Government on the Cheap
If you have a problem with somebody, you can either work it out, or you can fight about it.
If you work out with other folks how y'all agree to work out your problems and not fight about it, you've got a social organization. Social organizations tend to last as long as they profit their members, and they can be formal or informal. People tend to seek or achieve membership in a wide range of unconnected social organizations, and will alter their behavior as appropriate in order to voluntarily conform.
History gives us thousands of examples of social organization. It's not always explicit about the high and low points of each, but it does provide a remarkable variety. Social organizations often provide shelter, protection, and additional resources to help improve the lives of its members. However, the existence of these organizations is owed to the need to control people in both large and small numbers.
The direction and focus of social organizations tend to come from the leadership, who make decisions based on their understanding of the purpose of the organization. Making a change to an informal social organization is often far more difficult than with a formal one, and carries greater risks of violence. Conflicts regarding changing leadership can lead to the dissolution of a social organization.
Governments are generally formalized social organizations utilized for whatever purposes their leaders deem fit. The larger and more wealthy the country, the more likely it is to have competing informal social organizations vying for control. Consequently, one can easily imagine the range of ideals carried by the various organizations, such that it is not a surprise when one administration has a completely different set of priorities than a previous one.
My understanding of government is that its purpose is to regulate trade and provide safe, dependable roads to market. Going to war, homogenizing culture, and propping up failing industries are activities as far removed from the primary business of government as are educating the population, feeding the poor, or protecting the weak. Which isn't to say that I couldn't pick and choose some secondary priorities from the last list as appropriate for government, I'm not certain that government is necessarily the best provider of these services. It has become clear over the last six years that quite a lot of folks have an understanding of the primary role of government that is very different from my own.
In my view, promoting trade means staying out of wars. Promoting trade can include education and health care for all citizens, but it doesn't have to. Protecting and husbanding resources is an obvious and necessary obligation for my ideal government, and citizens are a precious resource, but efforts should be balanced. We don't gain anything if we saw down our forests in a vain attempt to force everyone to live in quaint suburban cottages, for example.
Perhaps it may seem odd to some, but I'm pretty sure that my ideal government wouldn't have been any better prepared to handle the mother of all hurricanes wiping out a major port city and shipping hub. It's possible that without a preoccupation for war that there would be the resources available to help, but I think it's far more likely that a smaller, cheaper government wouldn't have the kinds of tax revenue required to even begin to help everyone. You just can't make rational business plans based on the premise that one could imagine and prepare for every possible disaster. Even if you could, disaster on this scale would easily dwarf any prepared contingency plan.
I am pretty sure that my ideal government wouldn't be making any speed records to rebuild that city. The culture and history was tremendous, but the damn place was in a giant bowl with the words "fill to this line" written along Decatur Street. My ideal government only builds cities on hills, not in pits. To that end, after all the people and pets have been relocated to nearby cities, I'd put about a third of my effort on cleanup in that area, a third on supporting the victims for three-six months, and a third on building new port capacity in other, non-damaged areas. Houston, for example, would probably benefit, and a few wider lengths of highway built to support the capacity. It just seems that capacity can be in place faster where you're not having to clean up the debris and corpses and set up infrastructure before you start building.
If you work out with other folks how y'all agree to work out your problems and not fight about it, you've got a social organization. Social organizations tend to last as long as they profit their members, and they can be formal or informal. People tend to seek or achieve membership in a wide range of unconnected social organizations, and will alter their behavior as appropriate in order to voluntarily conform.
History gives us thousands of examples of social organization. It's not always explicit about the high and low points of each, but it does provide a remarkable variety. Social organizations often provide shelter, protection, and additional resources to help improve the lives of its members. However, the existence of these organizations is owed to the need to control people in both large and small numbers.
The direction and focus of social organizations tend to come from the leadership, who make decisions based on their understanding of the purpose of the organization. Making a change to an informal social organization is often far more difficult than with a formal one, and carries greater risks of violence. Conflicts regarding changing leadership can lead to the dissolution of a social organization.
Governments are generally formalized social organizations utilized for whatever purposes their leaders deem fit. The larger and more wealthy the country, the more likely it is to have competing informal social organizations vying for control. Consequently, one can easily imagine the range of ideals carried by the various organizations, such that it is not a surprise when one administration has a completely different set of priorities than a previous one.
My understanding of government is that its purpose is to regulate trade and provide safe, dependable roads to market. Going to war, homogenizing culture, and propping up failing industries are activities as far removed from the primary business of government as are educating the population, feeding the poor, or protecting the weak. Which isn't to say that I couldn't pick and choose some secondary priorities from the last list as appropriate for government, I'm not certain that government is necessarily the best provider of these services. It has become clear over the last six years that quite a lot of folks have an understanding of the primary role of government that is very different from my own.
In my view, promoting trade means staying out of wars. Promoting trade can include education and health care for all citizens, but it doesn't have to. Protecting and husbanding resources is an obvious and necessary obligation for my ideal government, and citizens are a precious resource, but efforts should be balanced. We don't gain anything if we saw down our forests in a vain attempt to force everyone to live in quaint suburban cottages, for example.
Perhaps it may seem odd to some, but I'm pretty sure that my ideal government wouldn't have been any better prepared to handle the mother of all hurricanes wiping out a major port city and shipping hub. It's possible that without a preoccupation for war that there would be the resources available to help, but I think it's far more likely that a smaller, cheaper government wouldn't have the kinds of tax revenue required to even begin to help everyone. You just can't make rational business plans based on the premise that one could imagine and prepare for every possible disaster. Even if you could, disaster on this scale would easily dwarf any prepared contingency plan.
I am pretty sure that my ideal government wouldn't be making any speed records to rebuild that city. The culture and history was tremendous, but the damn place was in a giant bowl with the words "fill to this line" written along Decatur Street. My ideal government only builds cities on hills, not in pits. To that end, after all the people and pets have been relocated to nearby cities, I'd put about a third of my effort on cleanup in that area, a third on supporting the victims for three-six months, and a third on building new port capacity in other, non-damaged areas. Houston, for example, would probably benefit, and a few wider lengths of highway built to support the capacity. It just seems that capacity can be in place faster where you're not having to clean up the debris and corpses and set up infrastructure before you start building.