Violence is implicit in governing, which often causes me to wonder why so many willingly embrace more violent systems of rule than is needed to ensure the mutual defense, establish standards of measure (time, mass, length, etc), to enforce contracts between parties, to see to the the commons, and to address those who can not comport themselves with the social contract of the group’s governance (thieves, murderers, etc). Often, of course, it with the aim of turning that violence of rule upon others whose “otherness” the group finds scary or morally reprehensible.

My primary concern, of course, is in the size of government, more so than its type. As I commented above, a much smaller, less intrusive government (of whatever form) would still allow considerably greater freedoms and be less tempting a target of regulatory capture by the very powerful – whatever its nature. Also, the smaller the government, the more likely I can “vote with my feet” if I don’t like it and can’t change it.

Your small scale examples, I would suggest, are no different functionally than our US states, but for the powers our Federal Government has taken for itself (often with the consent of the states involved).

Allan,

While you want to defend “society in the macro,” the fact of the matter is that society is made up of individuals with rights which the government should protect and not abuse. Your opinion of what constitutes a “robust society” is one where liberty and freedoms are restricted. It is hard for me to see any “robustness” while people are in governmental chains.

At one point the middle class was thriving. What killed it? To some extent, regulations. Yet people like you think that despite regulations putting the middle class on life support, more regulations will somehow make it all better.

(I won’t quote Einstein’s definition of insanity, but it applies to the argument you are trying to make.)

Let me give you a couple real life examples of how your regulation utopia works.

A friend of mine owns a trucking company. They haul dirt, gravel, rocks, etc intrastate. For the most part that work is a lot of government work. Whether for the state or the Feds, roads, parking lots, etc all require the services of trucks to move earth. But there’s a catch. In the contracts with the government, the contracts stipulates the pay the company has to pay the drivers. That rate of pay is LESS than what the company pays on private jobs. My friend complained saying that he wanted to pay the drivers more. The government told him he couldn’t He tired getting around it by paying bonuses for the workers on the government jobs to bring their pay up to those working private jobs. The government caught wind of that and fined him. (Think about that….. the government FINED a company for paying their employees more.) The regulation artificially held down the wages of truck drivers and hurt the working middle class. But it gets worse. Because all trucking companies were hit with the regulations, you couldn’t reward long term drivers for their service. People coming in the door make the same as those who were with the company for 10 years. The result of that is higher turn over because there is no economic incentive for a driver to stay with a company anymore. Companies can’t fight for the best drivers and pay the best drivers a higher rate because the government regulations in which you believe won’t let them.

A corollary to that is the amount of paperwork mandated by the government has increased. So the money that would have gone into raises and bonuses for drivers and office workers now goes into regulated paperwork that doesn’t keep people safer, isn’t read by anyone and most of all, doesn’t make anyone money.

Second story….I used to officiate at the college and below level in several sports. My home town had a youth basketball league. (Notice the past tense of HAD.) The league paid teens to officiate games. Most of the time it was younger ages and the work was supervised. A 13 – 15 year old kid could make $10 – $15 an hour officiating. Not a bad deal when you think about it from the perspective of the kid who made money and learned an avocation they could take with them to college and make more than at a fast food place. Of course, the government decided that such things were bad. So they banned that type of work for kids of that age. At one point there was a movement to try and get the regulation reversed, but I was long gone by then. Without the kids officiating, the league had to turn to adults who demanded and got a lot more money. Three times the amount per game in some cases. The league couldn’t stand the financial hit. It couldn’t raise the price of registration to make up for the higher costs. The league folded and went away. The regulations took money out of kid’s pockets and then put over 500 kids out on the streets.

THAT’S your society in the macro Allan.

I respect your opinion that “my way would lead to disaster,” but that way worked well for a long time in this country. A VERY long time.

While you claim that you are a pragmatist, I think that you are the exact opposite. Your world view is contrary to reality. You keep pushing for more regulations even when regulations have harmed and continue to harm the middle class.

Not bad… But, what system will prevent a rule of the oligarchs, i.e., feudalism? The industrial revolution brought forth the end of feudalism in England. At that time, serfs could simply move to cities. But, then, the owners of factories became the feudal lords, without the society-imposed requirement to care for and protect their “subjects.” And Noblesse Oblige went under at that time, too.

