This isn't Statism : A few points on the current state of affairs.
A better understanding of what exactly to expect from the near future from the statist viewpoint. by Logical Premise
(statist)
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
I irregularly add to the Nolan Chart, as about the only "serious" statist using the site. The reason that more statists don't identify themselves as such is mostly due to people not understanding statism and realizing that -- like it or not -- most of us have standards and expectations of the government that are statist, and indeed, that the current US government is very statist.
Recent events, however, have begun to show that Obama's administration is not as statist as it "should be". I want to recap a few key points of statism, since it seems that anything negative often gets flung under that catagory until statism is seen by many as "anything we don't like" or "communist" or "fasicst".
Statism is the belief that :
1. strong centralized government is neccessary for the smooth functioning of a modern complex society. This sets it in opposition to libertarianism, which in it's strictest form advocates maximum liberty that does not impact the liberty of others.
2.Government transparency and accountability, to prevent fraud and wastage. The government, while often required to be large and massive, should only be as large and massive as it takes to get the job done correctly. That is not to say statists do not support big government, but just like anything else it needs to be big only if the task is big. Inefficency leads to fraud. In this aspect, statism is opposed to communism and fascism , which is basically orgnanized graft and corruption.
3. The Constitution as an evolving contract rather than straightjacket, to be used as a general blueprint and modified by the states and people as needed. This puts statism in opposition to conservatism, which champions (among other things) that the Consitution be interpreted and carried out strictly.
4. The need of government to modulate mob rule, and a belief that the intellegencia and business leaders are suited to rule. This sets statism in opposition to liberalism, which sees the government as an enpowerer of the "people" (although it tends to empower only those who support it's ideals).
Needless to say, given it's tenets, statism is not popular. It allows for a large government that is efficent but answerable mostly to the elite, for the elite. Yet , when you look at the federal government today, I think you can agree with me that this is exactly what is occurring.
The focus of this article is the Obama administration is hardly progressing down a path that statists want, either. The huge enhancement of government services and spending has done absolutely nothing to increase the functionality of government , only it's wastage. At the same time, the government is not even trying to act as a regulator of popular society or even state governments. Appearantly, the government is decided upon blowing vast sums of money to prop up the economy (or try to) while ignoring corporate malfeasance and a deeply upset electorate.
The reasons for this are pretty simple: Obama had no real plan for what he wanted to achieve, and more importantly, has no real methods of achieving what he promised. Yet without achieving anything that you can point to, we've managed to inflate the national debt to enourmous levels while keeping Congress in a deadlock of monumental yet useless proportions.
This isn't statism. I'm not sure what it is, I think we need a new code word for it. Obamism. It's making quite a few people very wealthy, true , but it's also ruining a lot of lives. No matter which way you cut it, however, since most people perceieve the government as being "in charge" , and no matter what party or platform most government officials hold, most of them are statists. They feel they need the government to be powerful. They often feel they want oversight and accountability (despite what you might think) since if everything is out in the open, there are less chances for departmental in-fighting to result in people being scapegoated. They see the Constitution (when they bother to think about it at all) as something vaguely used to determine if something is "legal" or not.
They don't think very highly of the average American and spend most of their time , energy, and focus on the people with Money, Power, and Influence.
That isn't anything but pure statism, in it's most potent form. The problem is that there is no sense of efficency. That is what is causing consternation among people involved in Government First and statist / pro-centralization groups and think tanks. Obama has promised everything and delivered almost nothing. And there isn't even a consensus or movement in his own party to counter-act this or call him out on it. And yet, I think, he has a plan. He has an idea of what he wants to happen with government, based on his own beliefs.
When I say Obama I mean Obama, not the government, not the senators aides and congressmen, lesser judges, administrators, deputy directors , etc. The people who actually get things "done" in the government, as far as determining policy , and what bills get drafted up, and the like. These people are not stupid -- some have held there jobs since the Reagan administration -- and they know how things are "supposed to work". They know dumping a bunch of garbage on the states with unfunded mandates backed up with the threat of withdrawing transportation money will only so go far. They know that reworking Medicaid to cover everyone when 40 cents out of every Medicaid dollar is lost through misbilling, wastage or fraud is pointless.
Meaningless drivel like repealing don't ask, don't tell isn't going to change the way money is spent or even the tone of the armed forces. Wrangles over the stupidity of having the government plan to spend something like 10 trillion bucks on adding new people to welfare and no plans to deal with illegal immigration only conceal the real issue here.
Obama's overriding goal is to make the state so massive that what he has built up cannot be removed without dismantling the economy. He's not focused on the people with the Money, the Power, or the Influence, and he certainly isn't trying to build our economy. What he's doing is making the government so massive that , much like the expansion under FDR, once the programs he puts in place are fixed, they won't be able to be removed.
