Here's a question for y'all that I like to ask a lot of my friends and neighbors -
What do you think a government is for?
Could formulate it as, why do we have a gov't, but I think I'm more asking what are the specific tasks, in order of necessity or applicability or something like that, that you think a government is there to perform. I like Barney Frank's maxim that "government is the name we give to the things we choose to do together." I have sometimes formulated that sentiment by saying that government is the tool that allows a collection of individuals and small groups to accomplish together what would be impossible or impractical to do independently.
But neither of those two statements defines _which_ tasks we should or need to do as a nation (or state, city, etc.). It is arguable on a case by case basis whether we can't accomplish any given goal by fending for ourselves. So, that's what I'm curious about. If you could command the "we," what are the things you would have us do together? And what are the things you would have us do ourselves?
(If this post generates any responses, I'll share a list of my own.)
5 comments:
I bet Matt's list is shorter than mine!
One formula I can imagine would be for government to only do for individual what they cannot do for themselves. Police, Army, Environmental Regulation.
I would say that government should do whatever government does better, more effectively, than individuals. Police, Roads, etc. but also Education, Insurance, Limits on Interest Rates, etc.
So my question would not be can people take care of it individually rather than collectively; my question would be can people take care of it individually better than collectively.
A good example for me is financing campaigns. Arizona is trying to experiment with publically funded campaigns. It has given many people opportunities to run who could not otherwise because they didn't have enough money.
Problem is, to do it fairly, to ensure the public's money is being used fairly requires a very confusing and inconsistent beauracracy. So, we'll have to see. Maybe public funding is no good. Maybe campaigns should be financed privately. But that is only true if it can be done better than if they were financed publicly.
The problem is that complex systems produce unintended and unpredictable consequences. So Jim talks about choosing to use government for things that can be done better by government. Fair enough, except that he's going to decide (and maybe not, but the concept of what I'm about to say is fair) that we need to bail out all the people who took bad loans. I would argue that this takes a narrow view of "what's good for us" or "better". Failure of some systems is good for a society, culture, economy, etc.
Okay, so to be specific, I would like to see our federal government constrain itself to building, maintaining, taxing me for administering:
- National Defense (army and navy)
- Public Safety (police and fire)
- Interstate Roads (not all transportation)
- Court Systems
- Printing Currency
- Some federal oversight on the above as well as inter-bank lending, Environmental standards, private contracts, and some other stuff I am not remembering.
State government:
- Education (including taxation at the sate level--I could live with federalizing education taxes, but not with leaving it local, I think this is the unfairest thing in all of the United States right now.
- Local Roads
- Private Contracts
Oh I forgot:
Local government
- Nothing--shut the god-damned fuck up about my fucking landscaping.
I bet Matt's list is shorter than mine!
Liam, Che Guevara's list would be shorter than yours.
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