http://theemptiness.info/2010/12/government-programs-work/
I always laugh whenever I hear conservatives and self-styled libertarians argue against this or that government program on the grounds that it does not work. Even funnier is when you hear frustrated liberals and self-appointed reformers give you a breakdown of their personal plan for a complete overhaul of this or that government system or some sector of the economy. These arguments and proposed reforms make all the wrong assumptions. They assume that the programs the government has in place now are not working perfectly well, when they are. Government programs always work!
You can take pretty much any program that the government engages in from warfare to welfare and you will see that everything is in fact working out just great. The problem is that people tend to make the wrong assumptions about what these programs are supposed to accomplish and who they are supposed to be benefiting. You will confuse yourself every time if you work from the premise that government programs are supposed to work for you or that they are supposed to accomplish their stated goals. You will forever be frustrated and angry and probably turn into a blustering conservative curmudgeon or the kind of angry liberal that sits at home and hatches his own personal scheme to overhaul entire branches of government. If only the powers that be would just listen! This will be your perpetual battle cry.
Not only do these kinds of people end up frustrated and angry that the powers that be never seem to take their brilliant arguments and reforms seriously, but they become fodder for political activists and campaigners. They can always be counted on to be fully involved in the process. They will get out the vote and make donations to political campaigns. They will become exactly the kind of people that the state wants them to be. Frustrated, angry, idealistic, powerless and desperate to dominate and control their neighbors.
This is of course a very silly way to live. Of course government programs work! Just not for you. They work out great for the people that they are supposed to work for. It’s not particularly hard to find out who those people are. The group that benefits is not the same for every program, but for every program there is a group that benefits that is fairly easy to spot.
Take the military industrial complex for example. It’s pretty easy to see that the so-called “defense department” of the so-called “Unites States” has nothing to do with the defense of so-called “Americans.” It is blatantly obvious that the “war on terror” and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have nothing to do with the safety, security and defense of the average person. It is so obvious that I almost feel foolish sitting here typing this. So if the government is supposed to “work” for “the people,” why on earth would this program continue? Well, who is benefiting? It’s not hard to figure out. Defense contractors, oil companies, the top Pentagon brass, and even the common grunt soldiers are all welfare recipients in this massive wealth transfer scheme. That is who benefits here. Of course it has nothing to do with your safety. Are you really that naive? In fact, if you were to get blown up by a terrorist it would be a huge win for the people that run these programs. They would probably all get raises.
Another example that comes from both the recent news and the so called “war on terror” would be the TSA. Here is an organization that would be a bane to any country that actually had enemies and faced security threats. Fortunately for us, that is not the case in the so-called “United States.” If there really were crazed suicide bombers out to kill Americans, they would have no better facilitator than the Troglodyte Sex Abusers. The long, snaking, backed up lines at the security checkpoints set up by these union thugs would be an inviting target for any suicide bomber bent on mass carnage. Anything a terrorist would supposedly want to accomplish by bombing an airplane could be accomplished by doing this, and the TSA makes it easy! Good thing there are not really any terrorists. Clearly the purpose of this organization cannot possibly be security. Again, the actual purpose is not hard to figure out. The real purpose of the TSA is a wealth transfer to the manufacturers of the nude body scanners and the labor union that represents the swine that work for the agency. These companies have no real market for their product and the people that work for the TSA would be unemployable anywhere else. I doubt that McDonalds or Walmart would want anything to do with these people. The power and control that these inferiors get from bullying and humiliating their betters can also be seen as a form of welfare. This is one of the union perks that comes with the job.The so-called “public schools” are another program that a lot of people assume is there to serve them. This is probably the one that has the most people fooled. Year after year the costs of “public education” go up and the quality goes down. It’s amazing that any of the kids escaping public school can even think straight these days. Many cannot. Yet things never get better no matter how many reforms there are and no matter how much the budget increases. In fact there is often an inverse relationship between how much is spent per attendant and the quality of education that they receive, if they receive any at all. In many cities the schools are little more than daytime holding pens for the kids so mommy and daddy can go off to the tax farms. Yet no matter what, the unions are always screaming for more money as the “solution” to a problem that does not even exist from their perspective.
The public schools of course are there for the benefit of unionized teachers and administrators. They are there to provide a make-work program for these bureaucrats. The attendants at the schools really don’t come into it. They are rarely, if ever, considered. For the unionized teachers and administrators the schools are working out great. They get above market salaries, summers off, full health and dental coverage and they cannot be fired. Given all that, who cares about the kids? And why would you assume that a program that has all that, yet fails the kids, is set up to benefit kids in the first place? Logically one should assume that the program is set up to benefit exactly the people that it is actually benefiting, and that it will continue as long as it continues to benefit those individuals.
So just keep this in mind the next time you are tempted to criticize a government program because it does not “work” or is not meeting its stated goals. It’s meeting someone’s goals, or else it would not exist. This is why there is so much bureaucratic inertia. The bureaucrats themselves are benefiting from the “failed” programs as well as from the inertia. If you think the government is actually there to benefit you, you will end up perpetually confused and angry.
Here is a great video where Robert Higgs makes this point and gives some more in-depth analysis.
Government's Response to the Crisis: A Fantastic Success, for Government
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2WDn0t3BzU [41 minutes]
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