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The Paradise Perspective: Commentary from a Free and Compassionate Alternate Reality Volume 1, Number 22 The Worst Way to Do Anything Why a Healthy World Requires Freedom from Coercion by Glen Allport Exclusive to STR June
25,
2007 "Good
enough for government work." --
traditional -
- 1 - - What
People Know Coercive
government always proves to be the worst way to do anything peaceful and
civilized; the combination of coercion and top-down central planning
ensures this. Furthermore, everyone knows
that government is the worst way to do things, even though most people
don't seem to realize that they know it. You
can prove to someone that he or she understands the superiority of
non-government approaches with a single question: "How
often do you voluntarily send money (that
is, non-tax money) to assist
government programs?" The
answer, for nearly everyone, is "never." But ask whether the
person voluntarily supports private, non-government efforts for provision
of goods and services, or for charity and disaster relief, and the answer
is very different. For
example, after hurricane Katrina, did you donate to FEMA? Did you donate
to the Army Corps of Engineers? Did you send a check to any government agency involved in responding to the disaster? If
not, did you instead donate to the Red Cross, or to the Salvation Army, or
to a fund set up by your church, or to any other non-government charity or relief organization? For many people, the
answer here would be "yes." When
giving to charity, you are moved to donate money (or goods, or time and
effort) because you have a healthy human desire to help others in their
time of need. You donate specifically to a non-government
effort because you want what you give to actually provide a benefit. "People
do what they believe," observes Sunny Randall, a character in Robert
B. Parker's novel Spare
Change. I think it's reasonable to infer, from the ratio of voluntary
donations to private versus to government
charity and relief efforts – not to mention when voluntarily paying for
other goods and services – that people know perfectly well the
superiority of non-government action. This superiority has nothing to do
with government employees being inferior or corrupt (although some are),
but instead results, inevitably, from the nature of coercively-funded
government action versus the nature of voluntarily-funded efforts. -
- 2 - - Customer
Un-satisfaction: Victimizing
Those Being "Helped" As
you might expect, those closest to the actual provision of a government
service are typically the ones most appalled at its quality. A perfect
example is that public
school teachers pay to send their own
children to private schools at roughly twice
the rate that other parents do. You can't really blame teachers for being
desperate to get their own children out of government schools, because government
schooling is a disaster, despite the vast public sums spent on it.
Worse: government schooling is an expensive disaster that harms
children. Government schooling isn't
wonderful for the teachers themselves, either; a half-million give up
on the profession every year, and scrambling to find, hire, and train
replacements adds to the expense of the public school system. Here
is what government schools feel
like to the victims, as described by former teacher Rachel Baxter: prison.
Not every school is the same, but the writings and website of former
three-time New York City Teacher of the Year John
Taylor Gatto give enough detail about the history, motives, and
effects of government schooling to make the case that coercive government
schooling is a harm to children, not a benefit. (Gatto was also once NY state
Teacher of the Year). Government schooling is essentially twelve long
years of child abuse; it is – as Gatto describes and provides references
for – a scheme designed to turn healthy, inquisitive, confident,
free-minded children into pliant corporate drones, mindless consumers, and
diminished, servile citizens who know their place: under the thumb of the
power elite. Gatto's Against
School: How Public Education Cripples Our Kids, and Why (Harper's
Magazine, September 2003) is a good, brief summary of his indictment
of the government school system. Children
have been reduced to shadows of their real selves in part by government
schooling and the attitudes towards children that the system has
encouraged – so argues Robert Epstein in The
Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen. For
an eye-opening interview with Epstein, see Trashing
Teens at Psychology Today. Good
teachers can improve things somewhat even in a government school, but the
coercive system itself works against a healthy and positive environment,
which is why Gatto and so many other good teachers have abandoned the
profession. In
vivid contrast, check out Summerhill
School in England to see what school can
be like (link is to a British government report on the school; see also Summerhill:
