This essay was inspired by C J Hopkins- an author on Substack who is convinced the Trump Presidency will be more of the same. As with most of my essays, it began as a comment.
It's an interesting take, but not necessarily an accurate one. You ascribe conscious will to a thing that is actually a beast, which a relatively tiny percentage of the world's population have managed to harness. Most world leaders have long since bought into the system, wittingly on unwittingly. The key is understanding the system is to recognise that it's closer to system of aligned interests working in concert, or to quote the late great George Carlin "You don’t need a formal conspiracy when interests converge. These people went to the same universities and fraternities, they’re on the same boards of directors, they’re on the same country clubs, they have like interests. They don’t need to call a meeting. They know what’s good for them, and they’re getting it."
At the same, it is important to recognise the nature of the beast. In a word it’s the sheer scale of any organisation. Small groups of humans can exist working harmoniously and towards humanistic goals which generally involve their mutual flourishing. Large groups of humans cannot. It really is that simple- we cannot simultaneously do big and retain our humanity. It is an implicit aspect of our nature as human beings that large enterprises and institutions are incapable of functioning without organising ourselves into hierarchies. Otherwise, chaos reigns- it’s as inevitable as gravity.
This in turn allows for the degrees of separation between boss and worker which is inherently dehumanising and disempowering. Workers are reduced to names and numbers on a spreadsheet. This invites a cruel calculus on the part of bosses, as profits, losses, and the need for changes required for continued corporate existence are reduced to numbers, rather than people. Worse still, workers are reduced to a position of simply being drones, with no agency whatsoever over whether or not the enterprise thrives. They are rendered powerless over a significant portion of their daily lives, reduced to passengers in their own life’s outward facing major work. And we know this is true, because it is reflected not only in our own past experiences, but is backed up the survey data. 75% to 80% of employees who work for small businesses are either very or extremely happy with their workplace. Who else is happy? Nobody, or at least only the select few who are invited to give advice and possess at least some influence over the key decision makers.
Government is no better. It not only almost always to regulate the beast, but by the very fact that scale is the enemy, the dragon we need to slay, government not only cannot harness the beast, it is the beast- just marketed in another form, which plays upon our natural human sympathies to want to help people. I’ve been privileged in my discourses to speak to at one of the intellectual dacha dwelling class of a satellite of the former Soviet Empire, who speaks fondly of the past and has also witnessed the rape of his own country by vested interest crony capitalism, so poorly regulated as to be unregulated. I have a good deal of sympathy for his position, as well as those who envisage an alternative to our current system with its insatiable drive towards dehumanisation and disempowerment.
I understand. I really do. I argue for capitalism purely on the basis of epistemic rationality. I don’t like it. I despise it for the way it treats ordinary people and makes them feel as though they are simply screaming into a gale, like the famous work by Edvard Munch. I only argue for capitalism because it happens to provide more materially, whilst also allowing for a minority of the population to strike out on their own legally, out from the heel of the corporate jackboot.
But when you and other intellectuals with less direct experience of the world which they envisage speak fondly in terms of people working cooperatively to grow their own vegetables, do you not spot the obvious flaw? It means the sum of an entire society’s endeavours is not sufficient to feed it’s own people. Capitalism at least affords ordinary people the luxury of the opposite problem- obesity! I can understand the temptation. Our Western system robs us of our agency if we are unlucky enough to find ourselves either corporate drone or governmental apparatchik, but in your pursuit of a little agency for yourselves in pointing to nicely polished examples of abject societal failure, don’t confuse your yearning for the elevated agency of the intelligentsia and academic under communism for any sort of dignity for the proletariat living under state edict and forced to grow their food to edge a little above subsistence.
It’s not a material problem we are faced with, it’s a spiritual one. It’s why politics has become a popular pastime for so many, where once policy geekery was seen as boring and uncool- or a profession for those on the make. We yearn agency over the world around us, even as more agency is stripped away from us in our very personal professional lives. We seek out politics because it offers the false lie of agency returned, whilst also offering the nascent authoritarianism of teaching the other side a lesson, once our side gains power. We will win, and we will prove we were right all along- and rub their noses in it! Of course, it never works out that way, but it felt good while we were doing it, even if it was a very shallow and unsatisfying victory, short-lived, before we start casting around for excuses as to why our ideas didn’t work.
Some have called it a God-shaped hole. Others like Charles Murray in his book Coming Apart, have suggested we should find renewed meaning in family, friends and community. That is certainly good advice and most certainly not enough. In the mid-2000s the number of Americans employed by large enterprises or government flipped, so that for the first time in America’s history workers for the beast, outnumbered those employed by small and medium-sized enterprises,- the dwindling number of endeavours and human social working environments fit for the human soul. That’s a tragedy in human terms. It meant more Americans were employed in roles which by the very nature of the only way the system can function, strips them of their dignity, their agency and any autonomy whatsoever over their working existence. Here in Western Europe, this bleak milestone was probably passed even earlier.
It’s not that simple. Government is necessary, even if many of us despise it. But it’s not a career to which we should teach our children to aspire. Government is not a place to which optimistic young people should come together to change the world, it’s a place where grumpy old veterans of life should meet because they have no other choice, because to do otherwise would be to invite the whole caboodle to fall apart. We need wisdom, not technocratic intelligence to solve our societies problems, for only wise men and women can recognise that the problem which afflicts is not one of political ideology or the best solution in any given scenario, it’s about our human nature and the types of working situations are good for our souls.
And, of course, as one of my readers pointed out to me in a previous essay in a similar vein, our societies simply wouldn’t function without a plethora of large scale organisations, neither would it allow us the cheap consumer goods the lack of which would doubtless invite personal dismay at our own stupid choices. Be careful what you wish for. But we can at least recognise the flaws of the large organisations we’ve to which we’ve inexorably enslaved ourselves, and do our best to mitigate them to be at least tolerable. I could babble on about different management styles- autocratic, inclusive and democratic- and opine that inclusive is best, arguing that it doesn’t cost anything to ask a worker the best way to arrange a shelf, when you know damn well 9 times out 10 it’s going to be close to what you would have chosen.
Instead, I will talk about something more essential. Almost all large organisations deliberately gather and hoard authority to the top. This is fine and to be desired when it comes to business or institutional success over strategy, but is it really necessary to hoard this authority when it comes to day-to-day minutiae, especially when it extends to the governing of human interactions? At the same time, it’s in the nature of competitive success to want to push as much responsibly down to subordinates as their competency will allow. The problem comes when this extends to the subordinates of subordinates and the twin goals of authority and delegated responsibility collide. According to old Whitehall study of civil servants from the UK, it’s not the people who work senior roles doing demanding high pressure who are at the highest risk of suffering from life-changing work-related medical conditions, it’s the junior and subordinate workers who weighted down with responsibility, but are given insufficient authority to accomplish the goals they are set. We should at least try to avoid creating situations and roles in the workplace which stalk the hallways of office buildings like invisible killers.
