to the level of corruption.

Entitlements and the Welfare State

The patheitc nature of media and the political class is reflected in the hoopla surrounding the jobs report today, as our nation faces unsustainable growth in debt due to entitlements and an ever-increasing welfare state. It's silly to make such a big deal about these ups and downs in the numbers, when our statist system is set on automatic headed toward financial collapse. Republican candidates are practically mum on entitlements, and they don't have any long range plans to tackle the problems with our welfare state. Neither Europe nor the US have any idea how much longer the modern welfare state can last. We're trained to think short-term, like this week's jobs report, but, in terms of history, 100 years is short-term, and we're beginning to experience the consequences of our welfare system, with no plans for what might happen in another 25 years or so.

Between SS, Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment benefits, which might be structural for the next decade, we're headed for castrophe. There's a good possibility that congress doesn't have the will to allow a large number of Americans to go without unemployment benefits if the unemployment is, indeed, structural. Our national debt is heading to 16 trillion, and the costs of Obamacare haven't even taken affect.

Soon, Americans will have to seriously consider private sector solutions to our safety net. Even if the economy recovers and employment rises, the unfunded liabilities will drown us in debt in a few decades. The economy will recover once we begin implementing free market principles and allow the market to move toward the most productive investments and activities and away from government-guided misdirection of capital. Even if we keep a last, last resort welfare program for the worst off in society, it's clear that the majority of Americans will have to plan for their own security and healthcare. Removing government from healthcare and insurance will open the door for innovative, comprehensive insurance policies which can replace the current welfare state for the great majority of Americans. If we can maintain the freest market possible, keeping all this money in the private sector should keep the economy healthy and Americans relatively safe from surprises and setbacks as the economy goes through transitions from time to time.

There's great potential for insurance policies which creatively address contingencies which arise during a person's life span. If it becomes accepted practice to purchase a comprehensive, flexible policy when couples have a child, and this policy follows the child into adolescence and adulthood, the welfare state will be reduced to emergency assistance, which is as it should be, if it is to be at all. Even without a welfare state, the worst off can find assistance through private efforts in a prosperous, compassionate country. Plus, the benefits from private plans wisely invested in a healthy economy will provide much greater security and freedom in retirement, allowing many people to retire earlier if they choose to do so.

I don't mean to simplify this, but a transition to the private sector is possible, and with more minds working on creative solutions, I have no doubt that solutions can be found. Innovation will ensure that personal safety nets escape the fate of government welfare efforts which erode over time from political battles, apathy and lack of flexibility and creative management. 

Libertarian ideas, media and political identity

It's good to see free-thinkers outside traditional media sources in open discussions regarding libertarianism. Traditional media sources rarely mention the word, and now that they are forced to, due to the popularity of Ron Paul and some Tea Party libertarians, they mention libertarianism only to quickly dismiss it as extreme, anti-social and unworkable.

Outside traditional media sources, across the internet, free-thinkers on both the Left and Right are struggling with libertarian ideas. Liberals are more likely to reject libertarian ideas which fall outside the realm of civil liberties, while those on the Right are morely to accept libertarian economic ideas and reject the civil liberty aspect. Both civil liberty and economic liberty are vital to libertarianism as a complete political philosophy. Individual rights pretty much cover the gambit. Free-thinkers on the Left and Right who give libertarianism serious consideration balk at the point where each think government should intervene, even when individual rights are violated.

While it's good that libertarian ideas are receiving broad public attention, it's not helpful to the libertarian cause to make it a menu. Once libertarianism is stripped of this or that aspect of the complete set of basic ideas, it's core is violated and it's no longer libertarianism. If I said I accept liberalism except for the part about a welfare state and gay rights, I wouldn't really be accepting liberalism. If I said I accept the conservative worldview except for their push for low taxes, pro-life advocacy and personal responbility, I wouldn't really be accepting conservativism. I'm not sure how anyone can be intellectually consistent by accepting only parts of an ideology. We might say that an ideology is wrong, but to put together a mongrel ideology of contrasting ideas leads to muddled thinking, inconsistency and obscurantism.

