Concentrated Benefits, Dispersed Costs

The concepts of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs, when applied to government, or, more specifically, to the creation of legislation, go a long way toward explaining why it is that government always gets bigger, never smaller. When examined in the light of the Cronyism Model of legislation in contrast to the Civics Class Model of legislation, these concepts also go a long way toward explaining why it seems that as government grows bigger, it tends to benefit the citizenry less and the politically-connected One Percent more. Finally, when one understands the full importance of the two concepts taken together, one recognizes the fundamental truth of Thoreaus's statement, "That government is best which governs least."

Even at the simplest level, it's fairly easy to understand why the twin concepts of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs are popular with the legislature, and in many cases, with the citizenry as well. Let's take the case of benefits for the veterans of our armed services as an example almost everyone might support. Only a small fraction of the citizenry ever belongs to the military, and this small group has shown a willingness to step forward and defend the rest of us from barbarians at the gates, so to speak. (Whether those willing to so act have been wisely deployed by their civilian leadership is a topic for another conversation.) In this case, the argument that taking a few pennies from each citizen, and thereby amassing dollars to assure the continued welfare of the much smaller group who fought in their stead becomes an easy sell. Properly packaged, even those paying for the benefit consider the legislation a good deal all around.

The One Percent's Revolving Door

In Defining the One Percent, I explained that big government and big business work together to their advantage, while occasionally pretending to be mortal enemies. Then I provided a definition of the One Percent.

The One Percent is composed of both those who would seek to influence those who write the laws to create legislation that prevent competition and force business their way, and those politicians and bureaucrats who gladly pass and enforce the legislation that provides those benefits.

The One Percent includes both Crony Capitalists and Crony Politicians. We ignore their collusion at our peril.

In On Law and Sausages - SOPA, PIPA and Cronyism, I explained how these two groups work together to create legislation that ends up benefiting a particular industry or a particular corporation at the expense of consumers and the small businesses on Main Street. But they have plenty of other tricks up their sleeves to maintain their hold on the reins of power.

One of the favorite tricks of crony politicians is to appoint a well-connected industry insider who was particularly helpful to their election campaign to a high government position. Quite often it turns out to be a position where they're responsible for regulating the industry they just departed. This generally results in a few murmurs from members of the opposition party, quelled by a lot of head-nodding over the common wisdom that it takes people with an intimate knowledge of an industry to effectively regulate that industry.

Show of hands, please. How many in the audience would recommend to their local bank that they hire bank robbers as security guards?

Anybody?

What's Your Candidate Done to Change the World?

"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government." -Ron Paul-

Four years ago, Ron Paul was completely marginalized by the political-media establishment. His contrarian views on the increasing centralization of power in the hands of a tiny minority residing in Washington and on Wall Street, endless military intervention abroad and economic intervention at home, the fiat money perpetuated by the Federal Reserve, the ongoing attacks on personal liberty, and the destructive war on drugs were literally mocked by other presidential candidates, debate moderators, political pundits, and the press who reported the stories.

Four years later, those topics are all at the center of the political debate.

SOPA/PIPA - A Legislative Litmus Test

The Internet is now the primary tool for the advancement of liberty in the world. Wherever you look, this is glaringly obvious. Here in the US, both the Tea Party and Occupy movements have made extensive use of the Internet. The Arab Spring would not have happened without the Internet. Every day, individuals around the world are using the power of free information exchange over the Internet to escape from, or subvert and replace, coercive factions in their own society.

Those who seek to bring the Internet under the control of government are the enemies of liberty. At worst, they are actively plotting to corral First Amendment freedom of speech through control of the medium. At best, they are useful idiots serving their corporate donors at the expense of basic rights, too ill-informed to be trusted any longer with the reins of power. I wrote of the technique used to promote legislation like this in an earlier essay, and we know that power once abused will be abused again.

The November elections are nine months away. The Internet community came together virtually overnight to defeat SOPA and PIPA. If we fail to do the same to those who supported these bills, we will have only ourselves to blame when they finally sneak equivalent legislation through in the dead of night while our guard is down. A man bitten once by a rabid dog can reasonably blame the dog. If he allows the dog to remain in the House (or Senate) after that, he has only himself to blame for further injuries -- no matter how friendly that mutt seems to be in other circumstances.

With that mission in mind, I suggest those efforts be prioritized for maximum success.

