Apolitical Staples

“(Occams Carbuncle must be so proud of me).”

Deeply

“Alas they have a minority government. Is it possible for a non-statist political party to win a majority?”

Not any time soon. It is however, possible for a winning political party to become incrementally less statist over decades. Weaning is a difficult sell to an infant, though.

Simpson is, of course, an ass. And he does equate moderation with statism. Unfortunately, so do the majority of Canadians.

The answer is yes, Canadians can elect a non-statist gov’t.

Recall that the Libs pretended not to be statist with the “fiscally responsible” Martin running finance.

Next time (now that Harper’s proven he doesn’t really have a penchant for babies’ brains) they’ll vote for the real thing.

As for the divided left, the reality is the Libs don’t have a choice but to tack left.

Moving right will probably do no good as now the CPC is the real deal for those who lean right. They’ll therefore lose more on the left than they’ll gain on the right.

So for them, it means staying left till the CPC screws up royally and arn’t seen as a viable choice.

The problem with this analysis is that one person’s statism is another person’s normal. We on the left hardly perceive the Liberals as “statist.” And at the same time, the right in the U.S. would undoubtedly perceive today’s Canadian Conservatives as statist. Is “statism” really an either-or proposition, where you are or you ain’t, or is it just a matter of degree? Even the U.S. Republicans don’t want to dismantle government altogether—they just want to use it to pay for different things than other groups want to use it for.

I know I’ve been plugging this book relentlessly lately, but one of the best things about Joseph Heath’s The Efficient Society is that he lays out a case for when it’s more efficient for a government to run things and when it’s more efficient to leave matters to a free market. The book is surprisingly free of ideology, too—at least free of any ideology but efficiency. You might want to give it a try.

Has Heath ever worked in government?

Has Heath ever worked in government?

If he has, he would know that the words “government” and “efficient” don’t go together.

Chester,

How ‘bout you read the book before dissing it? After that, I’d love to hear what you think.

I.P.,

Easy there big fella,

I wasn’t dissing the book, I was making a statement that governments are innefficient.

I’ve worked in government, and I’ve worked with a fortune 500 and it isn’t even close:

Goverments work by budget, not by incentive. Not to many managers in efficient companies tell their employees to spend money at the end of the year for fear of not getting the buget allocation for the next. One would get rewarede, the other fired.

Governments have to deal with political implications over the bottom line.

In government “the best” isn’t necessarily promoted, but rather the “right” person is.

Government’s aren’t nimble, but rather massive buracracies with wide ranging special interest tenticles that have precious little to do with efficiencies.

I’m not sure how reading a book can change the years of concrete experience that formed the basis of the above opinion.

Thus my initial question:

has he worked in government, because if he hadn’t, his position wouldn’t surprise me, as it would be based on academic theory rather than concrete experience.

If he has, I’d like to know which department, and on what planet.

Chester, IP is a woman so I doubt she would like being called fella.

Thanks Greg.

I.P. re “big fellah”, I apologize, you’re neither a “fellah” nor do I have any evidence of your relative size.

A few points:

• Heath draws his conclusions from practical example upon practical example, all of which have occurred in the real world. You’ve drawn yours based on anecdotal personal experience. Who’s to say that one is better than the other?

• I’m not saying this is the case with Heath (he’s a philosopher, which essentially means he’s doing the same kind of theorizing you’re doing, only with a Ph.D.), but social scientists actually draw their conclusions not based on “academic theory,” but based on thorough and carefully designed studies. You’re making all sorts of assumptions about academics that just aren’t demonstrably true.

• You don’t know what his “position” is yet, so how can you say that it doesn’t surprise you? He doesn’t argue from a particular ideological standpoint, and he eviscerates us lefties as much as he does you guys. Give it a try—seriously. If nothing else, I’d love to read the post where you tear it down. :-)

Couldn’t you just nutshell the book for us? It sounds absolutely excruciating. Reading it might make me want to suck out my own eyeballs with a turkey baster. Alas, my limited attention span - I blame television.

Or if that’s asking too much, maybe a synopsis of Heath’s definition of “efficiency”.

