We are born, we live and we die … under the scrutiny of government officialdom. Between our first and last breaths, we make a lot of choices. We like to think of ourselves as independent thinkers. But are we really the free spirits that we might hope to be?
Government is an entity that intervenes in your choices. It stays alive by influencing your choices in its favour, for this is the means by which it stays in power. The bigger and more intrusive the government, the more decisions are made on our behalf. The fewer decisions we make, the less we have to think. The less we think, the more our choices can be shaped to our detriment.
Paradoxically, this is precisely what Government wants. As we become less able to discern right and wrong, we begin to believe that we need another department of publicly funded people to tell us what to think. If you don't believe me, check your telephone directory for as Dave Barry used to say, I'm not making this up. There are pages of government bureaucracies just itching to lecture you on the rights and wrongs of everything including the metric system, horse racing and food preparation.
We can be dependent on a valued spouse, or a much loved family … but these dependencies can make us better people, as we look outside of ourselves to the betterment of others. But the dependency fostered by government is unhealthy, as it narrows our choices, reduces our capacity to make decisions and crimps our freedom.
So let's look at some of the ways a meddling government messes with your life to make you dependent on officialdom – in an unhealthy way.
As a student
As students spend more years in formal education, our national literacy rates are declining. One former minister for detention admitted that 30% of year 9 students have literary "difficulties." Logically, the solution would be for students to spend less time in school, but that would be admitting the system is broken. Advocating more spending of someone else's money is a much more palatable solution; it avoids admitting the obvious and absolves us from the blame for the results.
As readers of John Taylor Gatto would know, the formalised rigour of public school indoctrination tends to stifle, suffocate and kill off the natural desire to learn. Regardless of the good intent of many teachers, Gatto describes schools as places intended to produce a certain type of human being: compliant, group-focused, and above all, obedient to authority of all types.
Most children give in to this process and go through the charade of learning, at least until they get to work. They may then realise that the boredom of school work was good preparation for the workforce. But many of us put off getting full-time work until we complete even more years of "education" after leaving school. Qualification inflation makes a uni degree almost mandatory just to compete for a job in the white-collar world.
As Gary North says, the piece of paper has become just another recruitment screening device. In the meantime, the tertiary industry thrives on the constant demand for its products.
Lengthy qualification periods are often mandated by meddling Government requirements for "registration" in myriad number of professions. For specialised occupations like medicine, engineering or optometry, I can understand that clients might like the little piece of mind that the framed piece and an annual licensing fee represents. But also issuing forth from our halls of learning are degrees in literature, gender studies or even surfing.
Whilst of great interest to those so inclined, lengthy years of unnecessary education do little to add to our ability to work at many white-collar jobs. Despite the bleating of university tenured professors, the graduates of these courses won't be using their skills too much. This often leads to frustration and disappointment as many realise they wasted years of their lives studying to get the piece of paper before getting a job.
Then again, those who try to avoid the grind of employment and further education by starting their own businesses are by no means safe from unnecessary bureaucracy either.
As a business-person
A newly formed business has a product, lots of ideas and hopefully someone to sell these to. Often they lack customers and the cash flow they generate. Starting a business is difficult; there are numerous hoops to jump through and hurdles to clear. There are government inspectors to satisfy and regular tax reports to file. This process of complying with government regulation acts as a brake on innovation, and hinders businesses actually doing business.
Now of course, I can hear the shrill objections that without government laws watching over their shoulders, the greedy capitalist pigs would tie us to our labours in hot, grimy sweat shops for fourteen hours a day, whilst the overseers become fat and rich at our expense.
If you've visited LewRockwell.com before, it is likely you realise the fallacy of this argument; we've been here before. In a free market, businesses that make money would attract more entrepreneurial individuals to grow competing businesses. In such an environment, improving working conditions would be a natural strategy to attract and retain employees. Being cajoled into improving conditions through legislation is an unwelcome imposition that just makes it less likely that business will do it voluntarily.
But multiple small businesses are not in the interests of big government. Government doesn't shower small business with tax incentives to relocate, nor does it sell water, electricity or gas at cheaper rates to small businesses. Governments might court big business but they do it as a show for the public. It's a symbiotic relationship. We know that big business influences political decision-making by making donations and pressuring for favourable policy outcomes, placing persuasive people in positions to best influence policy decisions.
Yet somehow we accept all this as normal. In the process of accepting that big corporate-sized businesses are natural phenomena, we become dependent on big business to generate jobs for us. Whilst our small businesses flounder, fail, and get crushed by over-regulation and blinding blizzards of bureaucracy.