Perhaps modern day Russia, with its lack of checks and balances, as well as rise of the rich and powerful would be more to your liking than Somalia.

Don’t get me wrong, I think you should stay here, because the good ole USA is a great place to be. But I do wonder what system of government (in existence today or in years gone by) you would suggest could provide a paradigm for a better USA. None really comes to my mind.

Risking taking the Bolshevik revolution as an example… There had never been a communist government. Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, et. al., tried to do it — and failed. I am afraid that a libertarian government would fail as well. I would rather that it be tried on a smaller scale (Ireland, Estonia, Somalia (!), or Palestine (!!) maybe) than on a country with 350,000,000 people.

I simply believe that their are no perfect systems, and that the way to maximize the greatest benefit for the greatest number at the least harm is to reduce the size of the system being gamed – since as the system grows it inevitably dictates more and more of our individual lives as a society, and thus provides incentive for regulatory capture by one group or another seeking to use the states power to secure benefits for themselves at the detriment of the rest of society over the long term (at the least) and more likely, in the short and intermediate terms as well. As well, I believe that social systems obey laws much like physical systems – the greater the number of layers of supervision/authority, the greater the inefficiency in the system, and thus, the greater the waste born by the people to maintain there chosen form of government. The trick, of course, is finding an adequate level of supervision and ability to make decisions regarding our leadership (so as to avoid the rule of Tyrants) without diverting needless resources to the maintenance of government for government’s sake (i.e. the creation of huge, largely unaccountable bureaucracies divorced from the consequences and responsibility for their actions) – which simply deprives the governed of resources they would otherwise have for their benefit.

Thanks for the link. I especially liked that point that the country is acting in a more fascist than capitalist way.

It actually fits into my theory. Perhaps I am so much for government regulation of companies in favor of workers because the system is so tilted toward corporations.

Maybe the right way to go about this thing is to take away all the corporations’ advantages, rather than give advantages to workers. That might actually fit hand-in-glove with the libertarian view of affirmative action, which is not to discriminate against the majority, but to stop discrimination altogether. But it comes with the same problem, i.e., how to rectify the past wrongs of government intervention.

I will have to think about this. In the meantime, I would love to see more libertarian ranting against our current fascist system…

As an aside, it makes me think of how fascism and communism approach problems from exactly opposite scenarios. Fascism seems to be big government for the benefit of big business. While communism seems to be big government for the benefit of workers. Libertarianism seems to believe smaller government will level the field to the extant that neither workers nor businesses have a comparative advantage.

The trick for libertarianism is to creat a system where neither workers nor businesses can game the system.

http://diagonalviews.com/2015/01/12/top-10-arguments-statists-make-against-libertarianism/

That is one way to look at it, Carlitguy. Give me a buzz when you get to Somalia, which may be the only place in the world that qualifies as a free society as you might define it.

I do not think that C.S. Lewis would consider the regulations proposed by Obama to be a sign of tyranny. Nor would he think that the US is anywhere near a tyranny. He lived in times when Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were at their most fierce.

And Daniel Webster is an interesting choice. He has been described as an elitist and advocated for a stronger federal government.

I don’t know who Heinlen is or was.

– and –

“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.” (Daniel Webster)

– and –

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.” (C.S. Lewis)

I will vote against you Allan, and disagree strongly with your assumption that the espoused policy cure (more laws) will strengthen what’s left of the American middle class.

Maybe in economics terms, I am saying that the policies produce a greater good on the macro level than harm on a micro level in terms of society as a whole.

I understand that you do not believe society should not have these rules at all. I disagree. I believe that your version of society would lead to disaster. The question in my mind is not whether there should be rules, but whether the rules imposed will lead to the greater good. And I write this with with a great deal of skepticism of big government, recognizing that the temptation of corruption and graft is everpresent.

On the other topic. You might have the wherewithal to figure out an actual salary and make a good decision based on that determination. I would suggest that you have a better grasp of economic matters than, say, your typical fast food restaurant assistant manager. I would also suggest that you have greater responsibilities and a greater ability to earn more than the $52,000 maximum under the regulations.

At the bottom, I think you have ultimate trust in the market and a great distrust of government. Others may have no trust in the market and great trust in government. I am somewhere in between, a pragmatist, if you will.