The core of libertarian ideology is freedom from interference in choices which don't violate the rights of others, yet free-thinkers on the Right and Left who balk at allowing free choice in matters where the choices don't violate the rights of others are both in violation of the core aspect of libertarianism, even as they both claim to support certain aspects of libertarianism. While it's good to discuss libertarian ideas, it's also a good thing to realize that libertarianism is more than a menu of ideas used to pick what you like and leave the rest. Decorating coercive, rights-violating, political positions with parts of libertarian ideology doesn't make the positions any less tyrannical.

Statist delusion

The frustration among statists is palpable. The deal was sealed in 2008, so, when Hope and Change unravelled, a deep urge for raw power surfaced, and now the Left and Radical Center rely on intellectual games to justify taking through coercion what they believe they rightly deserve. The Plan didn't work -- the idea of a smart, progressive and cosmopolitan president with public support was a dream come true, especially after 8 years of Bush, but the image vanished and behind it was nothing, not to mention the maddening advent of the Tea Party and the loss of independents. The possibility of statist transformation was in hand, and now it appears stalled.

National healthcare was only the beginning -- there was also the comforting realization that redistribution could strengthen an insufficient welfare state so that basic needs are finally rights. Entitlement to basic needs has become something the Left expects government to enforce, but, that dream is vanishing because of the global financial crisis. The State is about power, but neither Right nor Left idealists ever catch on. As Albert Jay Nock told us decades ago, the State is anti-social.

In Europe, now that Germany has drained all the short-term benefit possible from the EU, she faces the awful reality of statist decline, weighed down by dependents such as Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, yet, statists in America insist we follow the European lead. This dream of benevolent State control to eliminate insecurity and ensure a minumum living standard whether we work or not, and regardless of whether new wealth is created, is just that -- a dream. In reality, we have to produce to grow and prosper. But the worst aspect of the statist dream is that if it came true, it would turn into a nightmare.

As Elizabeth Warren and other Leftists play intellectual games of social justice, the underlying reality of State power eludes them. Promises of stability and security based on a powerful State which will redistribute wealth and centrally control the direction of the economy are bogus, because stability and security are illusions. There is only action and change, and we can deal with change creatively in a free market with a limited government which prevents coercion, or we can allow the State to control our lives as it intervenes blindly to deal with changes it never understands. We've reached a point in the global market where changes are rapid, requiring rapid, flexible, localized responses to global activity. As the State attempts to control the direction of the market, it's necessary for the State to implement more and more regulations to shape the desired outcomes. Then in the middle of the central planning there are political/business interests competing to gain power over the system. Only elite, connected players can win in such a system, while their interventions and crony-manipulations create uncertainty among the politically dis-connected. Solyndra becomes the model for the State-directed economy, while small and medium size businesses are burdened with paying for the Game.

Some on the Left are waking up to government/corporate enmeshment, and they recommend more free market activity, but at the same time they still insist on a strong welfare system, and this is the quandary in which we find ourselves. I predict many people will become dissatisfied with government intervention in the economy, and sticking with pure economic issues, they will demand more economic freedom -- however, as long as the American people demand a strong welfare state, loss of economic freedom will continue. Although Mises and Hayek and Friedman and other free enterprise economists stated that as long as there's a market, state welfare will not turn a country into a socialist basket case,  none of these economists really concentrated on the long-term effects of welfare states, perhaps Friedman moreso than the other two. It's been accepted by almost everyone, except a few libertarians, that State welfare is necessary in a civilized society. Despite the Left's denigration of the Right's heartless desire to end welfare, no Republican administration has ever tried to end the welfare state, and most have worked to expand the welfare state alongside Democrats.