As a parent
In time, many of us will produce offspring. In an era of fiat currency, the expansion of the money and credit supply produces inflation, devaluing our currency and making it difficult to save and meet our expenses. So we continue to work, with often both partners working just to make ends meet, the feminist revolution having told us that "fulfilment" is only found through the salvation of the workplace and a paid career.
So we reluctantly (and sometimes joyfully) give over the care of our offspring to others. But whether we stay at home surrounded by dirty washing, or guiltily trek off to work to pay the bills, our choices are influenced by government policy.
Child care in Australia is heavily subsidised by government; low worker wages are a result of subsidised demand for a service that few are willing (or able) to pay the market price for. Most of us can't afford to hire nannies because inflationary policies constantly devalue our currency. Thus, we have to work harder, seek promotion or change jobs to earn more money to improve or just maintain our standard of living.
In your own home with young children, it makes sense to lock up your household chemicals, put barriers across stairs, and tie up your dangling cords. But if you leave your children in subsidised child care, there are explicitly detailed regulations that govern the layout and features of chairs, taps, toilets, hallways, play areas and so on. Government assumes that you can't assess safety for yourself, so it writes manuals, employs inspectors and does it for you.
You might have worked out how to keep your kid safe at home, but don't think for a minute that government trusts your judgement. If you decide to try and earn some cash at home by minding the offspring of others, you will instantly be subject to numerous regulations. This makes it more difficult for you to compete with the heavily regulated and government subsidised child care centre down the road with the fancy signs out the front.
Far from being the protectors of child safety, these regulations simply act as barriers to those wanting to set up their own, less formalised child care arrangements. Scratch another initiative to those who believe they can keep kids safe without the "help" of a plethora of manuals, inspectors and regulations.
We only get to keep our children at home until they have to be enrolled in compulsory detention for a decade or more. Many of us breathe a sigh of relief at this point. Perhaps if we realised the effects of a lengthy forced indoctrination by the school system, we might think differently.
As a consumer
Everyday we are surrounded by advertising messages. Buy this, wear that, spend that … everywhere we look, it seems as though the corporate world has it in for us to spend, spend, spend.
Where does this come from?
All consumption is a choice … or so we think. The action of purchasing a product involves a transaction, an exchange of goods. This voluntary exchange takes place when I decide to exchange the fruits of my labour for a good or service that I want. Do I consume more than I need? In The Underground History of American Education John Taylor Gatto states that bored people make the best consumers. He goes on to write that "schools had to be a boring place, and since childish people are the easiest customers to convince, the manufacture of childishness, extended into adulthood, had to be the first priority of factory schools."
As adults we like to believe we're clear thinking, mature people with good taste, freed from the influences of advertising, boredom or the need for a little retail therapy. I'll readily admit I like hunting out a good pair of Levis and a neat Colorado shirt as much as the next man. But governments of all stripes make it more expensive to be neatly dressed; they intervene to impose tariffs, taxes and duties. This makes clothes imported from China more expensive than they otherwise would be. This is often the case when they compete with clothes made in the factory from the suburb next door.
Governments believe that making our lives more expensive will somehow preserve jobs. Making imported goods more expensive somehow gives consumers the "choice" of buying locally (and "buying your kids a job," as the ad used to say) or buying the import and pocketing the difference. Hmmm. Let me think about that one.
We've seen this in the Aussie car industry; thanks to a reduction of the tariffs on imported cars, we now buy better, cheaper cars with more features. They are built in other countries and shipped here. Consumers have already made their choice; imported cars sell in bigger numbers each year. This suggests the local manufacturers are making products that consumers don't want any more. So when we buy fewer of them we're told that jobs are "at risk." No matter what happens, we'll still be made to feel guilty for not "buying Australian."
But whether we talk about cars, clothes, electrical equipment, or clothes washers, the point is clear: as consumers we are price sensitive and prefer to pay less for goods. Where government gets out of the way, businesses import these goods and sell them to us because we want to buy them. As a result we now have cheaper clothing, better cars at cheaper prices, and affordable household electrical goods. Now let's hope the trend doesn't reverse anytime soon. The Australian government "encourages" local carmakers by giving them money to develop their products, with more to come. Given they are selling fewer of their products than ever before, this hardly seems logical.
In sickness and in health
When we're not driving our snazzy cars, avoiding disgruntled former automaker employees, or browsing the shops for the latest cheap fashions from China, we might be cursing our local medico for keeping us waiting. Why is this so? Surely they know we have better things to be doing.