So what is the solution? First, recognising that the system which we’ve created inherently stacks the deck in favour of corporations and institutions which operate at scale. Like the false dichotomy of choosing between whether government is the problem or the solution, or whether one wants a Nordic Model State or a Free Enterprise state (the latter of which at least some of the Nordic states actually are, once one cuts through the ideological bullshit), we have to recognise that the difference between a dystopian landscape of Corporate Behemoths and Bureaucratic Leviathan really is all about the regulation. It’s about how you referee.
America is singular in that it simultaneously has by far the most expensive and over-bloated regulatory state in the world on a per capita, per population and compliance cost basis, it has one of the least successful regulatory systems in terms of basic safety (things allowed which shouldn’t be present in cereal, baby food and even an allowance for rat shit in turmeric (Europe doesn’t allow any)), and finally it creates maximal disadvantage and regulatory barriers to the very people one would want taking on the corporate giants and punish them for failing to fulfil market needs- the little guys. It’s a testament to the unconquerable nature of the American spirit that at the same time as your regulatory system manages to combine the worst of all worlds, you Americans still manage to be so successful. It’s only the fact that you guys have a unique gift for both innovating and monetising, which has prevented you from going the way of the British Empire (here in the UK, we can do the innovation, but we’re terrible at monetising). It didn’t even occur to the guy who invented Raspberry Pi that he might actually make money at his venture- he just wanted to raise the calibre of his computing students in academia, and thought inventing something which would appeal to young hobbyists might attract talented kids back into the field.
So Elon Musk and RFK have a mammoth task ahead of them- how to dismantle large parts of the regulatory state, whilst also finally providing consumer safety protections along the way. I just hope they realise between them that they’ve also been given a reset button which could lead to an infinitely better world than the worst of the corporate or governmental, communist or capitalist monstrosities have to offer- one in which more people can find their feet in commerce not beholden to the corporate giants or the apparatchik machine. Organic foods is not what we need. It’s organic working environments we crave, ideally working in groups no larger than 150- freed from the mechanistic and dehumanising conditions which are a feature and not a bug of any large organisation.
Please Elon Musk. Please Vivek Ramaswamy. Please RFK, Trump et al. Talk to the little guys and get the crony hands off the scales. Find out how to regulate so the little guy is dealt back in the game. Barring a few exceptions, it’s the only way the vast majority of the human population will ever work in conditions fit for the human soul.
“It’s a testament to the unconquerable nature of the American spirit that at the same time as your regulatory system manages to combine the worst of all worlds, you Americans still manage to be so successful.”
Ha! We may be a pack of illiterate, uncivilized, unreconstructed savages but we do seem to have a knack for that. Was it Bismarck who said God smiles on fools, drunks, and the United States of America? I imagine some European must ask themselves, “How is it exactly that this unsophisticated rabble manages to make every mistake in the book and still come out on top? After all these years?”
I’ve long been a fan of a series of games called Total War. I used to love table top military re-enactments as a kid. The planners of the Empire edition of the game had obviously read de Tocqueville. As one invested in the civic/social tech tree, the population became more difficult to manage. I’m also a big fan of Henry David Thoreau, as was Gandhi.
One can never find it on Google, but Gandhi apparently once said ‘Insofar as they (the British) were the least government, they were the best government’.
I wonder if Gandhi actually said that or if it’s apocryphal. Jefferson said “that government is best which governs least.” But neither Gandhi nor Jefferson were libertarians. Gandhi did say that the reason his nonviolent tactics would work against the British empire was that the British were an enlightened people and the Empire was largely benign (as opposed to Hitler).
Shit, I knew it sounded more like Jefferson, but went against my instinct. Gandhi was somewhat libertarian, but one of those classical British liberals who made concessions for social welfare. The phrase slippery slope comes to mind. He was for limited government, civil liberties, economic self-sufficiency, free markets and he was deeply distrustful of impersonal state structures. The problem is how did he imagine social welfare would be dispensed, without creating leviathan?
Nehru was the complete opposite (up to and including a centrally planned economy. copying the Soviets to the extent that he actually launched 'five year plans')- with predictable results - India didn't start to reverse its desperate poverty until it embraced free market capitalism in 1991, the same year that Sweden drastically changed course over a stagnant socialist economy. They only really aligned on social welfare. It's ironic that the spiritual father and midwife of a nation actually took little part in influencings its immediate course. Maybe he thought involving himself in the fray of pragmatic governing politics would taint his legacy. He was probably right, although India obviously paid the price for his lack of involvement.
> I only argue for capitalism because it happens to provide more materially
Or used to. Real standards of living for working people have been dropping for decades. There's a category trap here. We describe both Elon and the Banksters on Wall St. as capitalists. IMHO they should have different labels because they do very different things. Elon creates. The banksters manipulate.
> But it’s not a career to which we should teach our children to aspire.
Not as we know government today, but there's something of self-fulfillment there. Supposing the best and the brightest did aspire to government -- think Plato. Supposing the government was the most efficient, intelligent, nimble and honest component of society. They say that when the Nordics were building the prosperous societies they are known for, that their biggish governments were such -- trusted by one and all and deservedly so. Righties say that the government ruins everything they touch. True, but then again, instead of confirming your sentiment by making sure that it is so, why not fix it? If you say it can't be done, then you surely won't try. I say give it a go.
> It’s a testament to the unconquerable nature of the American spirit that at the same time as your regulatory system manages to combine the worst of all worlds, you Americans still manage to be so successful.
Ha! Ain't it the truth?
Nice essay Geary.
They say that much of the success of the German economy was not the product of their big, visible corporations, but due to the fact that so much of German industry consists of medium sized, family owned businesses where the human spirit continued to exist. I saw a documentary on that once. I remember an interview with z' fuhrer of a company that made the teeth for tunnel boring machines. He was asked why he still manufactured in Germany when somewhere in the 3d world would be more profitable. He responded angrily: "Unt how vil z' young people in z' Vaterland build prosperous lives for zem selves if I do zat?!" ... not the sort of thinking you get at GM headquarters.
The issue is Ray, that a large portion of the problems that we in the UK and Canada ascribe to capitalism actually stem from bad government. For example, did you know that 60% of the costs of housing in Canada relate to regulatory costs? Banking and finance is the particular problem in relation to capitalism. It produces weird incentives structures and it's not at all healthy for any single sector of the economy to have more lobbying power than every other part of the private sector economy combined.
