Is Big Government really Bad?

Great Debates
1

I have seen numerous posts showing many people either don’t trust, or outright fear big government. I understand the historical reasons why many Americans do not trust government, but why is Big government seen as evil?

I have always seen that a governments primary duty should be to the betterment of its people. I know that is not the case in many non democratic nations but in a democracy why do so many people want to trust the private sector to look after the needs of the populous (ie Medicare versus Medicaid)?

More importantly what is the governments job if it’s not that?

2

Speaking as an anti-centrist, non-liberal, market-loving freedom-loving anarchist cum libertarian, all I can say is that I do not like the amount of power that another organization can have over me.

I also feel that economic power is not as detrimental as raw physical power, and that the threat to fire people unfairly isn’t as bad as having a gun pointed at your head; and in fact, that those two means of farce are not comparable at all.

I do not put any inherent trust in the market; I simply feel that the market’s shortcomings are generally easier to live with that a government capable of incredible domination.

3

kp: *I know that is not the case in many non democratic nations but in a democracy why do so many people want to trust the private sector to look after the needs of the populous (ie Medicare versus Medicaid)?

More importantly what is the governments job if it’s not that? *

First of all king, just a nitpick: Medicare and Medicaid are both government health-care programs, one for the elderly as a whole and one for people, especially children and mothers, below a certain income level. AFAIK there’s no public-versus-private tension there.

In response to your general question, I think there are a lot of factors involved.

  • Many people genuinely subscribe to the conservative/libertarian viewpoint that there should be as little government as possible, and it should be as local as possible. This raises the issue of what should be done about issues that small and/or local government can’t handle very well, so even most of the people in this category grudgingly accept that government has to have some “big” features (e.g., for national defense, revenue collection, law enforcement, etc.). They figure that the “betterment of the people” is best pursued primarily as an individual and/or local endeavor, so they object to most governmental attempts to do so on a “big” scale.

  • Many people (although I hope and trust they’re far fewer than the first group) believe that the private sector is automatically and always more efficient and responsive to all problems than the public sector. These people are usually a lot less amenable to reason than those in the first group, despite all that folks like jshore and Collounsbury and I can say about negative externalities and inefficiencies in the private sector and etc. etc. etc. :slight_smile: For them, the belief that the government cannot do anything right (and/or that markets cannot do anything suboptimal) is ultimately a matter of faith rather than fact. I don’t know how much of this is just lack of information, how much is lingering prejudice from events such as Watergate, Vietnam, and the '70s oil crises, and how much is susceptibility to PR from parts of the private sector that benefit financially from diminishing the scope and size of government. In any case, they look at pretty much any question with the preconception that “Government” = “Bad”, no matter what the facts indicate. Naturally, for these people the question of whether you should trust the private rather than the public sector to look after the public welfare on any particular issue can have only one answer.

  • I think there’s also an even smaller group that questions the wisdom of the whole concept of “looking after the needs of the populace.” They seem to subscribe to a “less social” model of a good society: i.e., the “populace” has no right to expect its “needs” to be “looked after” and is in fact exerting a de facto tyranny by even assuming the existence of such needs. For these people, big government can’t be anything but a tyranny of the majority over the minority, however “well-intentioned” its aims may be for society as a whole. The whole point, according to them, is that there isn’t really any “society as a whole”, so there is no justification for restraining or regulating the individual in order to serve its benefit.

Personally, although I have some sympathy for the views in categories (1) and (3), I basically agree with you: there is a “populace” whose “needs”, at least in the statistical aggregate, can be looked after, and that is a central responsibility of us individual members of the populace and therefore of our elected and appointed representatives—i.e., the government. Sometimes the best way to undertake this is via public enterprises on a large scale: voila, Big Government.

4

{b]Kimstu**, your thread is enormously broad. Big government has the power to do many things that you probably disapprove of, e.g.