OC,

I’d rather not, in part because I entirely suck at summarizing, and in part because I suspect if you’re not interested enough to read it, you probably shouldn’t bother at all. But there’s a little more information over at amazon.ca, anyway.

“I suspect if you’re not interested enough to read it, you probably shouldn’t bother at all.”

Perhaps you misunderstood me. It’s not that I’m not interested. It’s that I fear reading such a tome might cause me to want to do myself serious physical harm. It’s a matter of self-preservation, you see. I’ll take a look at Amazon, in lieu of sucking out my eyeballs.

I’m sorry. Based on my extensive review of Amazon’s sumary of the Heath book, it sounds ridiculous. Canada is as close to Utopia as it gets? The relentless pursuit of liberty in the U.S. and their unwillingness to pay taxes is what makes their cities squalid? The benefits of gun control come from knowing nobody has one? Yikes. The credit he receives for the “non-ideological” nature of his work seems to spring from the fact that he doesn’t exclusively criticize proponents of individual liberty. But if his basic premise is that Canada is as ideal a society as can be conceived and practically maintained, he is coming down very firmly on the side of statism and is therefore decidedly ideological. Because, as you may have noticed, Canada is a highly regulated and collectivist society. Or not, I suppose. I guess it all depends on where you set the bar and what “freedom” means to you. It’s all so hopelessly subjective, and, I begin to fear, perhaps based to a large extent in genetic makeup. Someone should start looking for the liberty gene. Think of the selective abortion options it would open up for collectivists.

Heath is a “philosopher”.

Nuff said.

IP, you pretty much nailed what it means to be statist when you wrote “one of the best things about Joseph Heath’s The Efficient Society is that he lays out a case for when it’s more efficient for a government to run things and when it’s more efficient to leave matters to a free market.”

The arguments he crafts to support his conclusions may be structurally perfect, but absent the truth of his premises the book just becomes an intellectually interesting paperweight. From where would one derive the premise that it is the purpose of a person to make efficient contributions to everyone else? Efficiency of government is an irrelevant decision factor unless you grant the inherent power of some people to dictate how others should live, work, and pay tribute. Yes, that’s ideological, but freedom of the person is ideological to the core.

IP, you pretty much nailed what it means to be statist when you wrote “one of the best things about Joseph Heath’s The Efficient Society is that he lays out a case for when it’s more efficient for a government to run things and when it’s more efficient to leave matters to a free market.”

The arguments he crafts to support his conclusions may be structurally perfect, but absent the truth of his premises the book just becomes an intellectually interesting paperweight. From where would one derive the premise that it is the purpose of a person to make efficient contributions to everyone else? Efficiency of government is an irrelevant decision factor unless you grant the inherent power of some people to dictate how others should live, work, and pay tribute. Yes, that’s ideological, but freedom of the person is ideological to the core.

If his point is that the benefits of gun control come from knowing nobody has one and therefore accrue entirely to criminals, he must be quite a perceptive dude.

Taking this symbolic franchise vote one step further, is conservatives the party you vote for if you dislike statism? Since well, they aren’t getting ready of the state either.

Last time I checked, each major party was still committed to capitalism and democracy. All the parties actually really occupy the middle of the political spectrum. There are just wedge issues mostly that seperate us.

Getting back my orginal thoughts, I’d say “Vote Harper for Sanity.”

He could be in for a long, long time.

“Efficient government” is a conundrum. Government rewards its own inefficiency by taking more and more power and money to itself, to solve the problems which it caused (but which it blames on outside influences).

The entire New Orleans fiasco shows how government “efficiently” built levees all around the delta, which “efficiently” caused the delta to sink, and is now “efficiently” moving as many people as possible back into the stinking deathtrap.

That’s a spectacular but an entirely typical example of how governments destroy people’s lives when they pretend to be acting in the name of “collective well-being” (a quote from the amazon.ca book description).

An even more illustrative example is the Great Depression. All of the methods which governments use to destroy humanity are present in the sordid episode from 1919 to 1945 - debasing of the currency by government central banks, leading to a fake boom based on credit, leading to a financial crash, leading to a trade war, leading to the rise of socialist welfare states and fascism, leading to a world war, leading to famine and genocide. And guess what: every one of the fascist, communist, warmongering, genocidal governments of this time claimed that they were usurping freedom, stealing money from their citizens and bombing their neighbors because they were creating - “An Efficient Society”.