Germany is deep trouble at the moment because of renewables. By 2025, they will have invested $580 billion in energy which is ten times as polluting as that of the French, and twice as expensive. 30% of German manufacturing firms are thinking about offshoring specifically because of energy prices. The UK is in a position which is almost as bad, for the same reasons. Both we and the Germans are heavily reliant upon energy imports. I once spent nearly an hour trying to wrestle how much energy Germany was importing, from Chat Gpt 4.0. The information we get from search results is now incredibly heavily curated. I use the Brave browser as a backup for anything slightly controversial, when I think Google might hide things from me. I could only get the answer for German energy imports by asking for negative exports.
> For example, did you know that 60% of the costs of housing in Canada relate to regulatory costs?
I've heard that. I saw something once, Maher it might have been, he claimed that it took five or ten years of bureaucracy and God knows how much money to get a permit to build a house in San Francisco. It is (again) the nature of the governmental beast to parasitize the economy. It's not either or, it's both. There's a sort of evil synergy between corrupt, bloated government and greedy, amoral capital. You know what happened at Boeing of course. Or Big Parma. Or in '08: 'too big to fail so we hafta bail'.
> because of renewables
If there's one place on the planet besides Singapore that you expect to be competently governed it's Germany. It is mystifying how they could be so stupid. Seems Angela thought that she'd have her cheap gas forever. God knows. And the hand waving French just quietly do the sensible thing. Acht!
I should check out that Brave. I use DuckDuckGo, but it seems to give almost identical results to Google -- the new Heart of Darkness.
Maher had huge problems and bureaucracy just for wanting a shed with solar panels on it.
Brave is good- and easy to install- it copies all your passwords from Google, which removes one of the major reasons why people don't want to use it. It's not as good as Google for most things- just politics, culture, controversial areas of science, climate change, etc. I but shit with Google or Amazon, and do a fair amount of research with Brave.
... but as you say, rather than looking at this bad person or that bad person, we should acknowledge the nature of the beast. A good farmer handles each of his animals according to its nature. Government is necessary, but it is the nature of the beast to become bloated, slow and stupid. It is the nature of big corporations to be heartless, greedy and, eventually, to become as bloated and stupid as any government.
The other thing to bear mind is that government is also terrible at regulating when it's really needed. There is new type of capitalism in the air (well, it's not new, but it's becoming hugely more prevalent). Investors buy up a company, leverage it to the hilt with debt they have no intention of paying, and then pay themselves from the money they've borrowed. It's wicked.
Yes. I think back to the movie "Wall St." Carnegie or Westinghouse or Ford or any of the 'real' entrepreneurial capitalists would spit on those red suspender boys. Makes me go full on Leninist -- for a few minutes anyway -- I'd smile watching those criminals swing. And didn't Uncle Karl prophesy that capitalism must eventually degenerate like that?
I have this fantasy where I'm Obama and it's that meeting he had in the Oval Office with all the Banksters in '08, but here's how it goes: "Gentlemen, you will all sign this paper handing all the stock in your institutions over to the government. Any institution bailed out by the people will be owned by the people
... No?
... Sergeant, would you please escort these gentlemen off the Whitehouse grounds? I understand there are some citizens outside who have lost everything they owned and they are looking forward to expressing their ... disappointment ... to these gentlemen in an up close and personal way. Oh, and before you open the gate, please advise the citizens exactly who these gentlemen are and please ask all security staff to stand by and not interfere whatever happens next. Good day gent ...
... Ah! That's better!
... Hmmm, what's that smell? Sergeant, belay that last order, now, would you please ask the cleaning lady to come here with her floor cleaning equipment? The carpet seems to have become soiled somehow."
119 of core intigating rioters on Jan 6th were found to have lost businesses or homes because of 2008. Obviously, they a were a little more invested in Trump than was psychologically healthy- but for good reason. They bailed out the banks, but not the citizens.
A very nice and informative post. Whilst Big Ag is indeed a major offender it is unwise to regard the small operator as blameless. Of course there are excellent and pristine operators on a small level but the pressures are actually greater the less you farm. Costs do not reduce the smaller you are, in fact, relatively speaking they are more onerous. Thus the pressure to cut corners and take risks is greater. One needs to avoid the impression that the little guy is necessarily better. It can be so but is not always the case. Often because they are big, the large operators are actually better (they can afford to ave complaints procedures and rules in place to protect the consumer or service user).
Well, that's not a problem here in the UK, because we have track & trace. Every ingredient in every kitchen can be traced back to its farm of origin. This is an example of good regulation. Our Environmental Health (distinct from the Environment Agency or MAFF) deals specifically with food and drink safety. They really are exceptional. Recently, they've become focused on counterfeit goods, in particular alcohol and make-up. You're probably aware that it's become increasingly common for teenage girls and thirtysomething blokes to be hospitalised for counterfeit alcohol or make-up which scars skin.
My brother is chef. Before he moved to Sweden, he dealt with them regularly. They are highly cooperative. They take a best practice approach, explaining to catering staff the need to write date opened or date prepared labelling on refrigerated goods for example. They rely heavily on the accreditation process. Most chefs in the UK have attended catering courses at local further education colleges. For those who are self-taught, they usually recommend that the chef attend the food safety components of catering course, but it's not an immediate requirement. They understand that restaurant kitchens can often be thrown into chaos by staff quitting on short notice.
Many of my concerns about regulation in farming don't relate to food safety or pollution/pesticides. Those would be genuine concerns which do require some regulation. My concerns relate to when government oversteps the line by trying to manage biodiversity on farms, or makes up insane regulations like cows can't drink from natural water sources. By all means, insist upon occasional spot checks for water sources, but don't tell farmers they have to buy water from the water company, or install water pumps to draw from natural water, so the cows can drink from a trough.
One of the more insane aspects of the American regulatory system is the cleaning required for eggs. This strips the cuticle, ensuring the egg doesn't stay fresh as long. It's also one of the reasons why European eggs taste so much better. Yes, the lighter washing process in Europe means that one occasionally gets a few small feathers stuck to a shell or a light smudge of chick crap, but it's a lot healthier, because if it tastes that much better, the preserved freshness is probably better for you.
There are also negative second order consequences to the American approach. The European system means problems related to eggs in the food system get picked up much quicker. Salmonella is a far more common problem in America, one the industry tries to solve by pumping antibiotics into poultry to the point that it's probably bad for consumers (wiping out the bodies natural bacteria production).
Even an AI will tell you that testing is stricter in Europe, but a deeper dive asking shows that testing in the Netherlands costs €0.01–€0.02 per egg, compared to $0.20 to $0.50 in the US (although the American system relies on sampling). All because the FDA insists upon the industrially harsh washing of eggs which strips away the cuticles.
