Governing Philosophies
In this discussion, we consider the various types of governments based on their governing philosophies and discuss the characteristics, benefits, and shortcomings of each. In order to compare and contrast the various governing philosophies, it will be useful to have a classification scheme within which to differentiate these governments.
Let’s begin by considering the existing methods of characterizing political philosophies. A common method of classifying political positions is on the left-right political spectrum. The terminology is based on the historical accident of where the proponents of the corresponding positions happened to be seated. Those on the left tend to be liberal, while those on the right tend to be conservative, although the correlation is only approximate.
The positions held by both liberals and conservatives are not based on fundamental principles but are the result of historical accident. In particular, conservatives tend to hold positions similar to those held by people early in American history, while liberals generally share the views of those who lived in more modern times.
As a general pattern, liberals tend to be libertarian on issues regarding personal behavior, such as sexual behavior, abortion, and recreational drug use and authoritarian on business behavior, favoring, for example, a minimum wage and mandated equal pay for equal work. By contrast, conservatives, for the most part, are authoritarian on personal behavior and laissez-faire regarding business behavior. However, there is a notable anomaly to this pattern, namely, on the issue of gun control, where liberals, who are normally libertarian regarding issues involving personal behavior, favor restrictions on the personal possession of firearms, while conservatives, who are generally authoritarian on personal behavior, oppose such restrictions on guns. However, we shouldn’t attribute much if any significance to this anomaly because, as mentioned previously, the positions held by both liberals and conservatives on the various issues are the result of historical accident and not based on any fundamental principles.
Since both the left-right and the liberal-conservative classification schemes are defined by their positions on the various political issues, rather than based on fundamental principles, they lack the ability to classify those governments that have a mix of liberal and conservative positions on the issues. For example, where on the liberal-conservative political spectrum would you place libertarians, who are liberal on cultural issues while at the same time advocate a laissez-faire approach to business?
While the libertarian-authoritarian classification scheme is useful for characterizing positions on specific issues, it lacks the ability to distinguish among governments that have a mix of libertarian and authoritarian policies. Furthermore, we shall see an example of two regimes that are totally authoritarian, yet have very different underlying governing philosophies.
For the reasons discussed above, all three of the political classification schemes previously mentioned are inadequate to characterize the various forms of government. In addition, all of those schemes classify governing philosophies along a single dimension and therefore have limited ability to draw distinctions among the latter.
In order to develop a taxonomy of governing philosophies, we begin by separating the latter into two groups, depending on whether the underlying principle is that the government exists to serve the people, or that the people exist to serve the state or the rulers thereof. An example of the latter is the so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, aka North Korea; in spite of its name, there is nothing democratic about the DPRK. Since our country, as well as other modern democracies, have adopted the tenet that the government exists to serve its citizens, we will confine our attention to governments guided by that political philosophy.
People like to be free. They like to do what they want to do as well as where, when, how, and with whom they want to do it. Thus, a government devoted to serving its citizens would, other things being equal, allow people to have the maximum amount of freedom. Of course, “other things” are rarely if ever equal.
In addition to enjoying freedom of action, people like to be secure from harm. One source of harm is from acts of nature, such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and fires, to name a few. While the preparation for such natural disasters as well as the mitigation of the damage resulting therefrom involve issues of resource allocation, such preparations have little if any impact on personal freedom.
The other source of harm is from acts committed by other people. If people are allowed to rob, rape, and kill other people, this would severely reduce if not eliminate the security of those people who are the victims or potential victims of such harmful acts. Thus, there is a tradeoff between freedom and security. We can, therefore, classify governments by how they balance these competing goals. The diagram below shows regimes classified along the dimensions of freedom and security.
Referring to the diagram above, we see that maximum freedom is obtained under anarchy, the absence of government; the law of the jungle applies. Anarchy can occur as a result of war or major catastrophe that causes the complete breakdown of government. Under such circumstances, it is usually followed by martial law or, in the absence of the latter, by people forming groups for mutual protection or more effective predation. Since anarchy is incompatible with a civilized society, it is generally not entered into by choice.
Libertarianism is the form of government that offers the individual the maximum amount of freedom that is compatible with maintaining a civilized society. Under this regime, people are allowed to do as they please so long as they don’t harm others, or put others at risk of harm without the informed consent of the latter. The role of the government is to maintain law and order and provide a safe space within which the producers and consumers of goods and services can function. In a purely libertarian society, taxes, as well as a government-provided social safety net, would not exist. All education would be privatized. Maintaining the infrastructure would be funded by user fees, such as a license fee required to drive on the public roads. Costs that could not be directly allocated to users, such as national defense, would be paid for by a per capita national condominium fee, which could be collected, for example, quarterly. In the absence of government social programs, those who were unable to support themselves would be forced to rely on family, friends, or private charities for assistance, or, as a last resort, they could check into a euthanasia clinic, which could be funded by the sale to hospitals for transplant purposes of the organs of those clients who were otherwise unable to pay for the service.
A caretaker state, aka welfare state, offers its citizens the maximum amount of security, at the cost of providing little if any freedom. Risky behavior, such as engaging in potentially dangerous physical activities (e.g., skydiving) or eating foods deemed to be unhealthy, is either prohibited or strongly discouraged by a sin tax. In a caretaker state, the government assures that all citizens have access to the goods and services essential to life, including food and healthcare, regardless of their ability to pay for these life essentials. These social services are paid for by a heavily progressive income tax.
In a totalitarian regime, included on the diagram for completeness, the citizens have neither freedom nor security. The governing philosophy is that the people exist to serve the state or the rulers thereof. While both the totalitarian regime and the caretaker state are authoritarian regimes, the authority exerted by the government in the latter, unlike the former, is purportedly for the people’s own good.
Of all of the regimes described above, which one is preferable? While different people will have varied preferences, we can make some general observations. A few, typically young men, will find the laws governing a civilized society to be too restrictive and prefer the freedom of action possible with anarchy; however, the latter is not a viable option for most people. Likewise, no one but the rulers would choose to live in a totalitarian regime. Thus, for most people, the choice is between a libertarian government and a caretaker state, or somewhere in-between.
Modern democracies, such as our own, tend to start out as libertarian and over time move in the direction of becoming caretaker states. The long downward slide to becoming a caretaker state is sometimes initiated by a crisis; in our case, the Great Depression was the triggering event. The resulting economic insecurity made the population vulnerable to the proponents of the very seductive but ultimately destructive government entitlement programs.
The reason that people find government social programs attractive is clear. They like to be secure in the knowledge that if they lose their job, become disabled, or are unable to pay their medical bills, they will be taken care of by the government. The wealthy members of society, who pay most of the taxes that fund these social programs but who receive the least in benefits therefrom, are in the minority due to the skewed income distribution and are therefore outvoted.
While the benefits of the social safety net are obvious, the harmful effects are far more insidious. Prior to the advent of Social Security and other entitlements, people were forced to plan for the future. Now, with entitlements including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Compensation, and health insurance mandated by the Affordable Care Act, people aren’t required to set aside money for their retirement or possible misfortune such as disability, the medical bills associated with illness, or the loss of their job. In fact, there is a perverse incentive to not prepare for the future and have the government take care of you; those who are prudent receive little or no government assistance and suffer the indignity of having to pay taxes to take care of the imprudent.
Another source of perverse incentive is our bankruptcy laws, which in effect say to people: “Go ahead, live beyond your means, max out your credit cards, and go deeply into debt, and when the creditors come calling, just declare bankruptcy. Poof! All loans are forgiven. Start over with a clean slate.”
Just as lack of physical activity can cause one’s muscles to atrophy, the lack of motivation to sacrifice immediate gratification for long-term benefit resulting from the perverse incentives described above causes people’s ability to engage in long-term planning to either atrophy or never develop in the first place.
The resulting steady decrease in the length of people’s planning horizons is having a number of effects, none of them good. Personal savings is among the lowest of all industrialized countries. Those who manage corporations are more interested in quarterly profits than long-term growth. Congress manages from crisis to crisis. Our response to the looming catastrophe of global warming, aka climate change, has been tepid at best. A disproportionately large share of innovators and entrepreneurs have been immigrants, mainly from Asian countries, who haven’t yet been corrupted by the pernicious meme of entitlement.
The more that people are taken care of by the government, the less able they become to take care of themselves, which, in turn, results in demands to further increase the array of entitlements. This positive feedback mechanism results in accelerating our downward slide to a becoming caretaker state.
To see what we are in for, we can look at the state of democracies in Western Europe that, having been in existence longer than our nation has, are further along in their progression toward becoming caretaker states. We see that their growth rates are considerably lower than those of newer democracies, such as India and Brazil. Greece, one of the oldest democracies, is a financial basket case; no amount of austerity is likely to prevent it from defaulting on its loans.
What, if anything, can be done to avert our downward slide into becoming a caretaker state? The first step requires getting people to recognize the problem, which grows increasingly difficult as the planning horizons of people as individuals as well as the nation as a whole become progressively shorter. Just like overcoming drug addiction, freeing ourselves from dependence on government social programs will require a willingness to endure short-term pain in return for the long-term benefit. Unfortunately, there seems to be every indication that the present trend will continue, with our national debt growing exponentially, our ability to react to crises progressively diminished, and our vitality as a nation increasingly sapped by the parasitic load of the growing fraction of the population on public assistance. The end result will be, assuming that the government survives long enough without collapse, that although we will be nominally free citizens, we will become de facto wards of the state, where every aspect of our lives will be controlled by the government.