One more thing - is Joseph Heath a professor at a Canadian liberal arts college? I’m just asking, because to someone with a large, inflation-protected and taxpayer-funded salary and pension, generous benefits, a light workload, no great intellectual challenges, and every prospect of running out the clock in absolute comfort and security, it’s quite true - Canada IS as close to Utopia as it gets.

OC,

“But if his basic premise is that Canada is as ideal a society as can be conceived and practically maintained, he is coming down very firmly on the side of statism and is therefore decidedly ideological. Because, as you may have noticed, Canada is a highly regulated and collectivist society. Or not, I suppose.”

Well, I actually think both of those things are correct—that it is a highly regulated and collectivist society, and that it isn’t. It all depends on which aspect of society we’re talking about. Compared with most countries of the world, it’s inaccurate to describe Canada as unusually collectivist and statist. If we compare Canada not only with the U.S., but look a bit more broadly, that becomes clear.

Which countries would you describe as “closer to utopia” than Canada, according to your own perceptions of efficiency?

Also, one question for everyone in this discussion who is claiming that individual liberty is the domain of the right: Do you really believe that only governments “dictate how others should live, work, and pay tribute”? Do corporations never achieve what amount to the same results?

Do you really believe that only governments “dictate how others should live, work, and pay tribute”? Do corporations never achieve what amount to the same results?

I guess it’s been a long time since a corporation on what is Canadian soil imprisoned anyone for failing to comply with the corporation’s dictates, or even had the power to do so. Normally the greatest sanction is termination of employment.

“Compared with most countries of the world, it’s inaccurate to describe Canada as unusually collectivist and statist. If we compare Canada not only with the U.S., but look a bit more broadly, that becomes clear.”

You are correct. Canada is actually one of the least collectivist countries in the world, which is a good thing. But Canadians are greatly harmed by the collectivism that does exist, and whenever I hear the hymns of praise being sung for Canada’s collectivist follies, I begin to be afraid that things will deteriorate. The current crop of Liberal leadership candidates, for example, sound like the biggest bunch of communist ninnies since Pierre Trudeau. A “national food strategy”? Yikes.

“Which countries would you describe as “closer to utopia” than Canada, according to your own perceptions of efficiency?”

It should be obviously that the USA has for a long time been the land of freedom and happiness, compared to practically any other country on earth. The extent to which you can find intractable unhappiness in the USA is the extent to which socialism has intruded upon Americans’ lives. The notorious ghettoes for example, are the creation of government welfare policy and a whole raft of government interventions into labor markets which create chronic unemployment and underemployment. The much-criticized skyrocketing cost of health insurance in the USA is a result of heavy government interference in the health industry. Unfortunately however the USA is on a steep, downward slope of socialism. The exploding welfare spending AND military spending are sure signs of a loss of freedom.

“Do you really believe that only governments “dictate how others should live, work, and pay tribute”? Do corporations never achieve what amount to the same results?”

I think that wherever you find examples in which private corporations have succeeded in dictating to people how to live their lives and exacting tribute (i.e. when they are in a position of monopoly or oligopoly), you’ll inevitably find the hand of government interfering in the market. This is always allegedly done “for the collective good”, but when you look behind the curtain it is clear that a select group of individuals are using government to abuse the rights of the majority. Time and time again you will find flimsy excuses like “it’s a natural monopoly” (e.g. the phone company, cable TV), or, “the public must be protected by strict regulations” (banks, auto insurance, …) which are used to justify uncompetitive and predatory corporate activity. In relatively unregulated areas (retail stores, the auto industry, internet services, …) you will find tremendous innovation and competition, all of it focused on serving the public and not picking their pockets.

