FrankenGov

There are those who believe the less government in our lives the better, and I tend to agree, however, I am not a believer in eradication of the government. I believe government is a necessary evil, but must be controlled. Many would argue government is a Faustian bargain at best, ultimately becoming so large it overtakes its master and turns the tables so now the citizen supports the government and not the other way around. It is a valid concern but it is my belief this state of affairs is more a result of human corruption then of something inherent in the concept of a government. A government should exist to serve its citizens; nothing more, nothing less. It is a concept brought to realization by a collection of humans. It does not think for itself; it is not FrankenGov. 

There is a difference between government size and number of government services provided. Government size is the set of resources the government consumes while "number of government services" speaks to how many useful services the government provides to its citizens. They are not directly related and should not be. 

The IRS is a perfect example. At one point in time it was probably a laborious task to process all the tax forms from the citizens each year. These days one would think computers could replace nearly all the IRS workers, but alas, the IRS never seems to reduce head count. Without knowing all the details, from the outside looking in, one might consider this a bit odd. If, however, we could reduce the IRS head count by say 70% then this would be a good thing for almost everyone except the IRS employees who were laid off (and possibly some politicians). That's fine. The needs of the many should outweigh the needs of the few. 

Another example, might be when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) falls down (as it did with VW in 2015). I am sure the EPA's explanation might be along the lines that they are over worked and under paid. We can look at this as emblematic of all the other government agencies. So what do we do? The way I see it, we have 3 options; we can eradicate the agency, we can throw money at the agency, or we can figure out what's broken in the agency, fix it and optimize it. To be colloquial "we could run it like a business". This last option seems like the only sane option available to us. 

I suspect the problem we have with our government is one of apathy, and once that sets in corruption is sure to follow. Almost any American if asked the question is government too big would answer yes. We all know it yet no one seems interested in fixing it. It is this apathetic status quo mentality that I believe is at the root of the problem. Put simply, there is no impartial oversight for most government organizations. I don't see anything good coming from this. 

One way to correct this is to develop indices which chart how similar operations in the public sector perform and use that to develop performance metrics for each government organization. It is not acceptable to ask the individual government organizations to develop these indices. This must be done by a disconnected third party. It is crucial to keep corruption out of this process. 

So perhaps the solution is to simply make government agencies accountable and monitor their performance as any business owner would do. 

I Am A Recovering Libertarian

Just as all political debates inevitably end with someone making a Hitler comparison, all debates with libertarians sooner or later involve the claim that taxation is theft [whistlinginthewind.org].

The problem with most libertarian arguments is that it assumes we have only rights but no responsibilities.

Libertarians make the mistake of thinking of people as isolated individuals isolated from the rest of the world. For some reason they have difficulty understanding that wealth is not created in isolation, it is as much a product of society as it is the individual. They act as though, I and I alone earned my wage and therefore it belongs to no one else. They want some entity to enforce their theory of ownership but they don't want the entity. In reality, we are hugely dependent on others and society. 

One may make the case that society is at best a Faustian contract but it is nonetheless a contract. In this light, taxes are not theft. They are a social contract. 

The United States are exactly that. A collection of states, voluntarily united. This point can not be overstated. Becoming a member of this society required a great deal of work. States had to apply to voluntarily become a member of this union. They did so because when people become wealthy and powerful they typically do not place nice so they wanted justice. They also were under constant attack from hostile forces (Indians, Mexicans, etc.) so they needed protection and they needed infrastructure to improve commerce. To make the case that they did not need the government to do these things is to ignore reality. If they could have accomplished these things by themselves they would have. Since they didn't the assumption is they were not able to. 

When you complain you don't want the government now that all the Indians have been killed off and the roads have been built and the judiciary is in place it doesn't make you morally superior; it makes you an ingrate.

The belief that it would be just great if we had no government assumes we have no examples of such a place when in reality we have many. Mogadishu Somalia (to take one example) has been without any form of government for years. It is rated one of the least safe places on the planet. 

So the next time you want to make the case of how much better we would be without government consider the literacy rate and life expectancy in Mogadishu.