I often find myself going easy on the government. I let them off the hook by attributing the consequences of their actions to a failure.
In this book, I will not be so kind. I believe that the results of government policies and actions are more than mere failure. Whichever country we are talking about, I believe all government policies and actions are actively harmful.
Yes, all of them.
Failure presumes a level of innocence, ignorance, or accident. I do not believe these excuses are justified. Governments do know what they are doing. Modern policies all have long histories and precedents. We are not experimenting - these are tried and true procedures.
They haven't just failed us, they have harmed us. And they will continue to do so unless we make dramatic changes in our government systems.
We have had more than enough time to see the consequences of every government policy. There is no longer any excuse for the pain and suffering these policies continue to cause.
All policy derives first from ideology. The people who comprise governments believe certain things, and they form policies around these beliefs. I will argue that these ideologies are flawed at the core, and so any policies derived from them will also be flawed.
There are two parts to my grievances with the government. First, we do not need the government to do the things it does. The useful functions we supposedly need the government to oversee can be handled by private enterprises. Often, these functions are already contracted privately. Roads are built and maintained by private companies, schools can be run privately just as effectively as by the government, and every other aspect of the amenities that comprise our modern life can be designed, built, and regulated by private industries.
The second grievance is that governments tend to do things that do not need to be done at all.
In the first case, the harm is a simple waste of resources. We do not need the middleman to contract private businesses. In the second case, the harm is much greater. When governments take it upon themselves to impose unnecessary rules, infrastructure, propaganda campaigns, and wars, we are all harmed.
In my lifetime I have considered myself both a liberal and a conservative. I have voted for both left and right parties in my home country. I am now convinced that the distinction between left and right is a false dichotomy. These are two heads of the same serpent.
I will not make the case that we should abolish government outright. We have a society deeply structured around an existing control system. Removing the system completely, I do believe would be chaos.
I think there is a way out, but we must first understand the problem before we can really talk about a solution.