– Ban all abortions
– Prohibit the use of birth control
– Death penalty for all felonies
– Draft every 18-year old and require 7 years of military service
– Decide which books get published

But, it doesn’t sound like you want to get into all these aspects. It looks to me as if you’re particularly focused on the pro’s and con’s of transfer payments. Is that what you really would like to debate?

5

As a Canadian I’m used to bigger Government involvement through the social net. having the government look after the people from cradel to grave is expensive but worthwhile.

I realize that Big government can lead to rampant cronyism and the possibility of laws that may not be in the best interest of the people just because the can. But As a democracy I have found that aside from a few taxation issues (GST) the government has behaved in the best interest of the voters and because it is a democracy will do their best not to lose their seat through improper legislation.

6

december: It looks to me as if you’re particularly focused on the pro’s and con’s of transfer payments. Is that what you really would like to debate?

It ain’t my thread: ask kingpengvin. It seemed to me that he was asking, not about the specifics of what Big Government ought or ought not to be doing, but what people’s motives are for outright fearing its existence or perceiving it as intrinsically evil. That’s not the same thing as simply being critical of its failings: most of us can intelligently criticize the failings of any given institution without necessarily concluding that it has an evil nature. It seems to me that the motives for decrying Big Government as actually evil fall under two headings: fundamental ideological disagreement about the purpose of government (categories one and three in my earlier post), and mere ignorant prejudice (category two). Those seem like pretty non-controversial conclusions to me, but if you want to debate any particular points of them I’m happy to oblige you. And of course, you can offer whatever other observations on the OP or subsequent responses that you want to.

7

I had written the world’s best post, but my computer crashed, so y’all get only the vague recollection of the glory that was my lost post.

king, at root government is a monopoly on legal compulsion. No moral judgment there; that’s just what it is. The question, which has both moral and practical components, is how should that monopoly be used?
Should it be used:
only for those functions that must be performed and that only the government can achieve (penal system, defense, etc)?;
for public goods (however defined) that only the government may achieve, but which are not fundamentally necessary to the proper functioning of society (welfare, etc.)?;
for public goods that can be achieved through private action, but may not be achieved in an equitable manner (Medicare, Tennesee Valley Authority)?;
to compel conduct that is “good” for citizens (mandatory seat belt laws) and/or prohibit conduct that is “bad” for citizens (criminalization of drugs)?;
or some combination of the above?

A secondary consideration is when it is determined that the government should perform certain actions, should it do it itself (welfare), or simply provide the funds (Medicare)?

I’m sure, as this debate goes on, Kimstu and I will disagree wildly on where the line should be drawn, but to start things out, I agree wholeheartedly that negative externalities and private sector inefficiencies are important considerations.

Sua

8

I’ll make you a deal, Kimstu. You don’t attack without knowledge as stupid my motives for supporting massive privitization of functions now handled by the State, and I won’t attack without knowledge as racist your motives for favoring more trade controls between the U.S. and third world than between California and Mississippi. Is that fair?

The simple fact is that the private sector is almost always more efficient at providing services than the State, if for no other reason that it’s easier to change one’s health care provider or garbage collector than to change one’s government.

Where reasonable people might disagree is the amount of regulatory or other oversight which is appropriate for the State to exercise over those private enterprises engaged in what some might think of as “government” functions.

But there’s a reason why the government doesn’t make it’s own airplanes, why garbage collection costs come down (and environmental compliance goes way up when bid out to private collectors, and why the Post Office just hired Fedex to move a bunch of their mail.

Additionally, I belive that (for example) our country’s food supply would be much safer if the inspection regime were privatized on a model resembling the current private model for financial accounting of publicly held corporations. That’s just one example off the top of my head where I believe that the government’s insistence on keeping all power to itself is actually killing people.

So please kindly keep that “ignorant prejudice” garbage to yourself. Thank you.

9

manhattan: *I’ll make you a deal, Kimstu. You don’t attack without knowledge as stupid my motives for supporting massive privitization of functions now handled by the State, and I won’t attack without knowledge as racist your motives for favoring more trade controls between the U.S. and third world than between California and Mississippi. Is that fair?

