Emotions and Politics

[doodle]

We think that firms are more accountable because they need to be constantly satisfying their customers or else they go out of business. People vote with their dollars every day by choosing to purchase some things and not others, to patronize some establishments and avoid the alternatives.

There are many arguments that can be made for government, but I don't think accountability to the people is among the better ones. Binary yes-no voting every few years is one of the worst information transfer mechanisms I can think of, especially for the sophisticated issues governments face.

I tend to think of government like Churchill thinks of democracy when he said: "democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Government is the worst form of dealing with issues except that in many instances, it really is the only one that can. I don't think that all of society can be reduced to mutually beneficial market transactions among individuals. I also think that the buck has to stop somewhere. When a problem arises there must be an arbiter and enforcer. A democratically elected goverment that is accountable to the people (and not the highest bidding corporation or special interest) is the only entity capable of meting out justice at times.

[Pointedstick]

Re: Enron, you appear to have missed the section in the Wikipedia article you pasted entitled "Effects of partial deregulation", that described the crisis as the result of only partial deregulation; deregulating wholesale prices but keeping the regulated retail prices:

Then, in 2000, wholesale prices were deregulated, but retail prices were regulated for the incumbents as part of a deal with the regulator, allowing the incumbent utilities to recover the cost of assets that would be stranded as a result of greater competition, based on the expectation that "frozen" rates would remain higher than wholesale prices. This assumption remained true from April 1998 through May 2000.

You also appear to have missed the section entitled "Government price caps", which contains this juicy bit:

By keeping the consumer price of electricity artificially low, the California government discouraged citizens from practicing conservation. In February 2001, California governor Gray Davis stated, "Believe me, if I wanted to raise rates I could have solved this problem in 20 minutes."[15]

Energy price regulation incentivized suppliers to ration their electricity supply rather than expand production. The resulting scarcity created opportunities for market manipulation by energy speculators.

I don't think any of this really helps your story. The government created an environment that begged for manipulation and fraud, then blamed the manipulators and fraudsters. It's like a police officer pushing someone to buy weed and then arresting them for it.

[Pointedstick]

When a problem arises there must be an arbiter and enforcer. A democratically elected goverment that is accountable to the people (and not the highest bidding corporation or special interest) is the only entity capable of meting out justice at times.

I made an argument that governments are actually less accountable to people than firms are. What do you say to that? I know you disagree, but can you refute what I said?

[doodle]

When a problem arises there must be an arbiter and enforcer. A democratically elected goverment that is accountable to the people (and not the highest bidding corporation or special interest) is the only entity capable of meting out justice at times.

I made an argument that governments are actually less accountable to people than firms are. What do you say to that? I know you disagree, but can you refute what I said?

Don't you vote for your governments just like you vote with your dollars for firms? I mean government is made up of competing entities that are usually reelected or not based on what they were or were not able to accomplish to improve peoples lives.

I don't think governments are perfect, but merely a way to structure social groups of people to achieve common goals. If we lived in a small town of 100 people we would probably create a government to set up and enforce rules and regulations and make decisions on common shared items like roadways, electric, and water systems. I live in a condominium in which decisions are made by an elected board of representatives. Use the condo as an analogy for the country, how would decisions be made if not by an elected group or by referendum? If the citizens of a certain state vote to impose a sales tax increase of 1 cent to pay for a new bus station or whatever then I guess you can leave if you don't like it. But short of going off into the woods and living like a hermit, when you enter into society and want to live among other people you accept the fact that decisions have to be made that affect the whole group and the organization through which these decisions are made is called government.

[MachineGhost]

Words have meanings.  You can not make liberty mean what you wish.

Actually, that is not true.  People have meanings, not words.

[MachineGhost]

The fourth level of regulation is political, by the government and it NEVER works. The argument that we need political regulation is like saying "I can't figure out what products are good for myself, and neither can anyone else. We need politicians to find an appropriate product mix and force it on everyone else."