The thing is, if you allow safety signals to get out faster, you can respond more quickly. As I mentioned in the previous post, a lot of contamination of poultry comes from large concerns shifting birds from A to B.
I hypothesize about a kind of bureaucracy in which something like this could happen:
Secretary: "Yes, Mr. Johansen? It's John Smith, Secretary of Ag. here, in the US. how are you sir? I read your article on chicken eggs and I think you might be onto something. I'd like to cut you a cheque for $5,000 and get you to do some really credible research on that, write me a paper, and present it to my people ASAP. If what you say makes as much sense as I think it does, we'll solicit any counter argument we can find, evaluate that, and implement changes with a week of our decision. Stand by for better eggs here in the US within a month or two. BTW, how would you like to work for me? ..."
Anecdote: Here in BC we were for a long time ruled by a very competent but eventually corrupt party called Social Credit. Eventually our socialists overthrew them and the new premier was a guy named Barrett. But tho a socialist, he expected his bureaucrats to hop to it. We have a railway, publicly owned. Barret wanted a steam train excursion to run up and down the line for tourists and, heck, just for the fun of it. So he held a meeting with the railway bureaucrats. They informed him that it was impossible. He replied: "I'm sorry gentlemen, I didn't ask for your opinion, I gave you an instruction. You will have the Royal Hudson purchased and in operation within two months or I will fire all of you." We got the train.
Yes it's a bit Stalinist but sometimes you just hafta wake people up smartly.
It's sad to say but regulation is necessary. Farmers frequently can't be trusted unless they are strictly controlled. For a very apposite analogy one should read the history of medicine and drugs in Victorian times.
The Winter Fuel Allowance has always been an unobtainable dream. It was thus so in my student days and I think will remain so. Good luck to anyone who tries for it.
'Farmers frequently can't be trusted unless they are strictly controlled.' Only true if farming has been corporatized into the Big Ag model. The best evidence of this is seen in animal farming. Not a single instance of mad cow was found in prime beef or organic beef in the UK- almost entirely coming from small farms. Yet mad cow was rife in the industrial large scale sector. Every instance of disease spread in poultry that I know of in Europe has come from poultry being moved from facility to facility, country to country, to take advantage of pricing and regulatory mechanisms.
We also know this is true in America. When the milk/schools scandal hit, the journalists who had tried to publish the story were hit by a SLAPP suit. The lawyers involved actually told the network involved, if you publish we will end up owning you. Only Big Ag would have those sorts of resources.
There is a problem with farming, but only farming at scale. It's a problem when lawyers and accountants start to become involved with production processes. A lawyer doesn't ask what is moral, only what is currently legal. It's why the best regulatory systems aren't too legalistic in form, or of the checklist detailed form. The best regulators are without exception non-legalistic or rules imposing- they tend to have broad discretionary powers which work towards continuous improvement, using a collaboration approach.
It's the difference between government imposing itself into a process and taking an oversight position which sets targets. A good example would be the Dutch farmers. Since the 90s Dutch meat and dairy farmers have massively reduced nitrogen runoff, despite significantly boosting production and making themselves a major exporter. During this period the Dutch Government took a cooperative approach working with the Dutch Farmers.
Recent events in the Netherlands demonstrated an exactly opposite approach. The Dutch government was trying to impose changes on farming for purely ideological reasons, which don't stand up to scrutiny when looked at through the lens of science or empiricism. Like many in Europe, the Dutch government bought into the insane lies that organic is good for planet as is plant-based. Yes, there is a problem with some forms of beef, but it exclusively relates to feedlot cattle (because of the higher crude proteins in animal feed, as opposed to grass). This is why all the ocean dead zones in the world are driven by intensive feedlot operations (most particularly in recent times in Chile).
Government tends to suffer from a particular form of scientific illiteracy accomplished through ideologically commissioning exactly the type of scientific advice which caters to their pre-existing prejudices. Grass-fed cattle actually sequester 6kg of carbon per 1kg of carcass weight, as opposed to feedlot which releases 6kg per 1kg of carcass weight, but this type of scientific distinction is lost on bureaucrats who are sure they know their subject because they've watched an insanely disingenuous Netflix documentary, or the most recent total garbage made by Kate Winslet. Methane is an utter irrelevancy on this subject for the simple reason that methane breaks down within 12 to 15 years naturally in the atmosphere, which is then fed back into the carbon cycle.
As I stated, there are genuine concerns over specific types of cattle farming, but not anything related to Europe's mainly grass-fed herds. If anything, the European model is actually better in terms of nitrogen. Because the manure is usually feasibly close to crop fields, it can be deployed into the soil. This actually changes the microbiology of the soil, making it nitrogen fixing. This in turn greatly reduces the need to rely upon synthetic nitrogen fertilisers.
We could have great regulation in farming in Europe- but that would require politicians and bureaucrats shedding their scientifically illiterate ill-informed prejudices. But I'm not at all hopeful on that front, because the research on Solution Aversion shows that if anything smart people find it harder to get rid of bad priors than ordinary people.
I rather think C J Hopkins is right. A new Trump administration is more of the same. I do not share your optimism on Elon Musk, Ramaswamy and particularly RFK being likely to work any form of change. Musk it is true has a proven track record in technology but his performance with Twitter indicates that he is very much a 'stick to the knitting' kind of guy. Ramaswamy never generated a profit with the company he founded, Roivant, and pioneered no new products. The less said about RFK the better.
These guys are all dissatisfied individuals who feel they should be more important than they actually are. It's a common human trait to overrate oneself and Trump attracts this kind of person. As an 'outsider' he is a magnet for the dissatisfied. The problem is that government is extremely complex and needs an ability to balance and compromise. It is not a subject for slash and burn and whilst there inevitably is waste and redundancy (like all organisations above a particular size) generally you need a lot of people to handle the complexity of the issues. It is the same with big companies - a large organisation is better equipped to deal with a large market and to deliver goods at prices desired by little guys. One eventually has to face the reality that whilst improvements can be made, they have to be made within the system and disruptors from outside usually leave a bigger mess than before if they are able to affect change.
Then there is regulation. I will use the UK on this subject to begin with. Brexit was bad for consumers on food. It added £160 to annual shopping bills. But if one looks at new farming regulations alone, farmer and the food and drink association have done work which shows that the cost of new regulation on farming since Brexit will soon exceed the costs of Brexit. And this is before one considers all the regulation which already existed. Have you watched Clarkson’s Farm? It provides a humorous surface level look at some of the insanities of farming regulation.
