I was honored and delighted to be asked by my long-time friend and com-patriot, Russ Deane, to partner with him in starting up this website; Russ and I share the same basic values in life, honed and tempered by living and working in countries with some of the worst forms of government in the world. Both of us therefore react when we see tendencies of our own government to take its private citizens down the path toward Hayek-like serfdom.
I am motivated by three convictions that have grown mainly out of experience in some fifty countries around the world.
The first is that government that grows bigger than is absolutely necessary in any country will serve its people less and less until it serves only itself. I say that as a beneficiary of Medicare, which is a product of big government … and which I appreciate; so there can be exceptions…but those exceptions must be well-vetted and, in all probability, bi-partisan if not non-partisan in nature (of course, if the law is written in 20 – 30 pages, that will always be helpful).
In general, however, the greater the percentage of government workers in a country, the more people there are who can say “no” to private enterprise. This is principle number two. In the Soviet Union, where I lived for a year (and worked for many years thereafter), government owned everything. All but the 6% who were members of the Communist Party, were therefore dirt poor or criminals.
After the fall of communism, I helped a company establish a nationwide clothing chain in a former communist country. Each of our stores in ten cities required 35 permits, or in total, 350 permits … 350 bureaucrats, each one of whom could say ”no”, or extend a hand under the table.
The more [government] people who can say “no”, the more corrupt that government will be. The bigger the government becomes, the bigger the taxes to pay for it. The more taxes that are paid by companies and individuals, the less competitive a nation will be. The less competitive a nation’s products and services are in today’s world, the less growth until a country begins a permanent slide downhill.
The third principle, a corollary to the first, is that all human beings are fallible; some percentage, a percentage that I am convinced varies from country to country, is even willfully fallible. The private sector does not have this problem to the degree that the public sector does. People who are overly fallible get fired; if it’s the bosses whose faults are extreme, no one has to work for them. In government, however, fallibility, both willful and otherwise, can neither be detected as easily as in the more quantitative private sector, nor can it be eliminated as easily.
As our blog, “In Search of Civility and Common Sense”, matures, I will be guided by these principles in my commentary on many issues about the past, present, and future. Both Russ and I look forward to what I am certain will be your candid and (mostly) helpful comments.
Dick Shriver
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