Dear Friends,
It seems to me, the idea of regulation is based on an unspoken and unexamined premise… that government works in the best interest of the nation. This question is never asked but is simply assumed. Do governments indeed act in the best interests of the nation and the people inside them? We assume it does. Indeed, this notion is so ingrained in us that we don’t ask the question let alone examine it. This is critical because granting power to government only makes sense if it will actually act in the interests of the nation and people. If government doesn’t act in the interests of the nation and people then granting it any power whatsoever is self-destructive. So, what do you think at this point? Do governments work in the interests of the nation and people, or itself?
We assume government acts in the interest of the nation and people because it seems self-evident. We assume that to act in any other way would be self-destructive for government. In fact many won’t even read past the initial question since they are so convinced government always acts in the best interests of the nation. This assumes that the interests of the nation and the government always align. What a magnetic argument. We want government to work in the best interests of the nation and people. This biases us. It’s easy to convince someone that something they want to be true actually is, even if it isn’t. Moreover it’s difficult to convince someone that a fact they don’t want to be true, is. So a wise person will ask themselves, is there more to this than it appears?
A more nuanced way to look at it is, does government always act in the best interests of the nation? This is the right question to ask because even the most ethical, wise, and selfless government will make mistakes. Government is made up of human beings. Heaven knows we are fallible. So it’s not even possible for government to always work in the best interests of the nation and people. This is because government is a group of human beings who are fallible. Therefore, government is fallible. A fallible entity must on occasion fail. This is even true of an omniscient government, since it is still a crowd of human beings. So government can’t always act in the best interests of the nation and people, even if only occasionally, and by mistake.
Then some may argue that, since nothing is perfect, the free market made up of human beings left to act in their own interests will make far more mistakes. So why not give power to fallible government since it will try to act in the best interests of the nation and people, instead of every man for himself? Freedom, they argue, is every man for himself. Central planning is supposedly every man for every man. On the face of it this is a valid argument. If human beings are fallible, then why let them have agency? They will just fail… but on a small scale. Moreover, an individual’s failure is paid for by the individual. This is a teaching tool. When power is centralized, failures become extreme. Millions of people die in famines, wars, and purges. The difference is in magnitude.
Then there is the question of whether government’s interests do indeed align with the nation and people. The same argument against allowing the hoi polloi agency is damning to those in government. If people can’t be trusted with minimal power, how can they be trusted with great power? If a small amount of wealth is corrupting, how much more untold wealth? This suggests that government rarely acts in the interests of the nation and people… but of itself. Those in power will naturally extract the wealth of the nation because it is in their self-interest. To claim only saints seek power is absurd. If the common run of man is corruptible then those in power are corruptible. This means that government seldom acts in the interests of the nation and people. The opposite of our presumption.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
