"The
best government is that which governs least"*
John L. O'Sullivan
editor of The Democratic Review
“The best government is that which governs best.”
Geoffrey
Berg editor of the Food for Thought Blog
The first question that arises in this framework from the
previous posts is how close do you want the game to be called. Do you want to
“Just let them play.” or do want instant replay on every call? That is do you want a minimal regulatory
environment where it is up to the individual “player” to look out for his or
her own interest (freedom to) or do you want a strict regulatory environment
where each play is scrutinized to make sure that the game is scrupulously fair
(freedom from).
Again, from the previous posts, how you feel about this, generally,
starts with your emotional predisposition. If you are a libertarian your response is “Let
‘em play!” If you are liberal you want to make sure no one is cheating so you
want plenty of oversight of the action. Some level of oversight is needed so that
the game doesn’t deteriorate into anarchy. On the other hand instant replay on
every play would bring the action to a grinding halt.
“Given that you play
by the rules, the object of the game is to win.”
Joel
Truman
However, since we are all players, we want to win the game.
And since we choose democracy we all have a say in what rules we want, how and
by whom we want them made and how we want them enforced. And, while we may be
predisposed to one particular end of this continuum, when we are engaged in the
game, which we are daily, the specific interaction may move us to a different
place on that continuum.
Since we are in the game and we want to win, that can’t help
but influence how we want the game to be called. We may say we want them to call them the way
they see them but what we really want is to call them the way we need them. The
strike zone is always too small for our pitcher and too big for theirs. They
are always charging on offense and blocking on defense. It was the temperature
not the ball boy who deflated the footballs (or vice versa depending on who you
are rooting for).
When we don’t have much skin in a particular part of the
game we are somewhat agnostic if not mildly favorable toward a well-regulated
industry.
For instance, most of us are quite comfortable with our
highly regulated drug industry. Except for a few die-hard libertarians like Ron
Paul, nobody wants to abolish the FDA and leave it to the good intentions of
the pharmaceutical industry to give us safe effective medication. We don’t have
the time knowledge or expertise to make rational judgments about the safety and
effectiveness of medicine.
On the other hand a pharmaceutical executive will want to
loosen the regulatory framework that everyone else is comfortable with because
it is impeding his ability to maximize his profits. His argument is that this
over regulation is the moral equivalent of too much instant replay. He takes
this position not because he is conservative but because it is in his immediate
interest.
One can imagine that the “natural” herbalist would chafe at
being subjected to the same regulatory environment that the pharmaceutical
industry faces. In his game it is “Let us play!” On this particular issue the
new age liberal is probably on the same point of the freedom from/freedom to
continuum as the buttoned down Republican pharmaceutical executive.
"The
best government is that which governs least" is really no government at
all and otherwise known as anarchy (A position espoused, I would say somewhat
disingenuously, by Thoreau). However, for the rest of us “The best government is that which governs
best,” where best is in the eye of the beholder. We all have different views of
what is best and what shapes our vision of best are our predispositions and our
self-interest.
However, what we all have in common is that we want
the game to be fair (Another concept that is in the eye of the beholder)
because that is in our self-interest.
So when it comes to our relationship to government I
am suggesting we take a look at how our predispositions and self-interest or
lack thereof shape our views or blind us to the views of others.
Now we all have opinions on what the rules should
be and how they should be enforced. However, we don’t make the rules or enforce
them. It would be too cumbersome for us to have direct democracy in anything
beyond the size of a small town, ** so we select people to represent us.
(Perhaps another form of salutary servitude.)
Selecting the people who represent us is yet another game within the
game. We may select people who see
things the way we do or even call them the way we need them. However, since this is such a crucial part of
the game this above all else is where the game should be fair. It my next post I will take a look at that.
* This was paraphrased by Henry David Thoreau in the opening
of “Civil Disobedience” as "That
government is best which governs least."
** One of my favorite quotes is on this subject. In Federalist Paper 55, a discussion on the
size of the legislature, Hamilton or Madison say, “In all very numerous
assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the
sceptre from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian
assembly would still have been a mob.”
