The Socio-Political Dangers Of A Long Depression

[doodle]

Our political system is coming apart at the seams, and the last time it came to a head, we had a civil war that killed half a million people and didn't resolve any of the issues that caused it. And we even all have a similar culture, speak the same language, and share the same religion!

Do we live in the same country???

[stone]

I think you can see new cultural identities forming afresh. Even if all humans were somehow made uniform, I think we would then diversify in a self organizing manner. I also think that that can be a good thing and we should embrace it, respecting difference and learning from how others do things differently.

[craigr]

I think the United States is a pretty good case in point that supports my position.  A better government formed out of a melting pot of cultures and diverse state interests. Seems to have been pretty successful so far.

It is unlikely to last based on human history. The founding country to today are much different places in terms of size of government, the people, etc. Consider that from 1900 to today there are only something like 6-8 countries that still have the same form of government ruling them (US, British commonwealths, UK, Switzerland, maybe one or two others?). So the US is an outlier by statistical measures lasting 200+ years. It may very well join the other countries that have vanished and reformed under new governments in the future.

I wonder what Craigs position would have been during the US Civil War???

Let them secede.

[Xan]

The example of the US shows that power always flows uphill.  Setting up a federal government which was designated to handle a few specific things does not work, because very soon the highest level of government will find myriad ways to micromanage everything about everyone's lives.

Setting up a one-world government to only handle "international" issues will with 100% certainty face the same problem.  And secession, which is a fundamental human right (and normally goes quite peacefully), would be impossible.

[Lone Wolf]

It's also why a big central world government would never work. I am not inclined to turn over control of my daily life to the rules and regulations of what China wants for instance. They won't be in my interest no matter how they are presented.

When a government makes a rule, it is saying, "Stop living as you please and do as I tell you."

If my local government does this, hopefully the commandment is just and not overly burdensome.  If it's problematic, I can work to change it or simply leave.

At the level of national government, the problem becomes much more difficult, hence the beauty of limited government (and the ugliness of having the bloated, overbearing Federal government of today.)

Moving this to a global level makes the problem truly intractable.  Now it's virtually certain that the things your one-world government orders you to do will make little to no sense for you.  What does some bureaucrat in Bosnia know about me or my life?  This person's going to care about (or even comprehend) my needs, capabilities, and desires?  It's the ultimate in inflexibility and dehumanizing, stupid inefficiency.

Once you appreciate the uniqueness of people and culture, you appreciate how ridiculous the dreams of the one-worlders really are.

[doodle]

The government is bloated because that is what we have chosen for ourselves. Americans time and again vote for a government that regulates, protects, and cares for the people. Look how Mitt Romney has swung back to the center recently and defended all of the socialist programs such as social security and Medicare that people want because he realizes that getting rid of them would make him unelectable.

I think the dialogue in our country and the world needs to get away from name bashing each other with words like liberal and neo-con, and instead get into a more substantive debate over the best way to solve issues and address problems. Some problems are best addressed by the private sector, others by the national government, and others still by an international government.

What is mind boggling to me is this libertarian fantasyland that people create in their heads that would be just so fantastic if only government got out of the way. You may think that I'm idealistic when I talk about creating a more unified system, but I think the same level of idealism runs rampant among those on the other side.

The reality is that our world is shrinking and we are becoming more culturally homogenous. Of course you see resistance to this, but ultimately I think it is futile. People from around the world are going to be more and more frequently called upon to work together to solve problems that don't respect artificial national boundaries....like epidemics, resource shortages, or environmental issues. Creating institutions to solve these issues is necessary. We don't live in a pastoral preindustrial world with one billion people anymore. Our world population is going to be approaching 10 billion within our lifetime and living closer than ever thanks to the ubiquity of technology. We can't expect to solve 21st century problems with the same institutions designed 300 years ago.

[doodle]

At the level of national government, the problem becomes much more difficult, hence the beauty of limited government (and the ugliness of having the bloated, overbearing Federal government of today.)

Moving this to a global level makes the problem truly intractable.  Now it's virtually certain that the things your one-world government orders you to do will make little to no sense for you.  What does some bureaucrat in Bosnia know about me or my life?  This person's going to care about (or even comprehend) my needs, capabilities, and desires?  It's the ultimate in inflexibility and dehumanizing, stupid inefficiency.

Can't powers be clearly delineated and assigned to those who are best able to solve the problem? Why does everything have to end up at federal level if states are better able to solve the problem? Could it be that we see a larger more powerful federal government in reaction to issues that state governments have trouble effectively handling?

Here is a case I would be curious about. How should the federal government have handled the desegregation of schools in the south? Should they have let the south continue to discriminate against blacks because education was historically a state issue? I don't think there are simple clear cut answers to these questions. Those who propose such answers belong on Fox news where the world still operates according along black and white lines of good and evil and no grey areas exist.