The simple fact is that the private sector is almost always more efficient at providing services than the State, if for no other reason that it’s easier to change one’s health care provider or garbage collector than to change one’s government. *

Touchy, touchy, touchy. You’ll notice that what I was actually complaining about was the willingness of some people to think that the private sector is “automatically and always more efficient and responsive to all problems” than the public sector. I’m actually pretty comfortable with the claim that the private sector is usually better at providing particular services, such as trash collection, which are widely recognized as things that need to be done and that somebody can make some money doing. (Given the much higher administrative overhead and lack-of-coverage rates in American medicine compared to most socialized plans, though, I’m not sure I agree with you that health insurance is really one of those services that showcase the advantages of the private sector. But that’s a detail.)

However, there are numerous basic social problems (e.g., pollution) which aren’t financially profitable to address, and which therefore do not get effectively addressed by the private sector without some nudging from government. It’s the people who ignore that whole class of issues, in order to cling to the slogan that government is just a useless excrescence, who seem ignorantly prejudiced to me.

Okay? Friends again? I think you were a little quick to assume that when I disparaged some people’s ignorant contempt for the entire existence of the public sector, I must have been referring to particular views (in particular, your particular views) on the benefits of privatization of certain government functions. I wasn’t. I probably don’t agree with most of your opinions on that subject, but I was not calling you ignorantly prejudiced.

So please kindly keep that “ignorant prejudice” garbage to yourself. Thank you.

Sorry, bud; if the shoe doesn’t fit you, you don’t have to wear it. But ignorant prejudice is indeed one of the motives many people have for disparaging the very concept of Big Government, and I do not apologize for pointing that out.

10

Americans don’t think big government is bad. Just look at the last 20 years. Even Reagan and Bush expanded government. Remember when they wanted to take away the Department of Education? Now we have a Republican president and he wants to keep it. Why? Americans LIKE the DoE, or at least the vast majority do. The Republicans learned that most Americans like government when they shut it down in December 1995. So you can bellyache about government all you want, but you’re never going to contract it.

11

Inefficiency is the divorce of an institution from its purpose. If you were to argue that the purpose of the health care industry is to ensure that the populace’s health is cared for, not an unreasonable proposal in my view, the result would be that the American private health care system (which leaves huge numbers of people without any health coverage at all) is much more inefficient than the Canadian public health care system (in which everyone is covered).

12

But the purpose of the health care industry is to make profits for the shareholders.

Sua

13

Thr Founding Fathers wrote the Bill of Rights to prevent the government from taking away what they considered God-given liberties. That is, man has rights naturally; at best, the government will take away only a limited amount of the people’s rights. For them
Limited Government = Retention of liberties.

Today, most liberals seem to simultaneously support bigger government and civil liberties. They don’t see these as opposites. How did our POV change? When and how did the populace come to believe that government could give us rights and liberties?

I’m no historian, but one point that strikes me is the change in the meaning of “rights.” If one considers money to be a right, then the government can indeed give us money. (More precisely, it can give some of us the money that it extracts from the rest of us.) Similarly the government can give (some of) us things that cost money – college education, medical care, tranportation, housing, etc.

Suppose one focused on those paying the bill, rather than those receiving the benefit. Then, we’d say, “The government takes medicare from us,” rather than, “The government gives medicare to us.” Hmmm…

– The government takes welfare from us.
– The government takes college education from us.
– The government takes public housing from us.
– The government takes farm price supports from us.

Sounds funny, doesn’t it?

14

Kimstu, I’ll accept your amplification with my thanks. There didn’t seem to be room for me in your original list (well, I’m also category one, but you knew that). I do believe that the private sector is almost always more efficient and responsive to substantially all problems. I think that one of the things that is most wonderful about the private sector is the ability to fire the bastards who do a poor job (which puts me to the left of most Republicans on anti-trust issues, as it happens).