Farming in America is not something I have researched particularly deeply. It’s been cursory at best, but the general attitude from smaller farmers talking about federal agencies is that they’ve effectively been told ‘go big, or go home’. I went a little bit deeper on a specific topic. Nitrogen runoff from farming in America. I was looking at sensible ways to prevent ocean dead zones forming. The best solution seems to be cover crops. Around 6% of American farmers who have farms whose runoff flows into the Mississippi already utilise cover crops for nitrogen fixing, but almost every agricultural college I looked at was both moderately enthusiastic on the topic and absolutely emphatic that they didn’t want government involved in any way, shape or form. That’s a type of attitude which is only acquired through bitter experience.
We used to be able to do regulation well. It was considered. There have even been areas of improvement, specifically in areas relating to the basic safety of electrical goods. But generally government is terrible at regulating. Don’t get me wrong- good regulation is incredibly hard to do, because a lot of the more positive regulation in the past has been about striking the right attitudinal balance. But there is a systemic failing in the American regulatory system for the simple reason that the consultation process almost exclusively deals with the ‘at scale’ end of the industry. These are exactly the people regulators should not be talking to- for the simple reason that large corporations are exceptionally good at hiding things, or de-emphasising areas which need addressing but would be costly. A sane regulatory approach would involve looking at the 20% of any market which consists of the smallest suppliers, and then extrapolating out what you’ve learned to regulate the corporate giants.
I agree with you- at least in part- government can be incredibly complex, dealing with nuanced issues, but there are fundamental flaws with the way most Western institutional governments have evolved, For a start, the Left seems to think that employment in the public sector is inherently a public good. It’s not- in fact it’s bad, because it displaces labour which might otherwise be deployed towards the common good (as well as being inherently inflationary).
This is not to say that there aren’t roles in the public sector which are necessary and good. Police officer, teacher, an impartial court system. And government does need administrators. But one of tests for whether the political process is corrupting government is whether politicians are insisting upon means testing for programs. Put simply, I cannot think of a single program that I’ve looked at where the money saved from means testing has been even a fraction of the money required to employ wasted labour to enforce means testing.
There are exceptions. Here in the UK, Labour has auto-disenrolled large swathes of the citizenry from their Winter Fuel Allowance. They can apply- but many won’t, meaning millions of poorer elderly people will go cold this winter. So auto-disenrollment can save money. Fraud prevention and detection also saves money- it’s proactive. But most private companies have made massive back office reductions in the headcount of administrators in the past 30 years- so much so that many companies have redundant large office spaces attached to other facilities which are almost completely vacant- so we have to ask ourselves the question why hasn’t the same thing been happening to government bureaucracy?
Incentives. We also have to ask ourselves why is there opacity in government? Sure, federal employment levels are available. But why did congress decide to hide bureaucrats for mandatory spending at the state level, whilst simultaneously ensuring that if the state tried to significantly reform the bureaucratic processes used to dispense entitlement programs they would no longer be eligible for said programs? The claim is made that federal and state bureaucratic costs for administering entitlements at both federal and state levels is no more than 5% of funds, with medical programs costing closer to 15% to 20% at the state level, but we have no way of verifying this- and I certainly don’t believe it.. At the same time, there has been huge growth in contract work at the federal level to skirt rules on new unauthorised employment for federal agencies.
Perhaps the most damning indictment comes in the form of the refusal to trial or pilot negative income tax systems. And it’s not just America- it’s everywhere in the developed world. There have been plenty of UBI pilots showing them to be neither a benefit, nor a negative (except in terms of the outlay). Both MLK and Milton Friedman were in favour of a negative income tax system- indeed, it’s difficult to find a significant deep thinker from the 60s or 70s who wasn’t for it, or silent on the matter. So why no studies? Because NIT could amalgamate the three main income supplementing entitlements under one roof, would remove almost all disincentive to work for those caught in the welfare trap (allowing recipients to work, only losing welfare as they earned more), and also remove 80% to 90% of the administrative requirement for these programs. Little wonder then, that every Western government won’t even trial or study the proposal.
They say that one of the keys to the success of the now-over Japanese economic miracle was something that MBAs hate: lifetime employment. If you worked for Toyota and you had an idea that would improve productivity but actually eliminate your own job, that was fine -- you would be rewarded and of course kept in the company -- their success was your success. So even labor were fine with technological progress. Contrast the UK or the US.
One of major camera firms had to hire in a British guy to make redundancies, such was the shame of letting loyal employees go. Typically they had invested (and leveraged) their cash reserves unwisely. Financial investment behind the scenes to boost profits has been the death of many a great company. This also happened to the Cooper Union in New York, which had offered free tuition thanks to the largesse of a long-dead altruist. They made a documentary on the subject.
“It’s a testament to the unconquerable nature of the American spirit that at the same time as your regulatory system manages to combine the worst of all worlds, you Americans still manage to be so successful.”
Ha! We may be a pack of illiterate, uncivilized, unreconstructed savages but we do seem to have a knack for that. Was it Bismarck who said God smiles on fools, drunks, and the United States of America? I imagine some European must ask themselves, “How is it exactly that this unsophisticated rabble manages to make every mistake in the book and still come out on top? After all these years?”
If you want the answer, read Tocqueville.
I’ve long been a fan of a series of games called Total War. I used to love table top military re-enactments as a kid. The planners of the Empire edition of the game had obviously read de Tocqueville. As one invested in the civic/social tech tree, the population became more difficult to manage. I’m also a big fan of Henry David Thoreau, as was Gandhi.
One can never find it on Google, but Gandhi apparently once said ‘Insofar as they (the British) were the least government, they were the best government’.
I wonder if Gandhi actually said that or if it’s apocryphal. Jefferson said “that government is best which governs least.” But neither Gandhi nor Jefferson were libertarians. Gandhi did say that the reason his nonviolent tactics would work against the British empire was that the British were an enlightened people and the Empire was largely benign (as opposed to Hitler).
Shit, I knew it sounded more like Jefferson, but went against my instinct. Gandhi was somewhat libertarian, but one of those classical British liberals who made concessions for social welfare. The phrase slippery slope comes to mind. He was for limited government, civil liberties, economic self-sufficiency, free markets and he was deeply distrustful of impersonal state structures. The problem is how did he imagine social welfare would be dispensed, without creating leviathan?
Nehru was the complete opposite (up to and including a centrally planned economy. copying the Soviets to the extent that he actually launched 'five year plans')- with predictable results - India didn't start to reverse its desperate poverty until it embraced free market capitalism in 1991, the same year that Sweden drastically changed course over a stagnant socialist economy. They only really aligned on social welfare. It's ironic that the spiritual father and midwife of a nation actually took little part in influencings its immediate course. Maybe he thought involving himself in the fray of pragmatic governing politics would taint his legacy. He was probably right, although India obviously paid the price for his lack of involvement.