The most Republicans will do is give speeches about making the welfare state more efficient. The welfare state is popular with most Americans, because the ability to imagine a private alternative is practically absent. The welfare state relieves people of having to consider issues of poverty and the plight of the truly needy, the unfortunate who got a bad break in life. As long as there's a welfare state, whenever the ugliness of society's most unfortunate makes its way into the public's consciousness, the reality of the situation is pushed aside with the knowledge that some government social worker is handling the case.

There's no natural duty for anyone to care for the needy, but most people are touched when they see someone suffering -- it's a part of being human, and anyone who's indifferent to suffering is not fully human. As long as Americans maintain the idea that suffering and need are dealt with by government programs, we'll use this to justify a strong welfare state, and this is how the State fights off all threats to limit government power. Every time there's a movement to limit government, the first response from the political class is to warn the public that Medicare, SS, unemployment, school lunches, healthcare for the poor, veteran benfits, foodstamps, etc, will be eliminated. When this hyperbolic reaction to limits on government power scares enough people or makes them feel guilty, the State is once again safe from those who wish to limit its power. The Security Game is played over and over as the State expands control.

Until the puiblic realizes that the private sector can deal with problems associated with poverty and misfortune, we'll remain tied to State power, and our interventionist government which makes State power possible will find reasons to intervene economically in the name of the safety net, social justice, environmental concerns, terrorist threats, and so on. The belief that a nation can maintain a powerful welfare state and a free market economy has more to do with faith and wishful thinking than with political and economic reality.

A crazy, political world

Technological progress and social innovations like Facebook and Twitter are connecting more and more Americans who are having conversations beyond the control of those in authority. This is not good for a government which desires to engineer the social realm. Much has been written about the nanny-State, and whether you consider some of it hyperbole or not no one can honestly deny that government is intervening more and more in the economy and in our private lives.

On one level there's a division between those who want a powerful, interventionist government and those who want a more limited government, even if "limits" are defined differently from one person to another. The idea of limitation means that, for the most part, we don't trust government which has no practical limits. There are real limits on government which aren't even in writing, because government fears public unrest, but government has assumed powers which weren't intended in the beginning, and it appears government seeks to intervene to the extent they can get by with it.

Slowly drifting toward true democracy, we're in danger of tyranny of the majority, especially if enough groups create a big enough alliance to use government as a coercive entity to transfer wealth from the private sector to a majority party delighted to redistribute it in return for support and votes. This is not a call to end all assistance to those in need, but rather a call to end statism, limit government and allow the private realm to deal with problems of need. The State can't be trusted with the responsibilities we've turned over to it or it has seized on its own. The political nature of an interventionist government creates a situation where capital is perpetually misdirected according to the power of pressure groups, lobbyists for businesses seeking competitive advantage and cronies -- this is economic suicide, and ultimately it's harmful to the middle class and poor. The connected rich will manage to get by.

A free market economy addresses supply and demand in ways government can't possibly comprehend, and, even in the sphere of assistance, where there's a need, there will be a response, unless you believe that America's a nation of monsters or apathetic, non-caring self-seekers. The myriad interactions in a nation as a large as America can't possibly be managed by a group of political elites from a central location such as Washington Dc, insulated in a strange world of spin, outright lies and illusions.

The American people, through the information bonanza on the internet, are realizing how perverted our system has become, and because things happen quickly now, it won't be long before the results of the public awakening shake the foundation of government. It will be a peaceful revolution but a revolution nonetheless as citizens become politically active and head toward the voting booth. Politics might still seem like the real world to pundits, partisans and politicians, but, to the American people, the political realm is a make-believe world we can no longer afford. Obama apologists will call it racism and claim that whites are out to destroy the first black President, but black support for Obama has dropped significantly, so it's equal opportunity dissatisfaction -- however, it's not Obama, it's the system which has been getting more dysfunctional over time. Obama's main fault has been not attacking the system, but, instead, attacking the private sector and making the system worse.