How to Win Friends and Influence Liberals....

From the founding of our government forward politicians/government has made decisions for the people, yes they have power, that is what our founding fathers intended.   Dismantling government grants power to larger international corporate cartels a result which has not worked out well for the people.  I guess I have a problem understanding how removal of government will allow corporations to provide a better power over the people.

No, some people even many are completely incapable of managing their own life and issues.  I am one such person and so are you.  I cannot protect myself and family from polluters of the water I drink and air I breath, and you can’t either.  I cannot protect myself from flying in a defectively engineered or maintained commercial aircraft, or its landing or take offs from dangerous airports, and you can’t either.  I cannot protect myself from dangerous products imported from foreign countries or products mfg. here in the US, and you can’t either.   I cannot protect myself from frauds who manipulate stock prices and thereby cheat the public and you can’t either.   I cannot protect myself from the spread of contagious diseases, and you can’t either.  We cannot protect ourselves from corporations/vendors which counterfeit goods or services. I cannot protect myself from bankers/wall street frauds who manipulate  price of credit default swaps to enrich themselves at public expense and you can’t either. These are just a few of the things government is supposed to protect the public which we cannot protect ourselves.  Granted that does not always happen because government is bribed by those who they regulate.   And we, cannot protect ourselves from that issue either.    - C. L. Morals

The Grand Illusion

      Or rather should I say a grand allusion? Allusion in that Ms. C L Morals asks a series of rhetorical questions. She is alluding to her belief that only the government can do it for her. She does not give her own answer to any of these rhetorical questions though. Several presuppositions are suggested by her comments. Thus her rhetorical questions are an allusion to an answer that is obvious to her but she doesn’t provide answers to convince those of us who are skeptical that government performs these functions better than a system based on mutual cooperation. 

Our founding fathers intended for government to make decisions for “the people”

       News to me and the ‘founding fathers’...The Preamble of the Constitution ends with its last stated purpose... “and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” (their capitalized words not mine). Liberty is not a collectivist concept. Liberty accrues to individuals. Much ink was written in the Federalist Papers about ‘the tyranny of the majority’ and ‘the tyranny of the minority’. The concern was Liberty for individuals. Otherwise, ‘the people’ would have more meaning to Mr. Madison. He would say, a simple majority gets to dictate to everyone else. The Constitution was crafted with considerable attention to prevent this ‘tyranny of the majority’.

...some people even many are completely incapable of managing their own life and issues. 

       Patronizing statement for sure. Infants, children, infirm and demented elderly, cognitively impaired can’t take care of themselves. Those of us who are capable, provide care to those who can’t. Mostly, we do it out of love for family, friends, community and even our fellow frail human. We know that we were once infants and children and will likely be infirm and demented in our old age and provide this care in appreciation for our transient independence. We look at victims of disease and birth defects and give care saying in all these cases... “there but for the grace of God go I...”

I am going to make a big assumption though and say that this presupposition is not that limited. It is a cynical statement that people don’t know what is best for them. They are like sheep and need the sheep herder and his dogs (read government) to provide for their needs. That is what goes into my head and ear by the tenor of it all and I invite Ms. Morals to tell me and give me some good expansion of her statement to counter my impression.

Besides direct quotes of her writing, I point out that this person’s answers are largely dictated at a source of evil she perceives. She repeatedly refers to corporations to the  point that, as far as I am concerned, she is obsessed by them. The word “corporation” or some derivative of it appears four times in two short paragraphs. Every ‘evil’ she enumerates save contagious diseases is widely recognized as a service provided in the commercial sphere. Because the legal structure of a corporation is predominant in modern society; it is pretty likely Ms. Morals has a mental image of a corporation providing each of the defective services she enumerates. 

       If corporations disappeared, most of the protective functions that she thinks government must provide would not be needed!? The oldest book of which I know that railed against corporatism is one I recommend she read. That book is The Wealth of Nations published by Adam Smith in 1776. We know Adam Smith argued that less government management of economy leads to a better overall result for society. This was pretty radical thinking in his day and he was basically the first one to enunciate this principle so clearly and thoroughly. He was writing about how government and corporations mutually benefitted each other when he wrote these ideas. Two hundred years on, it’s still radical thinking to some people like Ms. Morals.

