Comments on: Radio Interview With Mayor Of New Orleans

By: Arun

Arun — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 16:01:27 +0000

Well, Dissident, there are some things which cannot be privatized, disaster relief is among them.

Anyway, we’re able to talk to each other today because of two crucial things that came out of government money – TCP/IP, the internet, and web-browsers. Let’s chalk this up to another big mistake and go our separate ways.

By: Dissident

Dissident — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 17:43:25 +0000

Yes, every human institution eventually fails. That’s one important reason why the optimal societal model is maximally distributed, i.e. maximally privatized, so as to minimize the effect of the inevitable failures.

By: Arun

Arun — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 12:58:14 +0000

Dissident, by examining history, one finds that every human institution fails and continues to repeatedly fail, from the family to mom-and-pop businesses to law-enforcement to corporations and their auditors, stock markets, you-name-it. We all die “by design” – evolution or the Intelligent Designer didn’t design us for immortality or even for a productive old age. So should we give up on everything?

By: Dissident

Dissident — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 20:57:01 +0000

No, dear Arun, it is not my argument. While I may agree that “Government fails by design”, the hypothesis that this “design” is intentional is unnecessary and uncorroborated by an elementary consistency check. Look at other countries. Look at history. Government fails everywhere, all the time, no matter whether the politicos in charge happen to call themselves Republicans, Democrats, Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, Conservatives, Peronistas, Socialists, Communists, Hindu Nationalists, Islamists or what have you.

By: Arun

Arun — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 20:06:07 +0000

(via Pharyngula), Robert Farley:

The Republicans have managed a nifty trick over the last twenty-five years. They have worked ceaselessly to make government less effective, while at the same time deriving political benefit from inadequate government. The Republican attack on good governance involves the cutting of necessary funding, the wholesale transfer of critical government capabilities to the private sector, the stocking of government agencies with inept, corrupt, and obstructionist appointees, and the sellout of regulatory agencies to the industries they’re supposed to observe.

In a fair world, all of this would result in the Republican party taking some degree of blame for bad governance. In this world, the exact opposite seems to happen. Government fails by design. Government failure feeds into an anti-statist narrative that allows the Republicans to further slash funding, to further gut federal agencies, and to further cripple the capacity of the government to do anything useful.

This is the Dissident argument.

By: Dissident

Dissident — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 17:50:16 +0000

Dear Mark, your speed is truly amazing, not to mention profoundly awe-inspiring, striking deep fear in the heart of a humble dissident. Nevertheless, I venture to submit to you that your comparison with the (UK) government’s response to the London bombings does not constitute a valid argument against the views of http://www.mises.org/story/1902.

The point being made there is that the US government not only failed to respond properly to the New Orleans disaster, but that it actually CAUSED it, by chronically mismanaging the infrastructure for the usual, well known reasons (lack of incentives to do its job):

“Only the public sector can preside over a situation this precarious and display utter and complete inertia. What do these people have to lose? They are not real owners. There are no profits or losses at stake. They do not have to answer to risk-obsessed insurance companies who insist on premiums matching even the most remote contingencies. So long as it seems to work, they are glad to go about their business in the soporific style famous to all public sectors everywhere.”

By: Arun

Arun — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 17:48:32 +0000

Dissident, since the very same government could organize air drops for the Indonesian earthquake/Asian tsunami in 2 days, it is not a question of asking for more government. The question is – why is the government that we have acting so ineffectively?

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 17:28:30 +0000

Dissident. I think this is a somewhat complicated issue, but your statement that the link you provided is a “more rational” view doesn’t hold up. There are many countries in which government plays a larger role and works in situations of national emergency. As just one example, look at how London and Londoners responded to the bombings there.

By: Dissident

Dissident — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 17:22:38 +0000

All this (implied and/or explicit) Bush-bashing over Katrina is jolly good fun, but it gets a bit monotonous by invariably landing in the “conclusion” that failure of government calls for even more government. For a more rational view, read http://www.mises.org/story/1902

By: Suz

Suz — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 16:53:40 +0000

Also check out this story about Kanye West’s comments during the live benefit concert for hurricane victims last night. I happened to catch West right before they cut him off. The astonished look on Mike Myer’s face (who was on with West) was priceless.

Kudos for West for telling it like it is.

Some important points West brought up:
- the media portrays black families as “looters” and white families as “looking for food” when they’re doing the same thing
- soldiers are authorized to shoot to kill (hurricane victims) down there