[MediumTex]

Here is a case I would be curious about. How should the federal government have handled the desegregation of schools in the south? Should they have let the south continue to discriminate against blacks because education was historically a state issue? I don't think there are simple clear cut answers to these questions. Those who propose such answers belong on Fox news where the world still operates according along black and white lines of good and evil and no grey areas exist.

How should France have dealt with the schools in the U.S. south?  If you say it wasn't France's responsibility because it was outside their jurisdiction and sphere of sovereignty, I would say that the same is true of the federal government in the U.S.  If taking a certain action exceeds the boundaries of your legal authority, then the matter should simply stop there.

To me, you either respect the sovereignty of other political entities or you don't.  If you don't, then you may improve some situations here and there through your meddling, but overall I think it tends to end badly.

Take your school desegregation issue, for example.  The same generation of politicians, bureaucrats and judges who gave us forced desegregation also gave us Vietnam.  Both cases involved trying to improve upon the affairs of another sovereign political unit through outside force or the threat of force.  One of these efforts ended very badly and the other one had what I would call mixed results.

I recognize that sometimes government sponsored coercion can lead to good outcomes, but I view this in the same way that I view the stopped clock that is right twice a day.

The world will always be full of challenging situations that some government will think it can fix.  What bugs me is the idea that I have to submit to the theft of my property to fund these utopian adventures.  Why not have a voluntary organization that people who want to change the world can contribute to and let the other people keep the fruits of their own labor so that they can engage in their own more modest world changing efforts?

Who's to say that individual people wouldn't change the world on their own if you just let them keep the money that the government is taking from them in order to change the world according to the statist blueprint?

[doodle]

Why does government need to take money from anyone? Saying the government needs to tax in order to spend is like saying ford needs to recall cars in order to sell more.

Without the government and it's coercive institutions of law and order you probably wouldn't have any wealth to begin with because you would be spending all your efforts defending yourself. It's no coincidence that wealthy countries also have effective govt bureaucracies. There is a symbiotic relationship....oh, how I love that word :-)

[WiseOne]

The reality is that our world is shrinking and we are becoming more culturally homogenous. Of course you see resistance to this, but ultimately I think it is futile.

To a degree.  It looks to me like there are significant pockets that are becoming more polarized, most especially the Middle East.  The problem that I see with a world government is...what would it do?  A world-wide "Bill of Rights", judicial system, and free trade zones might be useful, but getting individual nations to ratify it would be difficult, and inevitably it would reflect First World, Western values which aren't universally accepted.  National defense would be another sticking point.  No country is going to give up their military.  We've already seen how the U.S. has (rightly) balked at supporting the U.N. peacekeeping forces because of potential conflicts with U.S. military goals.

I suspect you're getting a lot of ideas from the utopian Star Trek universe, which envisioned the entire world becoming culturally and politically exactly like the U.S.  In some ways the 1960's was a wonderful era of broad horizons and aspirations for the future, but it was just a bit naive.  Our "broad horizons" now pretty much end with the next iPhone, but we're probably more realistic about our expectations of other cultures.

Our political system is coming apart at the seams...

That's one way to look at it.  The Federal government was designed to spend most of its time being paralyzed, and from that point of view it's working beautifully.  It SHOULD be hard to pass laws and take rights away from people.

[Pointedstick]

Why does government need to take money from anyone? Saying the government needs to tax in order to spend is like saying ford needs to recall cars in order to sell more.

Without the government and it's coercive institutions of law and order you probably wouldn't have any wealth to begin with because you would be spending all your efforts defending yourself. It's no coincidence that wealthy countries also have effective govt bureaucracies. There is a symbiotic relationship....oh, how I love that word :-)

Hold up a second. What you just said implies a very base and barbaric human nature of violence and vice that needs to be kept in check by an armed third party. I thought one of your big points was that human nature was malleable. If so, couldn't we advance past the point where people need to be threatened with violence lest they oppress their neighbors? And if we ever reach that point, haven't we outgrown the necessity of government threatening our neighbors with violence? Isn't that in fact what Marx himself said would happen?

[MediumTex]

Why does government need to take money from anyone? Saying the government needs to tax in order to spend is like saying ford needs to recall cars in order to sell more.

If all wealth in society comes from the productive efforts of individual citizens, clearly the resources that the government has at its disposal to engage in various adventures comes from something it took from the person or people who generated the wealth in the first place.  

Wealth must exist before it can be squandered, and the government doesn't create wealth, it confiscates it.  There must be a "confiscatee" in this story, that's all I'm saying, and it's mostly a theoretical point because the actual dollars that the government is spending in the short run do mostly come out of thin air.  With no underlying productive economy to sponge off of, though, that arrangement quickly falls apart.  It's the productivity of the underlying private sector the makes parties willing to loan the U.S. government money on favorable terms that is then used to attempt to change the world and/or human nature through state action.