In the last century, we have enjoyed gains in health and a lengthened life span. When we get sick, we generally want to get better as quickly as possible and as cheaply as possible.
Australians have access to "free" treatment in public hospitals. Many state governments provide dental services to school children. But health care costs; inside sources tell me that public health care is a bucket with no bottom. Every last public dollar could be poured into hospitals, doctors and health programs and the demand for services would still outweigh the supply.
So what led us to this point? Expensive pharmaceuticals? Overpaid doctors? Or too many administrators?
When we get sick, we seek out medical intervention. As a provider of services, government intervenes to try to reduce the cost of running hospitals, rebating doctor visits and subsidising pharmaceuticals. But this is a two-edged sword. Where there is government intervention, there is money to be made. The medical industry knows this, and encourages us to be repeat customers of medical services on a regular basis.
Hence we're pushed back into the cycle of having to seek out "qualified" advice. So we wait in rooms reading magazines that are fit only for the recycler.
There are lots of things we can die of. But there are some reasons to believe that our gains in life expectancy have less to do with high tech solutions and more to do with choosing to make changes where we can.
Bill Bonner (of Daily Reckoning fame) suggests that too much health care has led to diminishing returns. What is going on here? Do we believe that there will always be a doctor, hospital, and government-sponsored treatment program there when we need it? If so, has moral hazard taken the axe to our motivation to take care of ourselves?
Hence, secure in the knowledge of a caring, all-knowing government providing free or subsidised health services, we can continue on our merry ways, gaining weight, gathering cavities like lost children and clogging our arteries with the finest saturated fats that money can buy.
But Government has friends who help maintain our levels of anxiety. We often hear panic from the media over health issues like the obesity "crisis." We hear calls for yet more government intervention to solve the "problem." But given that government just wants us to be dependent on it, our misplaced faith in government to look after us is what is truly dangerous to our health.
So what's the alternative?
Taking responsibility for your life is never easy. It takes time, effort and considered choices. People will ridicule, mock and misunderstand your efforts. But taking responsibility for your choices is a good start towards leaving behind what I call a state-sponsored mindset of victimhood.
In making my own choices, I usually manage to insult people. Today that's included teachers, medicos, automaker employees, parents, feminists, consumers and poor people. The perpetuators of victimhood don't like advocates of free will, personal choice and market ideology. It is far easier to hurl abuse, denounce you as a simpleton, or send flame-mail than it is to re-consider your beliefs.
Maintaining the rage of victimhood will trap you in bitterness and regret. This will block your chance of making positive decisions and choices that can improve your life. It is difficult to give up the cloak of victimhood because it is hard to accept that a state-sponsored entity does not have our best interests at heart. We are taught to trust government but we are not taught to take responsibility for improving our lives. Instead we are taught that we must rely on yet another government program.
It is easier to shoot the messenger and get angry at me. But in doing so folk might have missed the biggest point of our meandering discussion – that being the issue of private property rights extending to our bodies, our lives and the responsibility for our choices.
We often hear of our rights. But we hear less about how our choices lead to outcomes and consequences. In becoming dependent on government interference in our lives, we forfeit the understanding of the consequences of our choices. We subconsciously believe there will always be someone there to pick up the pieces. In this we too easily embrace the role of victim. We forget that at some point we made and continue to make choices that perpetuate learned helplessness. This leaves us vulnerable to claims that we need government to look after us, because we believe we are incapable of looking after ourselves.
Whilst we continue to espouse our helplessness, we will fall prey to the misguided logic that says the world, the government, or just plain someone else, owes us a living. It doesn't. I must take responsibility for my choices. I also know that we don't all have equal measures of fortune, talent or other accidents of the gene pool. This doesn't mean we can pout about bad luck. I could choose to be envious of movie stars, famous athletes or media magnets with inherited wealth. Instead I choose to get on with life and do the best with the opportunities I have.
When it comes to money, all of us live the life that our means will support (or perhaps a little more). If I choose to buy health insurance, it is because I have chosen to forego a flashy car, a plasma TV or an overseas holiday. Buying health insurance doesn't for example change the teeth I inherited or the colour of my skin. But I can choose to use sunscreen and visit the dentist regularly.
Whether we are at work, school, raising our families or reviewing our budget, we make choices that reflect our understanding of our priorities, our choices, and the consequences of our choices.
Trusting your government to make decisions for you is forfeiting your right to choose for yourself. Worse, it condemns to you to perpetual victimhood and a life of misplaced faith in an entity that cares little for you as an individual, except to pick your pockets, influence your choices and mock your dignity. You can do better.
August 25, 2006
