"By crying, “there ought to be a
law” at every problem, we have given the state parental authority. The
result has removed our personal responsibility and also has led to the
surrender of many of our freedoms. For freedom and personal
responsibility are two sides of the same coin. By turning to the state,
instead of finding ways to voluntarily interact and solve our problems,
we are reducing ourselves into a condition of perpetual
childhood."
A Sickness in the People
By
Nicholas Snow
Published: 16 May 2011
Economist
James M. Buchanan used to ask his Ph.D. students the following
question, “It is said that a fly that grew 9 times its size could no
longer fly. What does that imply for the fiscal dimensionality of the
state?” This question is one of scale in relation to the size of
government. If the state grows too large it will no longer be able to do
the functions it is supposed to, just as the fly would no longer be able
to fly. There is, however, another issue that should be addressed,
namely, the scope of government activities. Asking the state to do more
than it should, to function in roles that it is simply not capable of
performing, is setting it up to fail with disastrous
consequences.
The example with the fly tells us that the state should be restricted to
those tasks, and only those tasks, that it can do well. It is up for a
debate, even amongst libertarian/classical liberal circles, just what
these tasks are but what is clear is that there is a limit. For example,
some libertarians
believe
the state is not necessary at all. The provision of law and order
and defense should be left to the private market. Other
libertarians/classical liberals believe in, what has become known as,
the night-watchman state, where the role of government is limited to
the provision of law and order, defense, and possibly providing some
public goods. Still, no matter what anyone’s position is, we must admit
that the state is not capable of doing everything. There will certainly
be many functions the state simply cannot perform well, or at all, and
thus we should never ask it to.
Forgetting the past is a very dangerous thing. It can lead to the
Cliché of Socialism number 48, “There ought to be a law.” As
William C. Mullendore explains the growth of government, in terms of
both scale and scope, grows out of this often well-intentioned phrase. A
certain situation will attract the attention of sympathetic or disproving
citizens, who then turn to legislators to fix the problem. Soon this
becomes a rally cry for all our problems.
It is rarely asked whether this is something the government should be
doing and instead is simply assumed it should. More often than not the
government’s legislation would fail to achieve its intended ends and
instead of repeal, new laws (that also are unlikely to work) would be
enacted to fix this, costing us more and more freedom.
In his book
Democracy in America,
Alexis de Tocqueville titled one of the chapters,
“What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear.” The answer
is majoritarian despotism, and this is exactly what we have today.
Tocqueville warned that an intrusive government in attempting to protect
and relieve its citizens “from the trouble of thinking and all the cares
of living” would create a sort of “orderly, gentle, peaceful
slavery.”
By crying, “there ought to be a law” at every problem, we have given the
state parental authority. The result has removed our personal
responsibility and also has led to the surrender of many of our freedoms.
For freedom and personal responsibility are two sides of the same coin.
By turning to the state, instead of finding ways to voluntarily interact
and solve our problems, we are reducing ourselves into a condition of
perpetual childhood.
This is not the way of a self-governing society; in fact, it is a means
of destroying our ability to self-govern. If we truly wish to be a free
society, we must learn that the state is not capable of taking
care of others or ourselves. The state is not a substitute for
personal responsibility. At best the state is a coercive tool that
is easily abused. As the founders of our country realized, the larger the
state grows the more dangerous it becomes to a prosperous society. The
point of our constitution was/is to restrict and constrain the government
but it hasn’t worked.
Maybe
Leviathan cannot be constrained. Perhaps the state can only
institutionalize predation. Even if this is the case, if we have any hope
for a solution, it must start within ourselves. We must learn to be a
society of free and responsible individuals.
Download the Clichés of Socialism number 48 by W.C. Mullendore
here.
http://www.fee.org/from-the-archives/a-sickness-in-the-people/
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