Matt, rather than start yet another health care thread, I’ll ask a General Question. I know that in Canada the payment amounts and methods are socialized, and that the rules regarding who gets what care are so tight as to be essentially socialized, but what about the provision of care itself? Is a doctor in Canada an employee of the State? What about the labs that do tests – state owned or private contractors? If one is PO’d at one’s doctor, can one make a change without State approval? I’ll freely admit to a lot of ignorance on the specifics of how the whole thing works up there.

15

december: *Today, most liberals seem to simultaneously support bigger government and civil liberties. They don’t see these as opposites. How did our POV change? When and how did the populace come to believe that government could give us rights and liberties? *

I think you’ve got a logical flaw here. To support both individual rights and expanded government activity is not the same thing as to assume that government activity is the source of rights. And in fact, I don’t know any liberal who does believe that (well, most of us would probably agree that rights have their fundamental origin in social constructs, but that doesn’t mean that “the government gives us rights”). Rather, it simply implies that one believes that the government can expand its role without actually infringing individual rights.

16

I would argue that the class of problems to which you refer here could be left to the private sector, and that the problem isn’t so much that they “aren’t financially profitable to address.” It’s that they aren’t financially profitable right now, mainly because we don’t make it sufficiently financially unprofitable for companies to engage in them. If, to use your example, companies responsible for pollution were hit with heavy fines and not allowed to deal them away or shift the costs, it might be a different story.

17

I would say, necessary evil. It is seen that way for the same “historical reasons why many Americans do not trust government”, as you put it.

I strenuously disagree with this, as do others who feel as I do about government. I believe the government exists to protect our liberties. The “betterment of its people” should be left to the people.

Let me answer your question with a question. Why would you want to trust the government to look after the needs of the populous?

You cannot claim efficiency merely by saying that everyone is covered, ie that they have an entitlement granted to them by the state. You also have to show that everyone is actually getting that to which they are supposed to be entitled. I would very much like to se someone try to demonstrate this in regard to the Canadian health care system.

18

There’s a key difference.

The founding fathers believed that rights come from God and that rights must be protected from government – the one institution that can take rights away from us. Since (in their view) government, by its nature, reduces individual liberty, it seems logical that a big government will tend to reduce liberty more than a small one.

As for my logical flaw, you have a point in pure logic. Nevertheless, it seems to me that many citizens DO believe that bigger government can give them more freedom.

19

pld: […]we don’t make it sufficiently financially unprofitable for companies to engage in them. If, to use your example, companies responsible for pollution were hit with heavy fines and not allowed to deal them away or shift the costs, it might be a different story.

Emphasis added. I think your point is a reasonable one, but what struck me most about your post was the “invisible hand of the public sector” showing up in your remarks. First you say that this class of problems “could be left to the private sector”, and then go on to add the condition, “if we did certain things so that companies were hit with penalties,” etc. But who’s that “we” who’s supposed to do the “hitting”? Why, the good old public sector, of course!

I agree that the actual mechanisms for solving the problem need not all be applied by Big Gummint, and in fact private companies will probably come up with more and better solutions faster to specific technical problems. But the fact remains that the problem won’t even be addressed in the first place unless Big Gummint gets out its stick.

december: Nevertheless, it seems to me that many citizens DO believe that bigger government can give them more freedom.

Well, I think many believe (and not without reason) that bigger government can do more to defend their freedoms, e.g., to protect them against rights-infringing employers, etc. etc. Many also find that advantages they get from government activities can give them more actual ability to exercise their freedoms.

20

Well…I believe there’s a counter example for that. Part of the food sanitary controls were privatized in the UK during Thatcher’s era. It seems that during the mad cow crisis, some of the companies involved were deliberatly lenient or closed their eyes in order not to lose their share of the “market” (the meat producers would pick another laboratory if they were too strict).

I understand they can be held responsible in such a situation, but there’s only as much money they can pay as damages (their capital). Also, what good it is to know that the company and its directors have been condemned when you have caught some dreadful disease?

I tend to assume that a governmental agency is way less dependant of the opinion/financial interests of the companies it’s supposed to control and for that reason is more reliable.