Without the government and it's coercive institutions of law and order you probably wouldn't have any wealth to begin with because you would be spending all your efforts defending yourself. It's no coincidence that wealthy countries also have effective govt bureaucracies. There is a symbiotic relationship....oh, how I love that word :-)

The protection you are speaking of can be outsourced to the private sector, which is what both the federal government and the pirvate sector have done to a surprising extent in the last 10 years or so.  The federal government has done it through contractor/mercenaries it hires to help the military fight wars, and the private sector has done it through the army of private security gurards doing the work that local police are either unable or unwilling to do.

[doodle]

Yes, I think cultural transformation to nonviolence is possible....just not as things presently stand. The institutions of war and violence are deeply entrenched in our psyches everyday from the sports and movies we watch to the way that we choose to deal with disagreements. One of my first toys as a kid was a cap gun and I grew up emulating the ninja turtles whose problem solving usually involved some form of ass kicking. I was pretty thoroughly indoctrinated I guess you could say. Of course, what I see as indoctrination into a world of violence could also have been indoctrination into a world of peace. Yes, I do think that human nature is that adaptable.

[doodle]

Mt,

I totally disagree with you. Of course the govt is capable of creating wealth. Productive labor is not the sole realm of private industry. The Hoover dam was a government project. Are you arguing that they confiscated wealth to create it? Are you arguing that that project would have been undertaken and organized by private industry at the depth of the great depression? Are you saying that none of the electricity created by that dam has added to the abundance of man?

[Pointedstick]

Mt,

I totally disagree with you. Of course the govt is capable of creating wealth. Productive labor is not the sole realm of private industry. The Hoover dam was a government project. Are you arguing that they confiscated wealth to create it? Are you arguing that that project would have been undertaken and organized by private industry at the depth of the great depression? Are you saying that none of the electricity created by that dam has added to the abundance of man?

I think you need to go back and re-read Marx. The government did not create the Hoover Dam, it just organized its construction and purchased the labor and materials. In other words, the government was acting as capital. According to Marx, all value comes from labor, while capital is simply a worthless leech because in a more just world, labor could have organized itself spontaneously or democratically. If Marx is right, then the workers theoretically could have created the Hoover Dam themselves, and the government added no value to the process.

So, was Marx right or not? 

[doodle]

Moda, where are you brother? I'm alone in the wilderness surrounded by a pack of wolves!

[doodle]

I'm battle weary, I need to regroup and come back to fight another day. Remember the Alamo!

[WiseOne]

Yes, I think cultural transformation to nonviolence is possible....

My favorite example of a well-meaning government intervention gone horribly wrong is Prohibition.  It came about from a combination of evangelical religions (who apparently still haven't learned the lesson), and the women's movement.  There was also a rather ugly undercurrent of anti-immigration bigotry, since many of the new immigrants were viewed as being disruptive and hard-drinking, e.g. the Irish.  Because of this potent combination plus a goal that was kept carefully vague, the measure passed the 2/3 majority - which is pretty overwhelming.  Of course the utopian vision turned into the exact opposite eventually.  Unhealthy drinking habits increased, organized crime got a big boost, disrespect for the law became epidemic, and many innocent people were harmed either by violence from the gangs and police, or by tainted illegal alcohol products.  

It amazes me that the same groups are still at it, and that the Republican party in particular enjoys using these hot button issues to snag votes even though they clearly aren't ever going to push for anti-abortion laws (for example).  Imagining this on a worldwide scale gives me a headache.  If utopia is to come about, it won't be from the top down.

<Sorry doodle...I can see you're trying your best here!!!>

[MediumTex]

Yes, I think cultural transformation to nonviolence is possible....just not as things presently stand. The institutions of war and violence are deeply entrenched in our psyches everyday from the sports and movies we watch to the way that we choose to deal with disagreements. One of my first toys as a kid was a cap gun and I grew up emulating the ninja turtles whose problem solving usually involved some form of ass kicking. I was pretty thoroughly indoctrinated I guess you could say. Of course, what I see as indoctrination into a world of violence could also have been indoctrination into a world of peace. Yes, I do think that human nature is that adaptable.

It is deeply entrenched indeed.

Even you are advocating the use of violence or threat of violence by the government to bring people under the umbrella of your one-world government.

Would there be an opt-out process for those who didn't want to live under the one-world government?  How would people be dealt with who wouldn't get with the program no matter how many times its "benefits" were explained?

