kajarainbow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kajarainbow) wrote2006-02-12 12:04 pm
kajarainbow) wrote2006-02-12 12:04 pm
Entry tags:
A quick summary of some of government's most notable shortfallings.
Even for those who are not anarchists, it is useful to know the points at which government tends to malfunction and harm the general populace. I've been thinking a lot about that, and collecting references for my own purpose.
As far as I can tell, there seems to be three core problems from which many others derives:
1. The problem of limited knowledge, and making decisions that affect masses of people based on it.
2. The problem of power attracting the people who abuse it.
3. The problem of interring Official Authorization upon incompetent people.
4. The problem of blind righteousness given considerable power.
All of those are problems that exist more or less anywhere (for example the third exists in any bureaucracy), but governments have more power than most group-entities to affect others with their mistakes, and inherently feel authorized, even mandated, to exercise their power.
I'll attempt to name an example for each of those three 'basic problems'.
1. Limited knowledge. The many attempts to regulate the Internet are a prime example of this (and there're many others that could be cited in assorted expert fields). One example here. Congresspeople are not experts, and often are too busy to do proper investigation of all bills presented before them.
2. Abuse of power. This includes excessive use of force, and general corruption. When even the police themselves complain about their own treatment by other police whenever they aren't just toeing the line (see this article on protesting police' treatments), when the very lobbyists themselves are getting hit up for no-strings-attached money by the very politicians themselves (see here), well...
As an additional note, from what I have seen, the abusive corporations by large and large do not want limited or nonexistent government. They want a powerful government that they can control. In short, they want to use government's power to screw others over and often need it to maintain monopolies.
3. Basic authorized incompetence. Examples of this are easy to come by in any highly frustrating dealings with government bureaucracies (or any bureaucracies, period). Also, we've already seen an indication of what can happen when one puts responsibility over life and death in the hands of someone without disaster management qualifications (whose only claim to experience is incompetence with horses). I've already posted about my own thoughts on Katrina.
4. Blind righteousness with power. For an extreme example of this, it's easy just to look at theocracies, but this extends into countless things. I've seen nasty righteousness from all political stripes including 'apolitical'. (I've only just now edited this in, so I'll find an example for you people later. I'm sure you can readily exercise your own minds to find some, however.)
I think those problems are important considerations even for people who still hold faith for a sufficiently well-managed government to accomplish much good. I see a lot of "the government should handle, government should do this or that" this in response to problems, without much consideration of how to rein in government abuse and mismanagement of the response.
As far as I can tell, there seems to be three core problems from which many others derives:
1. The problem of limited knowledge, and making decisions that affect masses of people based on it.
2. The problem of power attracting the people who abuse it.
3. The problem of interring Official Authorization upon incompetent people.
4. The problem of blind righteousness given considerable power.
All of those are problems that exist more or less anywhere (for example the third exists in any bureaucracy), but governments have more power than most group-entities to affect others with their mistakes, and inherently feel authorized, even mandated, to exercise their power.
I'll attempt to name an example for each of those three 'basic problems'.
1. Limited knowledge. The many attempts to regulate the Internet are a prime example of this (and there're many others that could be cited in assorted expert fields). One example here. Congresspeople are not experts, and often are too busy to do proper investigation of all bills presented before them.
2. Abuse of power. This includes excessive use of force, and general corruption. When even the police themselves complain about their own treatment by other police whenever they aren't just toeing the line (see this article on protesting police' treatments), when the very lobbyists themselves are getting hit up for no-strings-attached money by the very politicians themselves (see here), well...
As an additional note, from what I have seen, the abusive corporations by large and large do not want limited or nonexistent government. They want a powerful government that they can control. In short, they want to use government's power to screw others over and often need it to maintain monopolies.
3. Basic authorized incompetence. Examples of this are easy to come by in any highly frustrating dealings with government bureaucracies (or any bureaucracies, period). Also, we've already seen an indication of what can happen when one puts responsibility over life and death in the hands of someone without disaster management qualifications (whose only claim to experience is incompetence with horses). I've already posted about my own thoughts on Katrina.
4. Blind righteousness with power. For an extreme example of this, it's easy just to look at theocracies, but this extends into countless things. I've seen nasty righteousness from all political stripes including 'apolitical'. (I've only just now edited this in, so I'll find an example for you people later. I'm sure you can readily exercise your own minds to find some, however.)
I think those problems are important considerations even for people who still hold faith for a sufficiently well-managed government to accomplish much good. I see a lot of "the government should handle, government should do this or that" this in response to problems, without much consideration of how to rein in government abuse and mismanagement of the response.