Platt stated March 24th:
check out one of my all time favorites, "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree
World"
by Harry Browne.
Platt,
Thanks for the reference regarding Harry Browne's book.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Found-Freedom-Unfree-World/dp/0965603679
From the reviews at Amazon.com it looks worthwhile even if it was published
in 1973 and takes itself a lot more seriously than the newly published Tom
Hodgkinson book "How to be Free".
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Be-Free-Tom-Hodgkinson/dp/0241143217)
[Platt]
>For a projection of where liberals in the U.S. are leading us, take a
look
>at the following description of the socialist paradise in Great Briton:
>
>http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_1_oh_to_be.html
[Ant]
The faults with contemporary British society described in the article you
cite above has little to do with socialism (a la Robert Tressel, the
"Cyclist thinker") rather these criticisms (increasing bureaucracy in
education, the police force etc), are mostly due to British government
policy over the last 27 years which has generally been right-wing (or "new"
right-wing since 1997) following your great hero Milton Friedman as per
Reaganism/Thatcherism (for more details about this right-wing orientated
increase in bureaucracy, see my essay about the UK education system at
robertpirsig.org).
---cut---
[Platt]
Call it what you will, it's a disaster. True conservatives want less, not
more
government bureaucracy.
[Ant]
Agreed. However, in theory, anarchists and true liberals also want less
government bureaucracy.
What matters to the MOQ pragmatist is the general outlook that _works best
in practice_ and, judging from Thatcher's legacy (where during the 1980s and
1990s, centralisation from London increased and unnecessary bureaucracy
spiralled out-of-control within the NHS, civil service and education
sectors), it is conservatism that falls shortest in this regard.
For example, I'll take a a specific point by Theodore Dalrymple in the
original article you referred to above. He states:
"Not a single large-scale information technology project instituted by the
[British] government has worked. The National Health Service has spent $60
billion on a unified information technology system, no part of which
actually functions. Projects routinely get canceled after $400 $500 million
has been spent on them. Modernization in Britains public sector means delay
and inefficiency procured at colossal expense."
What Dalrymple fails to mention is that the reason why the British
government is now spending this obscene amount of money "on a unified
information technology system" is because when computer systems were first
introduced (on a large scale) in the National Health Service (NHS) during
the 1980s the then Conservative government (under Mrs Thatcher) decided to
apply the private free economy within the NHS by dividing it into separate
trusts which were meant to compete against each other in an "internal
market".
One result of this unnecessary bureaucratic complication (in a system where
medical treatment still remained free at the point of need) was that each
trust decided which type of computer system it wanted to install. Of
course, each trust chose different and often incompatible systems so now
these systems have to be integrated (so a doctor can access the computer
record about a patient whether they are at their local surgery or at a
hospital at the other end of the country) it will cost far more than if the
NHS hadn't been divided into trusts in the first place.
The true conservative might make the right noises (especially when it comes
to making money) but, in practice, conservative governments (certainly in
the UK) are, by far, the most bureaucratic, divisive and personally
intrusive (and, therefore, least MOQ friendly).
Best wishes,
Anthony
.
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