P.S. Idealist, you’re probably ready for a little Bastiat. Or, as I will call him from now own, the Anti-Heath:

Which countries contain the most peaceful, the most moral, and the happiest people? Those people are found in the countries where the law least interferes with private affairs; where government is least felt; where the individual has the greatest scope, and free opinion the greatest influence; where administrative powers are fewest and simplest; where taxes are lightest and most nearly equal, and popular discontent the least excited and the least justifiable; where individuals and groups most actively assume their responsibilities, and, consequently, where the morals of admittedly imperfect human beings are constantly improving; where trade, assemblies, and associations are the least restricted; where labor, capital, and populations suffer the fewest forced displacements; where mankind most nearly follows its own natural inclinations; where the inventions of men are most nearly in harmony with the laws of God; in short, the happiest, most moral, and most peaceful people are those who most nearly follow this principle: Although mankind is not perfect, still, all hope rests upon the free and voluntary actions of persons within the limits of right; law or force is to be used for nothing except the administration of universal justice. Link

It should be obviously that the USA has for a long time been the land of freedom and happiness, compared to practically any other country on earth.

Try walking through the impoverished streets of Detroit, Chicago or Kansas City. That will change your perspective. The absolute arguments are simply wrong. There are still cases where corporations exert too much influence and have sanctioned individuals with far more than simple termination. There is a place for government regulation, so long as its goal is to protect the individual as much as possible. It is possible to have too much government, but fanatical belief in the free market causes its own problems. It’s all about balance and moderation.

And, no, I don’t think we’ve found that balance, yet. The search may never end because the right balance for a given moment may be different for a different moment.

“Try walking through the impoverished streets of Detroit, Chicago or Kansas City. That will change your perspective.”

I know the ghettoes you mean. The people in them have free government housing, free government welfare cheques, free government food stamps, free government schools and free government medicare. Ghettoes like that never existed before welfare existed. Poor people in the USA were always working their way up and moving out of crowded tenements. The (private) tenements were handed down from generation to generation of immigrants - until blacks immigrated into those cities from the rural south, just in time for the creation of the welfare state. Tough luck for them. Now they’ve been stuck there getting handouts for three generations, whereas all of the previous immigrants to those cities - who received virtually no federal or state welfare - got educated, got good jobs and moved to the suburbs in barely a generation.

I also see in Detroit and Chicago industries which have been devastated by government-backed and government-protected unions, and by government interference in labor markets which have driven most of the lower-paid jobs out of existence (they’re doing a good job of eliminating the better-paid jobs too).

I see the government’s hands all over those ghettoes. Why would walking through the streets of those ghettoes change my opinion that government programs are bad, and that freedom is better? I never said that America is perfect, I said that overall, on average, the people there are more rich, more free, and more happy than pretty much any country on earth. It is the overall lower level of patronizing, misguided and infantilizing government “help” which makes it so.

“There are still cases where corporations exert too much influence and have sanctioned individuals with far more than simple termination.”

Are you trying to say that corporations can do worse things to people than fire them? I have no doubt that this happens. If you have some examples, let’s hear them, and we’ll try to see if (1) the citizens who are harmed by these corporations have the ability to seek redress; and if they don’t then it’s a matter of (2) finding out how government has found a way to protect these corporations from accountability. In a free market, corporations can be held accountable by their customers, by their employees and by their neighbors. In a socialist state the politicians, bureaucrats and their corporate friends do nothing but design government programs which feather their own nests and which disguise the robbery they perpetrate on ordinary people.

“I don’t think we’ve found that balance, yet. The search may never end because the right balance for a given moment may be different for a different moment.”

Clearly we haven’t found the balance yet, because I can’t think of a single socialist state on earth whose government has a balanced budget, except for Alberta, Norway, and probably one or two small oil emirates. So I’ll tell you what - start eliminating welfare programs, start cutting taxes, stop inflating the currency to buy elections, and stop treating people like retarded children. Repeat, until governments can balance their budgets and you can walk down any street without worrying about getting your throat cut or stepping on a used hypodermic needle.

Anon,

The welfare state didn’t exist until the middle of the 20th century. The migration of african americans into large cities was more of a development that occured in the 19th century after the conclusion of the Civil War and the enactment of the Jim Crow laws.

There are a lot of other holes in your arguments. The one that caught my fancy the most being your false impression of socialist gov’ts not balancing budgets. It is in fact a trademark of some socialist or social democratic governments.