A New View of Childhood by Alexander S. Neill and Albert Lamb). Few
private schools emphasize freedom
for children as Summerhill does, sadly enough (here's the school's
own website). Sudbury Valley School
and others on the Sudbury
model are, like Summerhill, exceptions to the rule of coercion; Daniel
Greenberg created -
- 3 - - Crushing
Love and Freedom Understanding
the duality of love and freedom is even more important when dealing with
children than with adults, for a lack of either love or freedom in
childhood echoes throughout the child's later life, in turn causing at
least some damage to the next
generation. High levels of both
love and freedom are needed for a healthy world. Freeing children from
coercive schooling is absolutely critical if we are to seriously improve
the world. Coercion
works against the creation of a
healthy world because coercion is
an affront to both love and freedom. This makes it impossible for
coercive government generally to ever be a healthy approach to running
society. -
- 4 - - Coercion
Destroys Market Guidance and Incentives It
isn't just charity, disaster relief, and schooling that benefit from free
human action versus coercive government funding and control. If a private
entity of any type – charity or business – does a lousy job, people
can stop supporting it. How obvious, yet how very important! Not every
non-government entity is honest or efficient, but the voluntary character
of the market creates a powerful, relentless form of natural selection,
pruning away those businesses and charities that people will not
voluntarily support while strengthening those that people do. Market forces exert a natural pull in the direction of customer
satisfaction, just as the mass of the Earth exerts a gravitational pull on
us and on the objects around us. In
stark contrast, when the government
does a lousy job at something – and when does it not? – people are
forced to continue supporting the government effort anyway: "pay or
else" is the government approach, always and everywhere. Unlike
market forces, which create an obvious mechanism pushing for
customer satisfaction, government coercion (even if only for funding of a program) creates an equally obvious mechanism working against
customer satisfaction. If Whole
Foods or Apple Computer used
coercive methods for funding – if they took money from you by force,
whether you liked their offerings and whether you even used them – would those firms still work as hard to make their
products and services as pleasing as they are now? No, of course not: the
incentive for all that hard work and attention to detail would be gone. -
- 5 - - Coercion
is a Crime Furthermore,
if Whole Foods or Apple used coercion to get their money, the principals
at those firms would be arrested, tried, and imprisoned because coercion
is a crime, in every sense of the term, including "legally." Why,
then, do we put up with coercion from government? -
- 6 - - Even
Coercive-Socialists Know Better Many
celebrities are known for strong coercive-socialist leanings, but even
these people understand the benefits and superiority of non-government
efforts for improving the world. Susan Sarandon, for example, chose to
feature a non-government microloan
program when she appeared on Oprah Winfrey's show some time ago. Of the
many rich and famous who fawn over Castro's "Irish
politicians have expressed surprise at U2’s decision to move part of its
multi-million pound operation from "U2’s
changeover may have been triggered by reforms announced last December by
the Irish finance minister, Brian Cowen, who imposed a cap of 250,000EUR
(168,000GBP) [about $335,000USD
at this writing] on tax-free incomes for artists resident in the republic.
Before the cap, the scheme attracted many famous names to .
. . "The Irish Labour party’s finance spokeswoman, Joan Burton,
said this week: 'Having listened to Bono on the necessity for the Irish
government to give more money to Ireland Aid . . . I am surprised that U2
are not prepared to contribute to the exchequer on a fair basis along with
the bulk of Irish taxpayers.'" -
- 7 - - Causing
Great Harm While Claiming to Do Good It
is not merely that government efforts are sub-par and poor value for the
money: Government efforts, as we have already seen, are actually harmful. I don't mean they are a little bit harmful: I mean
that government efforts to help people are in many cases horrifyingly, staggeringly
harmful. African economics expert James Shikwati put it succinctly in a
2005 interview with the magazine Spiegel: SPIEGEL:
Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the
development aid for Shikwati:
. . . for God's sake, please just stop. SPIEGEL:
Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and
poverty. Shikwati:
Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If
the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should
finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the
most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape.