If you are talking about any government action, you are talking about the use of force.  That's what distinguishes it from the private sector.  Notice that the only people in society who are typically authorized to carry guns are representatives of the government.  The next time you go in the Apple store notice how none of the employees carry guns.  You go there because you want to, while you go to the drivers license office or report for jury duty because of the implicit threat of force if you choose to spend your time doing something else.

The whole persuasion vs. coercion topic is fascinating and it represents two different ways of organziing society.  Under a coercive model people do what you want them to because they fear what will happen if they don't.  Under a persuasive model people do what you want them to because they are excited by what will happen if they do.

[MediumTex]

Moda, where are you brother? I'm alone in the wilderness surrounded by a pack of wolves!

I think he is stuck in line to get his drivers license renewed. 

doodle, this isn't a win or lose kind of discussion.  I just think that some of what you are describing simply wouldn't work in practice because real people aren't as enlightened as the Star Trek narrative of the future assumes they will be.

Until people reach this level of enlightenment on their own, I think we're just going to have to wait for the world you are describing to arrive.  I don't think the government can enforce enlightenment through the threat of coercion.

The good news is that if the government leaves people alone they often come up with something even more utopian on their own. 

[MachineGhost]

What we are witnessing in Europe — and what may loom for the United States — is the exhaustion of the modern social order. Since the early 1800s, industrial societies rested on a marriage of economic growth and political stability. Economic progress improved people’s lives and anchored their loyalty to the state. Wars, depressions, revolutions and class conflicts interrupted the cycle. But over time, prosperity fostered stable democracies in the United States, Europe and parts of Asia. The present economic crisis might reverse this virtuous process. Slower economic expansion would feed political instability and vice versa. This would be a historic and ominous break from the past.

I love how every economic crisis allows the anti-capitalist maroons to come out of the woodwork and blame capitalism for statist failures.

Four-five years on, I'm beyond tired of reading about it.

[MachineGhost]

Here is a case I would be curious about. How should the federal government have handled the desegregation of schools in the south? Should they have let the south continue to discriminate against blacks because education was historically a state issue? I don't think there are simple clear cut answers to these questions. Those who propose such answers belong on Fox news where the world still operates according along black and white lines of good and evil and no grey areas exist.

You should keep in mind that libertarianism is a "negative rights" proposition.  Libertarians are not indoctrinated with or believe in promoting liberty via "positive rights" mechanisms that the Progressive Left has historically utilized to implement their ideals.

[moda0306]

MG, 

It's not news to you but I disagree with that.  Even if all our government did was allocate, record, and defend private property, it would have to pull some assets out of the private sector to do so, via taxes... So your "right" to property as it is realized by our government would come at the right I have to some of my property.  What if I can defend "my" property just fine on my own?  Why should I need to pay your government for that service just because you can't defend your own property? 

In fact, the act of allocating vast swaths of natural resources to some individuals but not others and defending it as such is definitely at the core of "positive rights." 

[MachineGhost]

It's not news to you but I disagree with that.  Even if all our government did was allocate, record, and defend private property, it would have to pull some assets out of the private sector to do so, via taxes... So your "right" to property as it is realized by our government would come at the right I have to some of my property.  What if I can defend "my" property just fine on my own?  Why should I need to pay your government for that service just because you can't defend your own property? 

In fact, the act of allocating vast swaths of natural resources to some individuals but not others and defending it as such is definitely at the core of "positive rights." 

I'm not sure what you're trying to say, but I don't disagree with you.  I just don't see any evidence that private property first requires government to exist.  Both are hallucinotions, but only one is real and tangible.  Why should some uninvited third party have any right to have a monopoly of coercion over me and my property?  Look at what happened to the Native Americans when that theory got implemented in actual practice.

[stone]

Medium Tex

Wealth must exist before it can be squandered, and the government doesn't create wealth, it confiscates it.  There must be a "confiscatee" in this story, that's all I'm saying, and it's mostly a theoretical point because the actual dollars that the government is spending in the short run do mostly come out of thin air.  With no underlying productive economy to sponge off of, though, that arrangement quickly falls apart.  It's the productivity of the underlying private sector the makes parties willing to loan the U.S. government money on favorable terms that is then used to attempt to change the world and/or human nature through state action.

You could also say that company owners don't create wealth they confiscate it once employees have created it. The fact is though that in many many cases the employees wouldn't create the wealth unless the company owners were organizing and directing things and similarly the private sector would not create wealth unless the government was there protecting property rights, ensuring peace, order and opportunity etc etc. You see a private sector flourishing where there is a functioning government that does its job well and knows its place. You don't see a flourishing private sector in Somalia etc.
Basically wealth is not something gushing out of the ground like water from a spring regardless of what people do with the only issue being how it is divided up. Rather wealth is something that can either be created or left uncreated. Every bit of human ingenuity left untapped can be thought of as potential wealth permanently lost.