You can't make blanket statements like that about reality!  It only takes .01% of any government scheme working to show how idealogical your claim is.  In the real world, government works a lot higher than .01%.  It may be inefficient, suboptimal, unjust and have unintended consequences, but at least .01% of it worked.

[FarmerD]

I think this is where the disagreement lies. Libertarians such as myself don't see government as being very accountable to the public at all. In the elections at the local level where the policies have the most direct impact, usually less than 20% will vote. Even in national elections, usually barely more than half manage to drag themselves to the polls.

Consider also that 99.999% of all people in government are unelected bureaucrats responsible to no one.  These people cannot be fired, downgraded, fined, or disciplined in any way.  Therefore they pick and choose which rules and regulations they will enforce, jockey for higher budgets by manipulating data they collect, and dream up new crisis's that can be solved only by giving themselves more power, bigger budgets, more manpower, and more control over private citizens lives.

I don't rule Russia.  Ten thousand bureaucrats do.
-Tsar Nicholas II

Unless you've actually worked for a govt bureaucracy you probably are not aware of how truly bad it really is.  Most liberals I've debated with over the years look at govt workers as "public servants."  "Public Enemies" is more like it. 

[Benko]

99.999% of all people in government are unelected bureaucrats responsible to no one.  These people cannot be fired, downgraded, fined, or disciplined in any way. 

This reminds me of (Jerry) Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy which makes an important point:

in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.  [THese people only care about maintining the organization and often/usually could care less about the goal of the organization]

The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

[Pointedstick]

To be clear, that applies to private bureaucracies as well. The difference is that in the private sector, a firm with a bureaucracy so bloated that it interferes with serving customers eventually goes out of business, whereas there is no systemic force that reins in government bureaucracies. Unlike politicians, government bureaucrats are not voted into and out of power, and unlike private bureaucrats, their organization faces no competition from more agile ones and cannot go out of business. Instead, it just becomes more and more inefficient and inhibitory to prosperity.

[Benko]

Superb point. 

God knows how huge corporations e.g. GE manage to function effectively over long periods of time.

[TripleB]

This reminds me of (Jerry) Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy

I only heard of Pournelle for the first time recently watching an episode of the podcast TWiT. Does he have anything else interesting?

[Benko]

This reminds me of (Jerry) Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy

I only heard of Pournelle for the first time recently watching an episode of the podcast TWiT. Does he have anything else interesting?

He has a lot of interesting things to say, but it is mostly in his blog (and replies to letters) and the content of the blog depends on what is happening news-wise.  I'll post another one in a new thread--The Gods of the Copybook Headings

[Storm]

Have to agree, the reaction to 9/11 was at least as bad, if not worse, than what's happening now. The Republicans are just as bad as the liberals at forcing their agenda on people. I just happen to be impacted less by the Republican agenda than the Democrat's.

End of the day they're both enemies of freedom.

At least as bad?  Haha!  Nothing, that's right, nothing has yet happened because of the tragedy at Sandy Hook.  Because of 9/11 we have 2 unjust wars, hundreds of thousands killed, tortured, or injured, and our standing as a nation damaged.  You think these are the same?

LOL!

[Pointedstick]

Have to agree, the reaction to 9/11 was at least as bad, if not worse, than what's happening now. The Republicans are just as bad as the liberals at forcing their agenda on people. I just happen to be impacted less by the Republican agenda than the Democrat's.

End of the day they're both enemies of freedom.

At least as bad?  Haha!  Nothing, that's right, nothing has yet happened because of the tragedy at Sandy Hook.  Because of 9/11 we have 2 unjust wars, hundreds of thousands killed, tortured, or injured, and our standing as a nation damaged.  You think these are the same?

LOL!

None of those things had happened within 8 days of 9/11 either…

But for the record, yes, all those things are absolutely terrible and IMHO we should be ashamed as a nation for letting our fear cause us to pass short-sighted laws after a gut-wrenching tragedy. The worst laws are usually the ones with the emotional arguments underpinning them, especially when those emotions are the result of an incomprehensible tragedy, such as 9/11 or the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting.