I apologize in advance for the delay in responding to many reader comments over the past few weeks. I have not made the time available to get to this task though I have wanted to.
There have recently been three comments to the post “20-40 (Issue 6) The Economy/Commerce“. All three were worthy of a response so here goes:
First, thanks, Shirley, for continuing to read and comment. I appreciate your feedback.
Second, thanks to Sir Burton. I will put Carrol Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope” on my list. Just don’t quiz me on in for quite a while as I am about three books behind and not reading much until I get caught up with business and growing things.
Last a response to JSV. I must stipulate that JSV is far better read than I on the topic and writes more eloquently. However, I feel I have a more real world experience. We also view the issue with eyes separated by 32 years of age, he being half my age.
It is hard to argue with JSV’s point that the real problem is the hierarchial structure of bureaucracies, whether governmental or not. “While I know you’re currently focused on addressing multiple issues prior to the upcoming elections, I suggest that focusing on this issue and its cause would highlight the derivative nature of the other issues on your list as well as the long-term/big-picture irrelevancy of this fall’s elections…” This statement is where our views part ways – not in the truth of it, but in the value of the statement as seen from my view rather than his.
For argument’s sake, let us assume that at 64, I will live another 17.72 years (per government actuary life tables). Under our current system, assuming no government collapse and relative continuity in form and function of our government, that would include 8 more Congressional elections and 4 more Presidential elections. For a 32 year old, those same tables say he will live another 45.02 years, or 22 Congressional Elections and 11 for President. Those elections, in my view, not JSV’s, are opportunities for the voting public to influence the direction of government.
My view, based on my timeline, is that if I am a responsible citizen, my votes will help limit our government. If I had a timeline of 45 years, I might see (“long-term/big-picture”) bigger possibilities in changing the system as it appears JSV does. As a hardwired optimist, I believe that the opportunity exists to make meaningful change through the ballot box. I think that JSV’s argument is that it is not possible to make meaningful change at the ballot box or that it is a charade and nothing will change the forces of what I call the bureaucratic cancer. I think my experience makes me a bit more pragmatic or, maybe, shortsighted. I think that in my lifetime, I can still effect things that will make my life (and hopefully most others) better. That, by the way, is another huge topic we might someday tackle – what makes a life better?
Consider that in the past 17.72 years, political leaders of all stripes have accomplished (voted for and taken credit for actions/laws, etc. that have been major factors in) the following:
1. The National Debt is up from about $4 Trillion (64% of GDP) to today’s approximately $12.5 Trillion (about 86% of GDP)
2. In inflation adjusted dollars, our Federal government will spend $3.7 Trillion in 2010 and will have revenue of $2.2 Trillion (that is spending about 168% of earnings). 17.72 years ago, the Federal Government spent $2 Trillion and collected $1.7 (that is 117% of earnings)
3. In 1992 (17.72 years ago) the USA had just under 22 million people employed in manufacturing and construction and just over 18 million in government employment. Today there are just over 20 million in construction/manufacturing, and, about 22 million working for government. Go back 45.02 years and the government employed 12 million and construction/manufacturing 22 million.
If you assume that it would be good to return each of these indicators to the numbers 17.72 years ago or 45.02 years ago, you begin to see my point. In the next 17+ years it is more practical for me to work to elect people who will make decisions that will make our national debt smaller, will lower Federal Government Spending, and will have fewer people on Government payrolls.
It is also more practical for me because I am directly affected more by government actions than many people are. If you have a job that is minimally or slowly effected by our government’s actions, like government jobs, service sector jobs, etc. you don’t see the big swings in your prosperity based on government action. It is different if you are a farmer or a manufacturer. For example, new legislation proposed in Congress, if passed, will effectively prohibit wineries/vineyards from selling wines across state lines without going through distributors. This is great for the distributors (who are lobbying hard to get/keep this monopoly. It means bankruptcy for hundreds of small wine producers who can’t afford the middlemen. Who knows? This may be a good thing in the log run or make no difference in the long run. But, tell that to the vineyard owner who loses everything he has worked for over a lifetime because of a ‘simple law’ passed by elected officials.
So my reply to JSV’s comment is that his point is a good one but impractical for me and a huge percentage of our population. I will continue to vote and try to elect people who will work to limit government.
Having said that, you may be very surprised with my next two posts on 20-40 – Energy and 20-40 Crime and Punishment.
Responsibility-Freedom Demands It 
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May 15, 2010 at 10:53 am
JSV
I understand your reluctance to write off the potential for political change within the current system, but I think it’s important to differentiate two things: writing off the potential to cause change, and writing off the potential to cause change within the current political system.
I certainly don’t think that we should not, or cannot, create significant change in the broad trend toward more/larger/deeper control and burden placed on individuals, small businesses, farmers, communities, etc. In fact, I think there is a great connection between how this can be done in theory and what you are actually doing at Calamity Hill (see http://www.calamityhill.com/ ). Here you are in fact building scale-free self-sufficiency, developing “diagonal” networks of production, etc. I know that government regulations make some of what you do more difficult, and what I am proposing is that it makes more sense to develop solutions that make government irrelevant, as opposed to trying to make it work for you. There are lots of potential paths here–collectives, cooperatives, guilds, informal exchange networks, open-source/p2p development, etc. Very little has been done to help the average person see how these alternative modes of organization and production can be used in their real-world situation, however. In my opinion, that’s because most of our collective efforts have been spent trying to figure out how to bend our current political system to serve us, rather than developing and exploring these (and other) alternative options. The problem, as I see it, is that our efforts to bend the current political system to our desires goes against the fundamental structure of that system–I’ve seen no evidence that it can be done over the medium or long term, and I tend to think that these goals are simply fundamentally incompatible with our current system. For that reason, I think it will be more effective to pursue alternative approaches, and to let the current political system gradually dissolve–that might not be a pretty picture, but I think it is what will happen regardless of our attempts to change it, and we’ll be better served if we have laid the foundation for a positive replacement that serves our goals, rather than let it be gradually replaced by an equally burdensome and oppressive system of the “market-state,” multi-national corporations, oppressive ideological power-structures, etc.
So it’s not that I don’t agree that it would be a good thing to return to lower levels of government size and burden found 17 or 45 years ago–I do, but I do not think we will succeed in achieving this practically. As I commented in the previous post, even if we succeed in getting our current system of government to reverse course and become continually less obtrusive, this will only open the door wider for even more obtrusive and burdensom non-governmental but hierarchal and centralized forces. Instead, I think we can better serve this goal by identifying the core problem (which, I argue, is not government per se, but all centralized, hierarchal, and intensifying power structures) and then directly implementing structures that reduce their scope, size, and influence by creating a more stable alternative that advances our real goals (smaller government being only a derivative goal–what I think you’re really seeking are what you hope will be the end results of smaller government in your life, your community, etc.).
That’s a bit of a rambling response, but I’ll continue to argue my point: seeking change within the current political system is actually the impractical option. We’ve been raised and conditioned to think that we need to work within that system to create change (which is a control mechanism that any system will try to impose–control the rules of the game in a way that favors you). That fact–that it’s how we’re told change should and can happen–doesn’t make it so. In fact, the historical record is full of examples of the exact opposite: show me cases where political structures voluntarily reduced their scope, scale, and intensity, and chose not to grow despite the potential to do so? While “developing alternative modes of organization” will certainly be challenging, this is largely because it’s novel, it’s not how we’ve been told we need to pursue change, and it has been poorly developed because we’ve spent (wasted?) almost all of our collective energy pursuing change within the system (without result). Challenging? Yes. Impractical–I don’t think so, and I certainly think it will be less impractical than trying to create change by working within the system…