Despite the billions that have poured in to SPIEGEL:
Do you have an explanation for this paradox? Shikwati:
Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and
complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be
independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets
everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so
desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the
reasons for --
From "For
God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!", So,
nearly an entire continent has been wrecked by government aid; millions of
Africans in a dozen or more nations have been harmed in this manner for
decades. Money you could
have spent on something useful was taken by your government and used
to support corruption and to keep ordinary people poor overseas. Shikwati
isn't the only observer to point out that aid to "'It
[aid] doesn't benefit the poor,' he said. 'It benefits aid workers,
international aid bureaucrats, local bureaucrats and local politicians.' "When
asked what westerners wanting to help "Instead
of foreign aid and debt cancellation, he insists the west should engage
the continent in mutually beneficial investment and trade." -
- 8 - - Causing
Great Harm While Claiming to Protect Us Of
course, some dangers are so severe we simply must have government protection from them. Right? Drugs, for
instance – or so we hear. Yet, Debra J. Saunders, in Romancing
the Snow ( "After
burning $4.7 billion [since 1999 for Plan Columbia, designed to make
cocaine scarce and expensive in the "'Imagine
"But
that argument has nothing to do with the War on Drugs in "'Can
you tell me any other product that has gone down in price in the last few
years?' Curtis asked -- and you can't include technological products that
change. Think milk or bread or beef. "Those
consumer prices are not falling. It
takes a Washington-born government program -- designed to drive up the
price of cocaine -- to drive down the cost of cocaine. The one thing
drug warriors never demand of an American anti-drug program is that it
actually work." [Emphasis added] For
more on Plan Columbia – and on the recently leaked plans for a
"Plan -
- 9 - - Cost
Overruns and What They Sometimes Buy Another
problem typical of government projects is the massive
cost overrun. Any government project is likely to show this effect,
but wars are particularly distressing examples. "In the days before
the [ $50
billion versus $2,000 billion. Now that's
a cost overrun. What
have we bought with all that money? Thousands of dead American soldiers,
many thousands more injured, 655,000
(and counting) dead Iraqis, cancer-causing
depleted
uranium poisoning (see also here
and here) in
Iraq (and DU particles are being spread around the planet on the winds), a
ruined
Iraqi infrastructure (which had already been wrecked in the first Gulf
war and which a decade of sanctions kept in poor repair), millions
of Iraqi refugees fleeing the mess we have made of their country, an increased
threat of terrorism in America, widespread use of torture
by our own government, a sharply
lower opinion of America by people in other nations, and (on a
separate invoice, for additional money) a police
state here at home. Nice,
huh? -
- 10 - - So:
government programs don't work well, they often achieve the opposite
of their stated aims, they usually cost far more than predicted, they cost
far more than non-government efforts that typically do
work properly, they create great harm to people (and to entire nations and
to the environment), they always
involve coercion (at the very least by funding via taxation), and this
coercion – along with central planning by distant
"authorities" – ensures that government programs provide
little or no customer satisfaction. I
know what you're thinking: "Is that really so bad?" Of
course not! And wait – there's more! For
a limited time (meaning "forever"), we'll throw in the amazing
power of our patented CorporateGovernment
CorruptionSynergy, whereby the wealth-creating
power of the market is molecularly bonded to the legal power to coerce others granted to government by itself. The
result is a new alloy of incredible strength we call (well, not when
others are around) "fascist oligarchy"*,
which retains the appearance of a free society while funneling untold
wealth into the hands of those who know what is really best for you!
Yes, head to the voting booth and order some CorporateGovernment
CorruptionSynergy for yourself today! Act now! (.
. . a moment, please, while I shut down the runaway sarcasm circuit. Ah,
there: got it). -
- 11 - - Coming
Soon: A Free and Compassionate World, or
No World at All? In
all seriousness: Are there better ways to do things than by government
force? Yes,
always. Are
there better ways to promote love
and freedom than by coercive funding and control? Yes,
always. By definition, coercion destroys freedom. Initiating coercion
against others is not loving
them, but instead controlling them. Will
humankind survive the combination of government coercion, widespread
neurosis, and ever-more-powerful 21st Century technology? Quite
possibly not, as I have argued before in The
Two Great Evils and the Hammer of Infinite Power. Replacing
tyranny and widespread neurosis
with free societies and
widespread emotional health is
the most important task of the modern era. A critical element of that task
is turning away, finally, from the evil and violence of coercive
government. Coercive government is not only the worst way to do things:
coercive government is incompatible with a healthy human future, and
perhaps with any human future. "Live
free or die," indeed. -
- - - - Next
week's column examines the phenomenon of the mutually parasitic
corporate-government organism in more detail. -
- - - - *
fas·cism n.
1. Often Fascism. a.
A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a
dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition
through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent
nationalism and racism. b. A
political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of
government. 2. Oppressive, dictatorial control. ol·i·gar·chy
n. 1. Government by a
few, especially by a small faction of persons or families. b. Those making
up such a government. 2. A
state governed by a few persons. – The American Heritage Dictionary Glen Allport is the author of The Paradise Paradigm: On Creating A World of Compassion, Freedom, and Prosperity and maintains paradise-paradigm.net. This is one in a series of columns on the human condition.
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