The essence of all government power is coercion. Coercion CAN have some positive side effects. By and large, coercion is usually used for improper and ineffective things. Coercion is misused and abused. The essential problem with coercion is that it is backed by force, and there is no real reason to force anyone to do anything.
Many companies today are finding themselves energized and productive through empowerment (GE, for example), which allows employees to engage in large amounts of autonomy. The assumption being, the employee knows his job best, his boss doesn't. As a result, the management becomes a directional facility, as opposed to a coercive one (as it is in more centralized businesses and organizations).
The essential problem with comment that coercion is useful in attaining common goals is - how do you define a common goal, and who is to say that it can't be achieved via private means? Underwriters Lab has provided outstanding oversight of electrical appliances throughout the years, without government intervention. NAUI and PADI have provided extraordinary training for scuba, privately, and also provide oversight, to some degree, for dive operations. DAN is a private organization that helps provide data to keep divers informed of new techniques and safety procedures and safety data.
Both of these are "common" good items that one could argue would be "better" performed by the government. A second look would lead you to believe otherwise.
NOAA is the one of the biggest examples of a "common good" mission gone bad. Ask anyone involved in a dive on the USS Monitor about the NOAA missteps and overspending on the Monitor site, and you will be rolling on the floor laughing. Hundreds of thousands of TAXPAYER dollars and several weeks spent on a robot retrieval of a lamp...when a $20 lift bag would have retrieved it in less than 3 minutes - with less intrusive activity.
I could obviously go on and on...but having been familiar with this issue intimately, it sprang to mind first. |