> I only argue for capitalism because it happens to provide more materially
Or used to. Real standards of living for working people have been dropping for decades. There's a category trap here. We describe both Elon and the Banksters on Wall St. as capitalists. IMHO they should have different labels because they do very different things. Elon creates. The banksters manipulate.
> But it’s not a career to which we should teach our children to aspire.
Not as we know government today, but there's something of self-fulfillment there. Supposing the best and the brightest did aspire to government -- think Plato. Supposing the government was the most efficient, intelligent, nimble and honest component of society. They say that when the Nordics were building the prosperous societies they are known for, that their biggish governments were such -- trusted by one and all and deservedly so. Righties say that the government ruins everything they touch. True, but then again, instead of confirming your sentiment by making sure that it is so, why not fix it? If you say it can't be done, then you surely won't try. I say give it a go.
> It’s a testament to the unconquerable nature of the American spirit that at the same time as your regulatory system manages to combine the worst of all worlds, you Americans still manage to be so successful.
Ha! Ain't it the truth?
Nice essay Geary.
They say that much of the success of the German economy was not the product of their big, visible corporations, but due to the fact that so much of German industry consists of medium sized, family owned businesses where the human spirit continued to exist. I saw a documentary on that once. I remember an interview with z' fuhrer of a company that made the teeth for tunnel boring machines. He was asked why he still manufactured in Germany when somewhere in the 3d world would be more profitable. He responded angrily: "Unt how vil z' young people in z' Vaterland build prosperous lives for zem selves if I do zat?!" ... not the sort of thinking you get at GM headquarters.
The issue is Ray, that a large portion of the problems that we in the UK and Canada ascribe to capitalism actually stem from bad government. For example, did you know that 60% of the costs of housing in Canada relate to regulatory costs? Banking and finance is the particular problem in relation to capitalism. It produces weird incentives structures and it's not at all healthy for any single sector of the economy to have more lobbying power than every other part of the private sector economy combined.
Germany is deep trouble at the moment because of renewables. By 2025, they will have invested $580 billion in energy which is ten times as polluting as that of the French, and twice as expensive. 30% of German manufacturing firms are thinking about offshoring specifically because of energy prices. The UK is in a position which is almost as bad, for the same reasons. Both we and the Germans are heavily reliant upon energy imports. I once spent nearly an hour trying to wrestle how much energy Germany was importing, from Chat Gpt 4.0. The information we get from search results is now incredibly heavily curated. I use the Brave browser as a backup for anything slightly controversial, when I think Google might hide things from me. I could only get the answer for German energy imports by asking for negative exports.
> For example, did you know that 60% of the costs of housing in Canada relate to regulatory costs?
I've heard that. I saw something once, Maher it might have been, he claimed that it took five or ten years of bureaucracy and God knows how much money to get a permit to build a house in San Francisco. It is (again) the nature of the governmental beast to parasitize the economy. It's not either or, it's both. There's a sort of evil synergy between corrupt, bloated government and greedy, amoral capital. You know what happened at Boeing of course. Or Big Parma. Or in '08: 'too big to fail so we hafta bail'.
> because of renewables
If there's one place on the planet besides Singapore that you expect to be competently governed it's Germany. It is mystifying how they could be so stupid. Seems Angela thought that she'd have her cheap gas forever. God knows. And the hand waving French just quietly do the sensible thing. Acht!
I should check out that Brave. I use DuckDuckGo, but it seems to give almost identical results to Google -- the new Heart of Darkness.
Maher had huge problems and bureaucracy just for wanting a shed with solar panels on it.
Brave is good- and easy to install- it copies all your passwords from Google, which removes one of the major reasons why people don't want to use it. It's not as good as Google for most things- just politics, culture, controversial areas of science, climate change, etc. I but shit with Google or Amazon, and do a fair amount of research with Brave.
... but as you say, rather than looking at this bad person or that bad person, we should acknowledge the nature of the beast. A good farmer handles each of his animals according to its nature. Government is necessary, but it is the nature of the beast to become bloated, slow and stupid. It is the nature of big corporations to be heartless, greedy and, eventually, to become as bloated and stupid as any government.
The other thing to bear mind is that government is also terrible at regulating when it's really needed. There is new type of capitalism in the air (well, it's not new, but it's becoming hugely more prevalent). Investors buy up a company, leverage it to the hilt with debt they have no intention of paying, and then pay themselves from the money they've borrowed. It's wicked.
Yes. I think back to the movie "Wall St." Carnegie or Westinghouse or Ford or any of the 'real' entrepreneurial capitalists would spit on those red suspender boys. Makes me go full on Leninist -- for a few minutes anyway -- I'd smile watching those criminals swing. And didn't Uncle Karl prophesy that capitalism must eventually degenerate like that?
I still remember the sign from Wall Street in 2008 fondly:
'Jump, you fuckers!'
I have this fantasy where I'm Obama and it's that meeting he had in the Oval Office with all the Banksters in '08, but here's how it goes: "Gentlemen, you will all sign this paper handing all the stock in your institutions over to the government. Any institution bailed out by the people will be owned by the people
... No?
... Sergeant, would you please escort these gentlemen off the Whitehouse grounds? I understand there are some citizens outside who have lost everything they owned and they are looking forward to expressing their ... disappointment ... to these gentlemen in an up close and personal way. Oh, and before you open the gate, please advise the citizens exactly who these gentlemen are and please ask all security staff to stand by and not interfere whatever happens next. Good day gent ...
... Ah! That's better!
... Hmmm, what's that smell? Sergeant, belay that last order, now, would you please ask the cleaning lady to come here with her floor cleaning equipment? The carpet seems to have become soiled somehow."
119 of core intigating rioters on Jan 6th were found to have lost businesses or homes because of 2008. Obviously, they a were a little more invested in Trump than was psychologically healthy- but for good reason. They bailed out the banks, but not the citizens.
A very nice and informative post. Whilst Big Ag is indeed a major offender it is unwise to regard the small operator as blameless. Of course there are excellent and pristine operators on a small level but the pressures are actually greater the less you farm. Costs do not reduce the smaller you are, in fact, relatively speaking they are more onerous. Thus the pressure to cut corners and take risks is greater. One needs to avoid the impression that the little guy is necessarily better. It can be so but is not always the case. Often because they are big, the large operators are actually better (they can afford to ave complaints procedures and rules in place to protect the consumer or service user).