       The straight forward explanation to offer for Adam Smith’s argument short of suggesting a reading of his entire text of almost one-thousand pages is an analogy. Adam Smith essentially argued that the government plays an analogous role in the economic sphere to the ‘pusher’ or ‘fixer’ in the trade of illegal drugs. Government  offers an irresistible lure of guaranteed profits by fixing the market so that winners and losers are pre ordained. It is not that individuals in the commercial sphere are immune to this bait; it is just that corporations are more efficient structures and able to get at at the head of the line for those people needing their governmental fix for ‘too much competition’. There is an advantage of the unregulated market that Ms. Morals doesn’t acknowledge. It is that corporations and any other form of business can only survive and thrive in an unregulated market if customers voluntarily buy their product instead of that of another business. This disciplines corporations and businesses better than regulations ever can.

       Time and again government programs are designed solely to keep the price of something higher. This is to the benefit of the owner of that capacity to the detriment of the buyer of that good and service. This practice doesn’t just favor corporations though. Current USDA agricultural price support programs and ethanol subsidies plus efforts by housing and financial authorities to keep the inflated price of housing from finding its real level of support comes to mind. Here are individual farmers and homeowners and smaller companies such as ethanol refineries getting a ‘fix‘ via the government. This was the core theme of Adam Smith’s Wealth Of Nations. He showed that government actions stand astride the economic world and yell “STOP!”  Improving productivity is a natural trend and leads to lower prices and better quality but it requires letting companies that fall behind in the dual race of lower prices and higher quality not have the government protect their markets or protect the jobs of their workers.

       When suggesting that government regulation is the only thing that protects us from water pollution and unsafe aircraft; balance this argument by acknowledging that regulation keeps prices higher and limits choices and slows improvement in quality. By the way, the trend to cleaner air and water began prior to anti pollution laws and the trend line of improvement didn’t accelerate after passage of these  laws. It puts a burden of proof back on you Ms. Morals to demonstrate that the anti pollution laws actually affected a trend that was already underway. 

      Ms. Morals, are you proposing that Boeing’s ‘Dreamliner’ is so much more advanced than the Wright Brothers’ initial airplane due to government mandate? I put more credit to the learning curve of airplane manufacturers and advancing technology. For the sake of being fair minded, I will cede to you that 10% of these improvements would not have happened except for some government mandate but challenge you to give me evidence that even 25% of these improvements were solely caused by government mandate.  It is a misapplication of risk to worry that airplane crashes are due to faulty equipment. The cause of airplane crashes is well studied. Human error is known to be the cause of the great majority of crashes. And with regards to needing government to make it safe to land at airports; our dear lady sounds unaware of the widespread privatization of airports and even air traffic control in other parts of the world.

       Misplaced priorities leading to adverse outcomes are not a corporate only trait. They are a trait of organizations run by humans. Government entities are more prone to error and double speak than their corporate counterparts in the private sector. Take a look at the decision processes at NASA in both the Challenger and Columbia disasters. In the first case, the manufacturer had expressed concerns about potential O-ring dysfunction in low temperatures. NASA choose to dismiss these concerns as well as those of several of their engineers. Thus a very bad outcome in the absence of greed and criminal malice and intent.  One trouble with government is that it never goes out of business. A corporation that really screws up or screws it’s customers can and frequently does go out of business. That is if the government will stand back and not do a ‘bailout’ or ‘rescue’. 

        No one on Wall Street forced big government to bail out the financial institutions that made intemperate bets with credit swaps. Big government made the decision to pass TARP over the vociferous objection of a significant majority of the public. It was passed with such speed that I am mystified as to how those Wall Street guys could have bribed enough Congressmen to make it happen. It seems there must have been some other motivation for it to have happened so rapidly. Of course, Obama the supposed wise regulator President more than doubled down whatever the Bush administration gave these institutions. Maybe President Obama and the super majority of Democrats in Congress were bribed? It is a known fact that Wall Street firms and their executives gave one and a half times as much money to Obama and Democrats as they did to McCain and Republicans. Do we finally have the answer of who the Wall Street fat cats bought off with this simple indisputable fact of contribution amounts?

        But this has all been about allusions and things implied..So why do I title my response to Ms. Morals ‘The Grand Illusion’? Because her last statement is “and we cannot protect ourselves for this issue either.” She says in her own succinct words that government can not do any of these things either. This is her grand illusion that she admits government doesn’t accomplish these tasks but still claims it’s the answer. The actual fact is that dismantling government takes power away from corporations. Wake up Ms. Morals and realize your boogeyman and your saviour are one and the same!