Hawk, so you DID create value. Government DOES produce something. Something very valuable, called security. A primary first step on the road to wealth. In a democracy, it's even done on a voluntary basis, so you didn't take the money in the sense of helping yourself to it, it was given to you by the electorate, as incentive and reward to produce that value.
I think it's playing with words to suggest that if the government produces something, it's outside the economic system.
For example, an government could be given money by the electorate and they might use it to build a bridge, which they charge tolls on. Or, the government might borrow the money to build the bridge and repay the loans from tolls. Or, on the other hand, the electorate might decide to buy shares in a company which builds the bridge and charges tolls on it. Those not wanting to put money up to build the bridge will pay for it if they use it.
Whichever way it's done, it's really all the same from an economic point of view in the effect on wealth creation. The difference is in the efficiency of it and the freedom of individuals to choose whether to invest in such a bridge. Therein lies the big difference. My argument is that governments invariably are wasteful, inefficient, extravagant. Investors are much more interested in getting more bang for their buck because they have to earn it. They don't build the bridge to some politician's house.
Now consider military services. Compare hiring military services with the government owning the services directly. Already, the governments don't own their own aircraft design and production, or missile manufacture. They contract with some company to produce the goods. Similarly, the government could take that process further and hire security companies to enforce road safety laws, keep smugglers at bay, protect the country's property and hunt down Osama. Or, the electorate could get a tax deduction if they hire their own security services.
The government's functions could be reduced to passing laws. The actual security operations, customs collections and protection, bridges and everything else could be part of the normal economic system. The actual functions wouldn't change, just the paperwork of ownership and the cash flow directions.
If a bridge is privately owned, it doesn't produce any more value than if it's government-owned. Similarly with security services. In either instance, the government is producing wealth and value as surely as the privately owned versions.
So you see, governments DO produce wealth. I argue that security, of both types, military and police, are the most fundamental wealth creators, followed soon after by a means of exchange and so on. The most basic wealth creating functions in communities are provided by governments.
My experience is that governments and electorates go overboard and they are horribly inefficient producers, with boondoggles, feather-bedding, pollution, waste, bullying, and of course, high prices.
Hence my support for libertarianz.org.nz and act.org.nz which are rabidly right wing parties in the NZ context. That's in the current labeling system, though Act is considering a name change to Liberal, as in Enlightenment liberal, meaning freedom, self-determination, little government, capitalism, private enterprise. It's an oddity of labeling that Liberal in the USA means big government etc....
I'm with you on your second quote:
< "During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.">
That's why I'm so keen on a Libertarian version of a reconstituted New United Nations [NUN]. Until we get some sort of common rule, we'll have fractious, self-serving behaviour of dog eat dog, in which even big dogs, get their Twin Towers destroyed and have to spend a fortune on maintaining huge military services.
The USA has more to gain by getting such a NUN going than impoverished places with little to lose. That's because, as in places like NZ or the USA, the wealthy have more reason to maintain civilization than those with nothing because they have more to lose. The wealthy need airports, roads, and all mod cons, security and order. The poor need some of those services too, but I'm happy to pay more than those with no disposable income to maintain higher standards than the poor might find worthwhile.
If Iraq was a bustling economic metropolis, exporting lots of oil and buying lots of CDMA2000 and educating millions of people to join the wealth-creating world instead of the world of mere survival, with luck, then the USA would be a lot better off. Which is of course why the USA is there, plus of course to secure oil supplies and reduce the risk of terrorist activities against the USA. Plus of course because GeorgeW doesn't like Saddam who allegedly had a go at his father and wife so it's payback time. Plus of course the USA has the wonky ideas in the Project for a New American Century [admittedly I haven't read it, so I'm guessing a bit there].
But as the USA is finding, it's problematic stomping around the world sorting out all the rotten little states. It's like whacking a tar baby. The initial whack feels good and seems to get results, but then the stickiness causes problems. Better to get the common purpose of a NUN so that civilization spreads world-wide, depending on how many countries want to sign up, which almost all of them would want to if it was Libertarian enough and wasn't a 1984 Big Brother ogre.
Mqurice
PS: Human life isn't nasty, brutish and short. Most people these days, in the somewhat civilized world, live well past their 3 score and 10 years. Many live until their telomeres are used up. Most people don't live brutish lives in the civilized world. The live very amazing lives compared with only 100 years ago. Even the poorest live good lives. Poverty in NZ means you can't afford Sky TV. Neither is life nasty, though there's a lot of whining about traffic jams in Auckland. For half the world though, life is still relatively arduous. There's a way out. The USA could lead the way and the rest would follow like sheep. The USA would benefit hugely. |