Well, that's not a problem here in the UK, because we have track & trace. Every ingredient in every kitchen can be traced back to its farm of origin. This is an example of good regulation. Our Environmental Health (distinct from the Environment Agency or MAFF) deals specifically with food and drink safety. They really are exceptional. Recently, they've become focused on counterfeit goods, in particular alcohol and make-up. You're probably aware that it's become increasingly common for teenage girls and thirtysomething blokes to be hospitalised for counterfeit alcohol or make-up which scars skin.
My brother is chef. Before he moved to Sweden, he dealt with them regularly. They are highly cooperative. They take a best practice approach, explaining to catering staff the need to write date opened or date prepared labelling on refrigerated goods for example. They rely heavily on the accreditation process. Most chefs in the UK have attended catering courses at local further education colleges. For those who are self-taught, they usually recommend that the chef attend the food safety components of catering course, but it's not an immediate requirement. They understand that restaurant kitchens can often be thrown into chaos by staff quitting on short notice.
Many of my concerns about regulation in farming don't relate to food safety or pollution/pesticides. Those would be genuine concerns which do require some regulation. My concerns relate to when government oversteps the line by trying to manage biodiversity on farms, or makes up insane regulations like cows can't drink from natural water sources. By all means, insist upon occasional spot checks for water sources, but don't tell farmers they have to buy water from the water company, or install water pumps to draw from natural water, so the cows can drink from a trough.
One of the more insane aspects of the American regulatory system is the cleaning required for eggs. This strips the cuticle, ensuring the egg doesn't stay fresh as long. It's also one of the reasons why European eggs taste so much better. Yes, the lighter washing process in Europe means that one occasionally gets a few small feathers stuck to a shell or a light smudge of chick crap, but it's a lot healthier, because if it tastes that much better, the preserved freshness is probably better for you.
There are also negative second order consequences to the American approach. The European system means problems related to eggs in the food system get picked up much quicker. Salmonella is a far more common problem in America, one the industry tries to solve by pumping antibiotics into poultry to the point that it's probably bad for consumers (wiping out the bodies natural bacteria production).
Even an AI will tell you that testing is stricter in Europe, but a deeper dive asking shows that testing in the Netherlands costs €0.01–€0.02 per egg, compared to $0.20 to $0.50 in the US (although the American system relies on sampling). All because the FDA insists upon the industrially harsh washing of eggs which strips away the cuticles.
The thing is, if you allow safety signals to get out faster, you can respond more quickly. As I mentioned in the previous post, a lot of contamination of poultry comes from large concerns shifting birds from A to B.
I hypothesize about a kind of bureaucracy in which something like this could happen:
Secretary: "Yes, Mr. Johansen? It's John Smith, Secretary of Ag. here, in the US. how are you sir? I read your article on chicken eggs and I think you might be onto something. I'd like to cut you a cheque for $5,000 and get you to do some really credible research on that, write me a paper, and present it to my people ASAP. If what you say makes as much sense as I think it does, we'll solicit any counter argument we can find, evaluate that, and implement changes with a week of our decision. Stand by for better eggs here in the US within a month or two. BTW, how would you like to work for me? ..."
Lol.
Anecdote: Here in BC we were for a long time ruled by a very competent but eventually corrupt party called Social Credit. Eventually our socialists overthrew them and the new premier was a guy named Barrett. But tho a socialist, he expected his bureaucrats to hop to it. We have a railway, publicly owned. Barret wanted a steam train excursion to run up and down the line for tourists and, heck, just for the fun of it. So he held a meeting with the railway bureaucrats. They informed him that it was impossible. He replied: "I'm sorry gentlemen, I didn't ask for your opinion, I gave you an instruction. You will have the Royal Hudson purchased and in operation within two months or I will fire all of you." We got the train.
Yes it's a bit Stalinist but sometimes you just hafta wake people up smartly.
It's sad to say but regulation is necessary. Farmers frequently can't be trusted unless they are strictly controlled. For a very apposite analogy one should read the history of medicine and drugs in Victorian times.
The Winter Fuel Allowance has always been an unobtainable dream. It was thus so in my student days and I think will remain so. Good luck to anyone who tries for it.
'Farmers frequently can't be trusted unless they are strictly controlled.' Only true if farming has been corporatized into the Big Ag model. The best evidence of this is seen in animal farming. Not a single instance of mad cow was found in prime beef or organic beef in the UK- almost entirely coming from small farms. Yet mad cow was rife in the industrial large scale sector. Every instance of disease spread in poultry that I know of in Europe has come from poultry being moved from facility to facility, country to country, to take advantage of pricing and regulatory mechanisms.
We also know this is true in America. When the milk/schools scandal hit, the journalists who had tried to publish the story were hit by a SLAPP suit. The lawyers involved actually told the network involved, if you publish we will end up owning you. Only Big Ag would have those sorts of resources.
There is a problem with farming, but only farming at scale. It's a problem when lawyers and accountants start to become involved with production processes. A lawyer doesn't ask what is moral, only what is currently legal. It's why the best regulatory systems aren't too legalistic in form, or of the checklist detailed form. The best regulators are without exception non-legalistic or rules imposing- they tend to have broad discretionary powers which work towards continuous improvement, using a collaboration approach.
It's the difference between government imposing itself into a process and taking an oversight position which sets targets. A good example would be the Dutch farmers. Since the 90s Dutch meat and dairy farmers have massively reduced nitrogen runoff, despite significantly boosting production and making themselves a major exporter. During this period the Dutch Government took a cooperative approach working with the Dutch Farmers.
Recent events in the Netherlands demonstrated an exactly opposite approach. The Dutch government was trying to impose changes on farming for purely ideological reasons, which don't stand up to scrutiny when looked at through the lens of science or empiricism. Like many in Europe, the Dutch government bought into the insane lies that organic is good for planet as is plant-based. Yes, there is a problem with some forms of beef, but it exclusively relates to feedlot cattle (because of the higher crude proteins in animal feed, as opposed to grass). This is why all the ocean dead zones in the world are driven by intensive feedlot operations (most particularly in recent times in Chile).
Government tends to suffer from a particular form of scientific illiteracy accomplished through ideologically commissioning exactly the type of scientific advice which caters to their pre-existing prejudices. Grass-fed cattle actually sequester 6kg of carbon per 1kg of carcass weight, as opposed to feedlot which releases 6kg per 1kg of carcass weight, but this type of scientific distinction is lost on bureaucrats who are sure they know their subject because they've watched an insanely disingenuous Netflix documentary, or the most recent total garbage made by Kate Winslet. Methane is an utter irrelevancy on this subject for the simple reason that methane breaks down within 12 to 15 years naturally in the atmosphere, which is then fed back into the carbon cycle.