American Pie, Revisited

With apologies, and heartfelt thanks, to Don McLean

A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How my country used to make me smile.
And I knew if we had our chance
That freedom would let life advance
And, maybe we’d be happy for a while.

But politicians made me shiver
With every new bill they’d deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn’t take one more step.

I don't remember if I cried
When 9/11 crushed our pride,
But something touched me deep inside
The day our freedom died.

So bye-bye, miss american pie,
More important than our freedom,
Is the need to comply.
Them good old boys are lynchin' freedom on high
Singin’, "this’ll be the day that you die.
"this’ll be the day that you die."

Loyalists to the Corporatocracy

“You know, Ron Paul’s followers are not party regulars. He’s not a party regular. He really has these very, very impassioned followers. All four of our children are huge Ron Paul followers." -- Suzy Welch

Jack Welch, retired CEO of General Electric, and his wife Suzy, former editor-in-chief of the Harvard Business Review, have co-authored their first column for Reuters, titled "Ron Paul and the pink slip that could decide the election." During an interview this morning on CNN, Suzy let slip the little truth bomb quoted above, which led to this Tireless Agorist's commentary.

In this excerpt from that column, they demonstrate a superficial awareness of the symptoms of the political malaise infecting the country that leads them, unfortunately, to an incorrect diagnosis of the cure.

"But Paul is not really the GOP’s problem. It’s his followers, perhaps as much as 15 percent of the general electorate, many of them young, vocal and highly energized. Like Paul himself, they’re not exactly party regulars. No, Paul and his followers promise to be a lot like that fired employee who, if “handled” incorrectly at farewell, will make it his life’s work to, if not bring your organization down, at least show you how very wrong you were to cut the cord."

A very astute observation, as far as it goes. Unwisely, however, they go on to analyze the battle between the Republican wing of the political establishment and the movement toward increased personal liberty, with Ron Paul as its chief proponent, as similar to the political battle between Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden four years ago -- leading to this totally erroneous summation:

On Law and Sausages - SOPA, PIPA and Cronyism

Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made. - John Godfrey Saxe

The recent SOPA/PIPA legislation, a blatant assault on the First Amendment spawned by the entertainment industry and almost enabled by their political lapdogs, triggered a massive protest against crony capitalism unlike anything seen in recent times. Dozens of internet icons and thousands of smaller sites either shut down completely or made the legislation a focus for the day.

One of the most interesting spin-offs, from a personal perspective, was a long, detailed and nuanced examination of the entire issue on what I consider the premier political discussion board on the Internet, the Politics and Current Events forum at Absolute Write. Not surprisingly, as a writer's forum the population skews considerably toward the left side of the political spectrum, and government legislation is generally well-received. Not in this case, though. Opinion was overwhelmingly against these acts, which gives me much hope for the future.

This Tireless Agorist could hardly be considered a proper shill for my cause if I didn't recycle that discussion to butress my case for severely-limited government. Thus this essay.

Defining the One Percent

The Tea Party movement and the Occupy movement both have some things right; but they also have some things wrong, at least when viewed from the perspective of this Tireless Agorist.

First let's find some common ground between the Tea Party and Occupy movements, as expressed in this diagram.



While Tea Partiers rail against big government, and Occupiers rail against big business, they both often fail to consider that area in the middle, that shows that big government and big business work together.

What this illustrates, above all, is that the One Percent is mostly successful at spinning a narrative to divide us. Tea Partiers recognize that big government gets in the way of the free market, over-regulating production, over-taxing the productive, and ignoring the limits placed on their behavior by reinterpreting the Constitution as they see fit. Occupiers recognize that big business has run amok, wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few, and social programs created with good intentions regularly fail to meet their promised goals. Both groups recognize that taking from Main Street to bail out Wall Street has serious implications for the long-term health of our society.

What they both often fail to recognize is why these things are the way they are.

A Letter to the One Percent

Dear One Percent,

For many months, you've been hearing from the Ninety-Nine Percent. The Ninety-Nine Percent who don't really understand what's happened to their country, but know that something has gone terribly wrong. The Ninety-Nine Percent who for too long have continued to trust your leadership as you've driven the ship of state relentlessly into iceberg after iceberg. The Ninety-Nine Percent who've watched helplessly as you've shipped our jobs overseas and debased our currency to enrich your pockets. The Ninety-Nine Percent who've watched helplessly as you've shipped our children overseas to die, or thrown them into prison cells here at home, to enhance your power over others.

No More!