One in particular being the Saskatchewan NDP lead governments. In fact, when Tommy Douglas was Premier they balanced budgets consistently between 1944-1961 and reduced an enormous debt load.

Yeah, it’s true: when corporations get really out of control, they often buy out the support of frail governments in order to do their dirty work for them. Where else do you think we get the name “banana republic” from? But the strange thing is, in places where multi-national corporations have that much influence over governments, one would think that a free market is in operation, here. Certainly there is no regulatory agency holding these corporations back.

There are plenty of other examples, though, of the free market failing to protect consumers from corporate excesses. The tendency of corporations to try and externalize costs has hurt a lot of people; just ask the former residents of Love Canal.

Your statement about balanced budgets is particularly odd, since that Saskatchewan followed Alberta as the second province to balance its books after the 1973 crash. Indeed, if you actually looked around, you’ll notice that Canada has been running surpluses since 1997, and every province in this country, with the exception of PEI, is also in surplus now. A far cry from the fiscal basket case that is the United States, unfortunately.

But I doubt that this argument will appease you. You’ve already made your conclusions, clearly.

“The migration of african americans into large cities was more of a development that occured in the 19th century after the conclusion of the Civil War and the enactment of the Jim Crow laws.”

“The Great Migration was the movement of millions of African Americans out of the rural Southern United States from 1914 to 1950.” Wikipedia.

“One in particular being the Saskatchewan NDP lead governments. In fact, when Tommy Douglas was Premier they balanced budgets consistently between 1944-1961 and reduced an enormous debt load.”

I’m not an expert on Sask. of this time, but I’ll bet that (a) their socialist spending programs were very modest compared to now; (b) bureaucratic and political salaries were much more modest and in line with the real world; (c) there was an enormous postwar boom in the prices of the commodities produced in Saskatchewan; and (d) there was a great outflow of bodies out of the province during and after the war.

The issue with socialist governments, debt and sustainability is whether - in the long term - it is possible for a large proportion of your citizens to be f—-ing the dog at more or less useless, wasteful, subsidized and unprofitable activities, while the rest of the citizens (in theory) happily continue to beaver away at their useful, profitable jobs, and continue to save and invest money, even when half of their money is being stolen in order to sustain the lifestyles for the earn-nots.

“every province in this country, with the exception of PEI, is also in surplus now.”

“Sorbara said … Ontario has not yet eliminated its “structural deficit” and cited spending and external pressures, including higher interest rates, the strong Canadian dollar and increasing oil prices, as risks to the province’s economic outlook.”

Notice the blame-shifting to outside factors - of course, the “structural deficit” has nothing whatsoever to do with their spending policies!

And doesn’t the term “Structural deficit” sound like a weasel word to you? It’s like “core inflation”.

As for the earn-not provinces - you can’t really consider their budgets to be “balanced” when they receive massive amounts of federal transfers and equalization payments. Look at all the ridiculous finger-pointing and fiscal blame-shifting that goes on between provinces, from provinces to feds, from cities to provinces, and from cities to feds. I don’t think you have to be an accounting wizard or an economist or a political scientist, to realize that no one has the slightest clue who is going to pay for all of these dee-luxe welfare programs in the long term.

Speaking of “core inflation”, that’s another favorite trick that socialist governments use rob their citizens: debasement of the currency. It’s particularly laughable in this case, because the Canadian socialists get to pretend that our dollar is “too strong”, when actually the problem is that its value is not being destroyed quite as quickly as the value of our largest customer’s currency. That, and all those inflexible unionized labor contracts.

What all those socialist-voting bureaucrats, students and pensioners don’t understand is that their government is ripping them off at the same time it is pretending that it loves them and cares for them: government pay increases, tuition increases, pension increases, etc. are based on fudged inflation numbers, while the real-world inflation, in which one actually has to buy energy, food and housing, continues to eat away at their spending power. Hard-ass capitalists actually care more about these people than their socialist governments do - they know that in the long term the socialist-voters will be much worse off for having not cultivated any real-world skills (of which skepticism and logic are the most critical), not saved any money, not invested in anything profitable and sustainable - in short, they have been lured into a socialist fantasyland.