In my view, this is a corruption of everything a statist believes in. It's Big Government for the sake of Big Government, it's blind faith in a system that only works if it has checks and balances and a fine , discrete purpose of governance. It's pandering to the very lowest common denominator by handing out tax cash to broke corporations and people who can't find work while eviscerating the very purpose of government in the first place. This isn't governing in any sense.
Unfortunately, it will get worse. For every outraged statist, every irritated libertarian or horrified conservative or disgrunted liberal, there are a thousand people who can't be bothered to see where this will lead. For every voice that says "This doesn't work" -- no matter what party you back -- there are a hundred who literally do not care.
Indeed, that's the greatest tragedy here. The statist models always worked off of the idea that some people would not have power and some would, and that the people with power and education would lead those without. I know, arrogant, almost aristocratic. (Blame Hamilton.) But we don't have that. We have , now, whatever fool orator with an ability to slime his way into power attempts to subvert the government to basically create a total welfare state.
The power of that state is to hold the economy hostage, to bend every act to merely propping up programs put in place that serve NO purpose. And that's where we are at.
Did you like this article? If you did, Thumb It! 6
thumbs so far
The views expressed
in this article are those of Logical Premise only and
do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates.
Logical Premise is solely responsible for the contents
of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated
with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Posted By: Mike Foster
Date: June 16, 2010 01:39:05 PM
I am very anti-statist, but I think you did a good job on the article. What I see good in this article is an offer of reasoned and logical discourse - which we need more of - so I gave you a thumb.
Posted By: Republicae
Date: June 19, 2010 09:03:41 PM
There is, and has been for centuries, the concept that a strong centralized government, of any political stripe, can provide for the smooth functioning of complex societies, however history teaches just the opposite. Inefficiencies and corruption become present in all bureaucracies, particularly as those bureaucracies begin to take on more and more responsibilities for the functions of governing. Political management under strong centralized governments always must rely upon a bureaucratic class of administrators; as such the administration of a strong centralized governing system becomes completely dependent upon an ever-increasing need for regulatory advancement. Most of this regulatory advancement is nothing more than someone providing job security for themselves and their departments. It is a natural inclination for bureaucracies to become self-perpetuating.
As government bureaucracies grow, decision making is limited to regulatory compliance, as such a high degree of absolutism arises which, in turn, usually contradicts the use of deliberative common sense measures. Contradictions naturally arise within all large bureaucracies, due to the nature of absolutism, causing the arbitrary application of codes, decrees, statutes, laws, acts and regulations without regard to either the necessity of application or the consequences of such application. Since free discretion limited to the letter of the law or regulation, bureaucrats become complacent since it is no longer necessary for them to deal with each case that comes before them to the best of their abilities since the must only meet the actual requirements of a given regulation, code or statute. No longer are problems solved with the most appropriate solution, but are judged by the limits imposed by government code or regulation or some statute.
Essentially, the main concern that arises within such strong centralized government bureaucracies is the compliance of the rules and regulations, regardless whether those rules are reasonable or even contrary to the original intention of the rule or regulation. After all, the first duty of a government bureaucrat is to administer the codes, regulation and statutes of the government. While there is no inherent evil within bureaucracy, the problem arises when the government takes on the role of centralization of governing society, assuming that it is the sole determining factor in the socio-economic structure of a country, thus transforming the motives within society to maintain that position. Under all heavily centralized governments there is a transformation from a profit managed society to a bureaucratic managed society, this creates innumerable issues, not only in society but in the markets themselves which effects the lives of every individual within that society.
In every example of a strong centralized government you will see that it is impossible to actually control or manage the government itself, much less manage the society it is has assumed charge over. Usually, the only resort left to strong centralized governments is the power of coercion over the population; as such the assumption of such power places within the hands of politicians and bureaucrats an unwarranted degree of control over the lives of individuals. Advocates of strong centralized governments must, by definition, be opposed to individual liberty for otherwise there would be no possible way for such a government to operate and function in the strength necessary to maintain and fund itself. In terms of funding a highly centralized government many things must be considered, in particular the effect such funding has on society itself.
Over a hundred years ago John C. Calhoun stated what should be the obvious conclusion on the funding of government and the conflicts within society that such funding creates:
"The necessary result, then, of the unequal fiscal action of the government is to divide the community into two great classes: one consisting of those who, in reality, pay the taxes and, of course, bear exclusively the burden of supporting the government; and the other, of those who are the recipients of their proceeds through disbursements, and who are, in fact, supported by the government; or, in fewer words, to divide it into tax* payers and tax-consumers.
