Best recent examples of limited government?

Economics Political Theory
1

Hi all. I’m debating a friend about the advantages of limited government over big government (I actually support no governmet!) This person will not accept the chance that limited government can work since there is no example we can look at today (sadly, this is probably true thanks to central banks and paper money). Are there any recent examples that you suggest I research? My first thought was the UAE which ranks high on the financial freedom scale, but that is still not limited government. What about over the last 30 years?

Thanks,
David

2

No. Government gets bigger, until it becomes a tyranny. Then the people revolt. Then it starts over with small government. Or so it has been throughout history.

If your friend can’t understand that big government grows at the expense of liberty, then they might be a lost cause. It’s been my experience that people who want examples (WHO WILL BUILD THE ROADS? etc) are trying to evade thinking.

Also sounds like you are trying to make utilitarian arguments. That is a losing cause. Try to stick to moral arguments.

My 2 cents.

3

there’s nothing inherently wrong with the telological perspective of preference utilitarianism. Moral arguments can be based on consequentialism just as easily as deontology.

4

Ah but there is:

(a) It is impossible to know what causes people pleasure or pain (or whatever else one wanted to base their ethical system on)
(b) Since people’s experiences of pleasure and pain (or whatever else one wanted to base their ethical system on) are ranked ordinally it would be impossible to measure them and compare the outcomes of different actions even if we were able to know what caused people pleasure or pain (or whatever else one wanted to base their ethical system on)

5

you seem to be inferring that under preference utilitarianism one must take actions that maximize preference satisfaction. What if you don’t have a preference to always maximize preference satisfaction? Freedom of choice is a preference.

6

You could look at some broad aggregates, such as government expenditure as a percentage of GDP… these figures are a little difficult to compare, since different countries report GDP differently, but I got the following sample figures from EarthTrends:

1981 1986 1991 1996 2001
Australia 18 19.6 19.3 18 18
Austria 18.5 19.4 18.8 19.9 18
Hong Kong 7.1 7.2 7.4 8.4 9.9
New Zealand 20.5 18.7 19.4 17.3 17.4
Singapore 9.5 13.4 9.8 9.3 12.1
Sweden 29.9 27.3 27.9 27.6 26.8
Switzerland 10.2 10.7 11.7 11.8 11.6
United Arab Emirates 17.8 22.1 17 15.3 16.3
United Kingdom 22.5 21.3 21.1 19.4 19.5
United States 16.6 17.8 17.2 15 14.8

Using such a criteria for finding a “minimalist government” then, it would appear that somewhere like Hong Kong would be a much better choice than the UAE (which has actually been spending just as much as the USA in recent decades)… although even Hong Kong has seen government control over the economy increase.

7

places that tend towards economic freedom are often socially restrictive and vice versa. I wonder if they are linked.

8

Consider limited vs. big gov as a matte of degree not apples vs oranges.

Perhaps look at the difference in prosperity of two British colonies that had comparable potential 150 years ago but were governed much differently over that time period, e.g. British Honduras vs. Hong Kong.

For the past 30 years you could look at the relationship of pokicies and prosperity among several states of the USA, e.g. high state income tax state vs. no income tax state.

9

Slow down. Such an analysis is impossible and illogical. I think your heart is in the right place but like many libertarians, you are making the following conceptual mistake: measuring government.

It is impossible to objectively measure government. The minarchist is simply a crony-capitalist or a selective socialist by an other name.

The common minarchists or vulgar libertarians think that a “small” government is better than a “big” government but the reality is that those guys are simply expressing a preference for how they want government agents to coerce and what sectors of the economy they want subsidized. I can not see how a government can be labelled as “small” if it imprisons people for victimless crimes – from an individual prisoner’s perspective, the government is bigger than life.

A typical minarchist says: “I want SMALL government! The government should only deal with the courts and policing and blah blah blah.”

A typical socialist can say: “I want SMALL government too! I do not care about the courts. I want the government to subsidize the health care industry and leave the courts to the free market.” and still claim to be a minarchist.

10

Governments cannot be limited [except, in the end, by economic reality which eventually catches up and causes them to collapse or to be replaced]. Other than that , governments cannot be limited, they never have been, and never will be.

11

that as long as the government is permitted to initiate force to pay for itself, it doesn’t matter how small it starts out, it will become huge and oppressive and a destroyer of rights.

I think the error has always been in permittng the government to initiate force, whether in respect of its proper purpose of providing the means to use retaliatory force or any other purpose such as subsidizing health care, education, tourism (!), etc.

12

The central, defining characteristic of all governments is that they initiate force to pay for their themselves [and their “services”]. A “government” that does not initiate force to pay for itself is not a government, but something else. [I’m not sure what!] . The initiation of force is what governments are all about- no less, no more.

13

OK, this is going to be lengthy, but please do bear with me.

I can give you a backwards example. When the Turkish Republic was formed in 1923 none of the private citizens had enough money to open up a bank, or any serious business. So the government took over almost every aspect of production and big retail. One of the government funded corporations was TZDK (Turkiye Ziraai Donatim Kurumu- Turkish Agricultural Supply Corp.)