As I stated, there are genuine concerns over specific types of cattle farming, but not anything related to Europe's mainly grass-fed herds. If anything, the European model is actually better in terms of nitrogen. Because the manure is usually feasibly close to crop fields, it can be deployed into the soil. This actually changes the microbiology of the soil, making it nitrogen fixing. This in turn greatly reduces the need to rely upon synthetic nitrogen fertilisers.
We could have great regulation in farming in Europe- but that would require politicians and bureaucrats shedding their scientifically illiterate ill-informed prejudices. But I'm not at all hopeful on that front, because the research on Solution Aversion shows that if anything smart people find it harder to get rid of bad priors than ordinary people.
I rather think C J Hopkins is right. A new Trump administration is more of the same. I do not share your optimism on Elon Musk, Ramaswamy and particularly RFK being likely to work any form of change. Musk it is true has a proven track record in technology but his performance with Twitter indicates that he is very much a 'stick to the knitting' kind of guy. Ramaswamy never generated a profit with the company he founded, Roivant, and pioneered no new products. The less said about RFK the better.
These guys are all dissatisfied individuals who feel they should be more important than they actually are. It's a common human trait to overrate oneself and Trump attracts this kind of person. As an 'outsider' he is a magnet for the dissatisfied. The problem is that government is extremely complex and needs an ability to balance and compromise. It is not a subject for slash and burn and whilst there inevitably is waste and redundancy (like all organisations above a particular size) generally you need a lot of people to handle the complexity of the issues. It is the same with big companies - a large organisation is better equipped to deal with a large market and to deliver goods at prices desired by little guys. One eventually has to face the reality that whilst improvements can be made, they have to be made within the system and disruptors from outside usually leave a bigger mess than before if they are able to affect change.
Then there is regulation. I will use the UK on this subject to begin with. Brexit was bad for consumers on food. It added £160 to annual shopping bills. But if one looks at new farming regulations alone, farmer and the food and drink association have done work which shows that the cost of new regulation on farming since Brexit will soon exceed the costs of Brexit. And this is before one considers all the regulation which already existed. Have you watched Clarkson’s Farm? It provides a humorous surface level look at some of the insanities of farming regulation.
Farming in America is not something I have researched particularly deeply. It’s been cursory at best, but the general attitude from smaller farmers talking about federal agencies is that they’ve effectively been told ‘go big, or go home’. I went a little bit deeper on a specific topic. Nitrogen runoff from farming in America. I was looking at sensible ways to prevent ocean dead zones forming. The best solution seems to be cover crops. Around 6% of American farmers who have farms whose runoff flows into the Mississippi already utilise cover crops for nitrogen fixing, but almost every agricultural college I looked at was both moderately enthusiastic on the topic and absolutely emphatic that they didn’t want government involved in any way, shape or form. That’s a type of attitude which is only acquired through bitter experience.
We used to be able to do regulation well. It was considered. There have even been areas of improvement, specifically in areas relating to the basic safety of electrical goods. But generally government is terrible at regulating. Don’t get me wrong- good regulation is incredibly hard to do, because a lot of the more positive regulation in the past has been about striking the right attitudinal balance. But there is a systemic failing in the American regulatory system for the simple reason that the consultation process almost exclusively deals with the ‘at scale’ end of the industry. These are exactly the people regulators should not be talking to- for the simple reason that large corporations are exceptionally good at hiding things, or de-emphasising areas which need addressing but would be costly. A sane regulatory approach would involve looking at the 20% of any market which consists of the smallest suppliers, and then extrapolating out what you’ve learned to regulate the corporate giants.
I agree with you- at least in part- government can be incredibly complex, dealing with nuanced issues, but there are fundamental flaws with the way most Western institutional governments have evolved, For a start, the Left seems to think that employment in the public sector is inherently a public good. It’s not- in fact it’s bad, because it displaces labour which might otherwise be deployed towards the common good (as well as being inherently inflationary).
This is not to say that there aren’t roles in the public sector which are necessary and good. Police officer, teacher, an impartial court system. And government does need administrators. But one of tests for whether the political process is corrupting government is whether politicians are insisting upon means testing for programs. Put simply, I cannot think of a single program that I’ve looked at where the money saved from means testing has been even a fraction of the money required to employ wasted labour to enforce means testing.
There are exceptions. Here in the UK, Labour has auto-disenrolled large swathes of the citizenry from their Winter Fuel Allowance. They can apply- but many won’t, meaning millions of poorer elderly people will go cold this winter. So auto-disenrollment can save money. Fraud prevention and detection also saves money- it’s proactive. But most private companies have made massive back office reductions in the headcount of administrators in the past 30 years- so much so that many companies have redundant large office spaces attached to other facilities which are almost completely vacant- so we have to ask ourselves the question why hasn’t the same thing been happening to government bureaucracy?
Incentives. We also have to ask ourselves why is there opacity in government? Sure, federal employment levels are available. But why did congress decide to hide bureaucrats for mandatory spending at the state level, whilst simultaneously ensuring that if the state tried to significantly reform the bureaucratic processes used to dispense entitlement programs they would no longer be eligible for said programs? The claim is made that federal and state bureaucratic costs for administering entitlements at both federal and state levels is no more than 5% of funds, with medical programs costing closer to 15% to 20% at the state level, but we have no way of verifying this- and I certainly don’t believe it.. At the same time, there has been huge growth in contract work at the federal level to skirt rules on new unauthorised employment for federal agencies.
Perhaps the most damning indictment comes in the form of the refusal to trial or pilot negative income tax systems. And it’s not just America- it’s everywhere in the developed world. There have been plenty of UBI pilots showing them to be neither a benefit, nor a negative (except in terms of the outlay). Both MLK and Milton Friedman were in favour of a negative income tax system- indeed, it’s difficult to find a significant deep thinker from the 60s or 70s who wasn’t for it, or silent on the matter. So why no studies? Because NIT could amalgamate the three main income supplementing entitlements under one roof, would remove almost all disincentive to work for those caught in the welfare trap (allowing recipients to work, only losing welfare as they earned more), and also remove 80% to 90% of the administrative requirement for these programs. Little wonder then, that every Western government won’t even trial or study the proposal.
They say that one of the keys to the success of the now-over Japanese economic miracle was something that MBAs hate: lifetime employment. If you worked for Toyota and you had an idea that would improve productivity but actually eliminate your own job, that was fine -- you would be rewarded and of course kept in the company -- their success was your success. So even labor were fine with technological progress. Contrast the UK or the US.
One of major camera firms had to hire in a British guy to make redundancies, such was the shame of letting loyal employees go. Typically they had invested (and leveraged) their cash reserves unwisely. Financial investment behind the scenes to boost profits has been the death of many a great company. This also happened to the Cooper Union in New York, which had offered free tuition thanks to the largesse of a long-dead altruist. They made a documentary on the subject.