As far as I can see, there are three responses to the notion that
governments should be involved in dealing with disasters.
1. `Government is the problem'
The thesis is that governments will fail to act or will act
confusedly.
In particular, this notion means that people must depend on
themselves and on nearby people such as family, friends, clan or
distant relatives, businesses not involved in government,
religious organizations not involved in government, and other
non-governmental organizations.
2. `Government will act wrongly'
This is not a claim that governments will fail to act or act
confusedly. Rather, it is a claim that governments will act
coherently, but wrongly.
The concept means that cops, soldiers, and those more powerful in
government will do wrong and should be avoided.
A recent example comes from New Orleans. According to `Science',
9 Sep 2005, Vol 309, p 1656, a study made before Hurricane Katrina
found that 21.4% of New Orleans residents `would stay despite an
order to leave, many of them because they lacked the means to
escape.'
However, some of these people tried to walk out but were prevented
from doing so by armed police ordered by governments. This was an
action that those who gave orders in the relevant governments
thought was right but which those in New Orleans trying to escape
figured was wrong.
3. `Government can do well'
This is the `can do' thesis exemplified by the Seabees. (The
Seabees were US military `Sea Construction Battalions' that became
famous in World War II for their rapid and successful work
building or rebuilding airfields and the like.)
Obviously, doing well is hard and expensive. For one, nothing
will happen exactly as expected.
Successful action requires good planning, training, and exercises.
The wrong planning -- perhaps because of a mistaken view of
generalities -- can fail, as can inadequate training or exercise.
Moreover, a rare or as yet non-existent event can lead to mistakes
over what should be planned, even if the powers-that-be have a
realistic view of probabilities in the world, or lead to
corruption.
Put another way, the three theses are "can't do", "wrongly do",
and "can do".
Thus, for hurricanes, for success with the `can do', at the very least
people in governments need to:
a) fund schools and universities to educate people to build and
interpret sensors and make predictions
b) fund sensors to discover hurricanes as soon as they can
c) hire people for sensors and predictions
d) hire others to focus on what might be done
e) fund education, training, and exercises that makes sense
f) learn about probabilities and the like so as to be able to make
good decisions when a hurricane is reported
There is more. It is hard to do well. And this is for something that
`typically' does not happen.
In any case, it is possible to judge how a particular set of men and
women will do, or fail to do, or wrong do if they form a government.
Thus, we can expect that a pre-industrial government cannot do
anything very helpful for a hurricane, since it lacks knowledge about
sensors and the people to deal with them, it lacks a decent emergency
force, it lacks funds ...
Similarly, while many early industrial governments had the ability to
raise taxes and fund what is necessary, the people in governments may
have misunderstood what could be done or how to do it.
With hurricanes, for example, it was less than a last half century ago
that we got weather satellites. An early industrial government could
not predict them. (But it could act smartly in preparing for the
`atypical' but `normal', and it could act smartly after a hurricane.)
Nowadays, hurricanes can be detected early and predicted somewhat.
This makes early action a bit easier, but still, doing well is hard.
(Incidentally, some argue that in the US, Right wing romantics are
against `can learn' studies because they fear people might talk about
what flooding could happen again to New Orleans if it is rebuilt as it
was, where it was. This is a "can't do" response since it tells us
that a government will act confusedly when it tries to act.
(At the same time in the US, the argument is that Left wing romantics
are against `can do' engineering because they expect governments and
other large organizations to rebuild New Orleans as it was, where it
was. This is a "wrongly do" response since it tells us that a
government will remake a known mistake when it tries to act.)
--
Robert J. Chassell
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http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc
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