If you were a farmer, this was the only outlet (monopoly), that would sell you a tractor, fertilizer, seeds, and give you credit for buying these supplies. Over the years more of the population got an education (government supplied); through better health care (government supplied) life expectancy grew from 43 to 65, early child death rate dropped sharply. The better educated youth, not being able to find work in agriculture moved to the cities. The less entreprenual of these youths went into government jobs, less pay, but once you were in government you were almost guaranteed a lifetime of income, plus a pension.

At that time the monetary policy of the country was to keep as much money in the country as possible. “Buy Turkish” was the mantra, everything that needed to be imported (i.e. fertilizer) was heavily regulated. So if you were a farmer, and wanted to buy 100lbs of fertilizer for your 10 acre tomato patch, first an agricultural engineer had to come, with a cartographer, to verify that you are actually planting tomatoes on 10 acres. Then the agricultural engineer had to verify you had enough irrigation, correct climate/soil quality to grow tomatoes, and if you needed 90 or 110 lbs of fertilizer and write a prescription for it. At the end of the season, the government (TZDK) would collect the data and import how much fertilizer was needed. At the start of the season, you would take your prescription to TZDK and get your fertilizer… if you could pay in cash… or apply for credit to buy the fertilizer which you had been prescribed.

Can you say Keynesian economics ? 1 agriculture job that actually creates a good, and 5 government jobs that regulates the creation of that good who are being paid by the taxes that 1 person who actually creates that good. At some point, the government ran out of money as 1 farmer couldn’t be taxed enough to pay for 5 bureaucrats, then the government started printing money. More money chasing same amount of goods drove prices higher (inflation ?), when the bureaucrats couldn’t feed their families on their income, they demanded a raise, politicians who needed the votes, bent over. On top of all, it was time for to pay the debts that incurred from forming all these government funded corporations, which the government had no money to pay, and responded by printing even more.

Around 1980, Turkish Lira was trading against the US $ for 0.90TL to $1 around 1988 it was 1.600.00 (one million six hundred) TL to $1… 80 to 120% inflation for 8 years in a row will do that… Where I guess they wizened up, they divided TZDK and its financing hand, into 8 regions, and sold it to private enterprises. The financing hand The Turkish Agricultural Bank (Fannie Mae ?) although privately owned still subsidies agricultural investments through government subsidies. TZDK divided into 8 regions and now is privately owned went under some serious re-structuring via early retirements, lay-offs.

Today you can go to 1 of those 8 offices, and buy as much as fertilizer as you would like; plant 5 or 100 acres of tomatoes without government intervention. Heck if "you think" corn is going to bring in more cash you can plant corn, not the 10 acres of tomatoes you were supposed to.

Please let me know if this was any help to you

14

What?

Utilitarianism, even if we’re not talking Bentham-Mill orthodoxy, is based on teleological maximisation of an end. It is a moral system, and thus necessarily proscribes action. That is the whole point or moral argumentation; it is the discussion of what ought one to do.

15

I’m afraid some of these are straight-up wrong

The US government [federal+state+municipal+local] govt. expenditure was around 35% in 2008, and it didn’t go up THAT much from 2001.

The UK government [central] govt. expenditure was around 43% in 2008, and had only gone up around 5% since 1997.

16

I think you’ll have to complain to EathTrends about that… they do quote their sources and give details on methodology when they provide data that you’ve requested though, so you should be able to find out reasonably easily why their stats differ from yours.

17

You have accepted the dictatorship’s definition of government. Way to cede the entire issue and to define the essence by means of a secondary characteristic. That is like saying that ethics is a matter of figuring out whether you will sacrifice yourself to others or others to yourself, so who needs ethics?

18

Stephanie, a government that monopolizes coercion is called a Military State. Just cause they profess law and ethics doesn’t mean they are not people still, prone to immoral habits. But since you profess this government of yours doesn’t allow for competing self-defense by others, then this government commits coercion upon innocents. The U.S. government is established on principles of Natural Law, but a State none-the-less it is.

19

No, not the “dictatorship’s definition”, and, although I’m sure that in secret they might agree with that, publicly they would not want to admit to such a definition at any time , no different than most outside it do not want to discover or be reminded of this fact, as far as I can see. It is just the regular “common or garden” definition, that’s all, despite the fact that most outside remain oblivious to this “common or garden” fact/definition of its nature. [And why spoil their illusions?]

You wish to define government differently - I have no problem with that - differing definitions [i.e. subjectivity] is an important part of the fabric of human action theory. Why argue over different definitions?

However, although its a nice idea, and not that government by my own and what I must assume is most others here definition does actually work [i.e. in any respect outside of it working for those within it -no different from any other crime family] , I do question your implied assumptions that "a government " [for lack of a better word] not funded via enforced payment would actually be able to support itself. How do you envision this happening, and more importantly- why does it even matter?