Jonah Goldberg reviews Kevin Williamson’s new book:
Williamson offers a wonderfully Nockian tutorial on how all states — and nearly all governments — begin as criminal enterprises, while acknowledging that not all criminal enterprises are evil. Criminals — whether we’re talking Somali warlords, Mafia dons, or the Tudors of England — often provide vital goods and services, from food to security. Often what makes them criminal is that they are competing with the State monopoly on such things.
Sidestepping the distinction between State and government, Williamson instead identifies what causes the Dr. Jekyll of government to transform into the Mr. Hyde of the State. He calls this elixir “politics.”
Williamson’s core argument is that politics has a congenital defect: Politics cannot get “less wrong” (a term coined by artificial-intelligence guru Eliezer Yudkowsky). Productive systems — the scientific method, the market, evolution — all have the built-in ability to learn from failures. Nothing (in this life at least) ever becomes immortally perfect, but some things become less wrong through trial and error. The market, writes Williamson, “is a form of social evolution that is metaphorically parallel to biological evolution. Consider the case of New Coke, or Betamax, or McDonald’s Arch Deluxe, or Clairol’s Touch of Yogurt Shampoo. . . . When hordes of people don’t show up to buy the product, then the product dies.” Just like organisms in the wild, corporations that don’t learn from failures eventually fade away.
Except in politics: “The problem of politics is that it does not know how to get less wrong.” While new iPhones regularly burst forth like gifts from the gods, politics plods along. “Other than Social Security, there are very few 1935 vintage products still in use,” he writes. “Resistance to innovation is a part of the deep structure of politics. In that, it is like any other monopoly. It never goes out of business — despite flooding the market with defective and dangerous products, mistreating its customers, degrading the environment, cooking the books, and engaging in financial shenanigans that would have made Gordon Gekko pale to contemplate.” Hence, it is not U.S. Steel, which was eventually washed away like an imposing sand castle in the surf, but only politics that can claim to be “the eternal corporation.”
Read the whole thing, and buy the book
There is, in my opinion, an excellent book that describes the life cycle of a typical corporation in the free market. “Barbarians to Bureaucrats” discusses with examples how companies evolve from startups through growth into administrative oblivion. New companies sell their products based on value, whereas old companies start to rely on their name and neglect to stay market competitive. So if you buy a product or service in the marketplace, you are getting the results of supplier evolution.
The problem is, there are no analogous mechanisms for government. [insert joke here about having only one antitrust agency] If a government agency thinks it needs more money, they cut product rather than get more efficient.
OK, I just bought that book based on your recommendation. Do you have an opinion on “The Fourth Turning”?
Other than Social Security, there are very few 1935 vintage products still in use
Not just that, but for the Progressive Left, they have but one preferred solution to any current problem or crisis. One that was proposed over 150 years ago by a man who had no idea what he was talking about, and even then faked evidence to back himself up.
If a government agency thinks it needs more money, they cut product rather than get more efficient.
Government bureaucracy is the only place where the fix for a systemic failure is to add more government bureaucracy and then demand more money. Notice how already the fix for IRS malfeasance is more gov’t oversight and more complicated procedures.
Dude, are you serious!?
I had no idea Michael Mann was that old.
The names change but the goals and tactics remain the same.