But the effect of this is to place them in antagonistic relations in reference to the fiscal action of the government and the entire course of policy therewith connected. For the greater the taxes and disbursements, the greater the gain of the one and the loss of the other, and vice versa; and consequently, the more the policy of the government is calculated to increase taxes and disbursements, the more it will be favored by the one and opposed by the other.
The effect, then, of every increase is to enrich and strengthen the one [the net tax-consumers], and to impoverish and weaken the other [the net tax-payers]."
Posted By: Republicae
Date: June 19, 2010 09:04:18 PM
It should therefore, be obvious that under a highly centralized system of government the maintenance and expansion of government provides an incentive to constantly increase the size of the government itself since such expansion provides the need for more and more funding. Centralized governments are always, by necessity, hierarchical by nature and since they depend on administrative bureaucracies, they will always create the need to add subordinate layers of bureaucracy to increase their budget requests. Since centralized government bureaucracies do not depend on measurable productive success or even performance, there is an incentive to brown-nose all the way to the top of the hierarchy and dissent is not welcomed, even when pointing out dysfunction or even corruption. The main demand for centralized government services is the government itself, as such the government is more than willing to meet that demand with more and more supply of layers of bureaucracy. The demands of the public for more and more centralized government intervention into society are usually induced by government itself and primarily to benefit government, not society.
It appears that in highly centralized systems of government, the work related to every position in government always expands to fill up the time available for the completion of the work. Within such systems of government there is no correlation between the actual amount of work to be completed and the corresponding staff used to complete the work. It is also evident that government bureaucrats always want to increase their subordinates instead of creating possible rivals for their own positions, it is the nature of bureaucracy to keep the hierarchy in place and sustain the system. Additionally, it appears that bureaucrats constantly create work for each other, maintaining the system, expanding the need for budget increases and protecting government positions in the process. Since it is rare to find any government position that is actually results oriented, the work must always create more work in order to fill the amount of time allotted for each government employee since each position is budgetary dependent for its survival, as are each of the government agencies. The incentive therefore is to spend as much money as necessary to insure an increase in the next fiscal budget.
Under the conditions necessary to maintain a strong centralized government, there always arises a plethora of bureaucratic edicts utilized to maintain order and adherence to the desired level of strength of such a government. There will eventually evolve a political economy, replacing the actual free market with a government-mandated economy where economic calculation becomes impossible and economic distortions begin to take place. These distortions create the necessity for even more government intervention into the economic lives of individuals until the system begins to crumble from the weight and controls of government.
Within our system of government, the supremacy of the law, Constitutional Law was intended to limit the power of government authorities and even the courts themselves, in order to prevent the potential of government to inflict upon the individual all possible intervention that would restrict the freedom and liberty of individual. Since all bureaucratic management is essentially bound by the rules and regulations fixed by some superior authority or regulatory agency, there is a high probability of the eventual arbitrary application of those rules and regulations. Ultimately, there is no actual yardstick by which to make competent measurements within a highly centralized government bureaucracy, there becomes a very real disconnect between government and the people, as well as how government effects the lives of the people.
Likewise, in a centralized system of government, there is no market-price for achievements, no gauge of actual success or failure, all such measurements become relevant only to the enforcement of any given government edict or regulation. By its very nature, the idea of a highly centralized government denotes inefficiencies, wastefulness and usually ineptitude, all rolled up in vast rolls of red tape since the motives of centralized government administration are centered on the centralization. It is not simply a case of maladministration, culpable negligence or even the lack of competence in those responsible for government administration; many times it is a matter of the political conditions, which in many instances, involve political arrangements for a given problem for which a more adequate solution could not be found to satisfy every political agenda within the government itself. Thus, legislation may create a certain agency whose regulations may be in conflict with other agencies within the centralized government, usually without direct knowledge of the conflicting regulation but causing confusion as to the actual authority or administration of that authority or regulation.
It should also be very evident that within such highly centralized government systems there is little room for actual talent since the incentives are based upon compliance with rules and regulations and the administration of those rules and regulations. The system of centralization, or regimentation neutralizes initiative and job security consists of simply following the regimented system. There is, by absolute necessity, inherent inflexibility within centralized systems of government otherwise, the system could not function as a centralized power structure; as such this inherent inflexibility always, without exception, leads to inefficiencies and eventual corruption.
The concept that there can be a highly centralized government that will effectively meet the needs of a complex society is utopian at best. Decentralization however offers a far more effective use of government administration as the degrees of governing are far more localized and segmented. In fact, instead of statism, federalism provides much more check on corruption, the abuses of authority while also providing a high degree of flexibility and efficiency in response to the needs of society.
