Government Does Too Much

I look at the paper this morning and see more proposals to cut the debt of the poorest countries, and increase aid.


But what is the point? Foreign aid is counterproductive, sustaining corrupt regimes, lining pockets, and avoids real reform, both in the recipient countries, and in the trade terms offered by donor countries.


The politicians are buying votes again with gesture politics.


Just as they buy votes by their health and education programmes. No matter that pets are treated better, faster, and cheaper by private vets than their owners are by the NHS. No, the politicians pretend they can run a health care system for the entire country better than it could be done privately.


Just as they pretend they can run a schools system for the entire country better than it could be done privately. Even when the private sector is patently better than the state sector, a gap that widened with the closure of the grammar schools, and widens still.


Politicians are such good organisers, aren't they? We elect them as managers, don't we? They know one size always fits all: they have no compunction about making it fit.


Why do people keep voting them in?


I think because too many people have become dependent on the state, not only for direct provision of the services, but for money, and often for their jobs. They find it hard to imagine how things could be any different. They fear the disruption of change.


And there is a moral degeneration: people have become less self reliant, and less charitable. In the past it was widely accepted that people were responsible for those less fortunate than themselves, and charitable giving, work, and benefaction were far more common than today. And now people are far less concerned to maintain themselves (or others), and have a far greater willingness to be dependent on the state (and let the state look after others). Between the two the state is picking up an ever larger clientele of dependents, the burden of which becomes an excuse for ever greater regulation of us all.

It changes the ethics and culture of health and education provision too. The principle motivation is no longer charitable, with patient or pupil interests at the centre, but bureaucratic, with political interests dominant.


In the long run everyone would be much better off if the state did far less than it does now. It seems obvious to me. Is it not obvious to everyone?