"Overlawyered" - help!!

Economics Political Theory
1

Hi Austrian folks,

Modern life is being flooded by a tsunami of complex and mostly unnecessary laws and regulations, mainly arising from government initiative but many of them indirectly resulting from the intervention of organized pressure groups, corporations, consumer protection associations and other entities.

As most of you may have found out, the millions laws and regulations created by the universal “do-gooders” are intended – at least in principle – to “protect” us from imaginary threats such as “big business” and other fallacies, but at the end of the day this paperwork makes our lives almost impossible.

Just try to buy or sell a home or car, or try to open a small business, or try to solve an irrelevant legal issue…

The reason for this post is, to try to collect some opinions on how to get rid of the monster-sized burden that our legal system turned into (I mean, not specifically in the USA or other country – I’m writing from Brazil).

As a counter-example, in the private business sphere, if you feel your company is not working effectively and/ or efficiently, you may just hire some consultant who will gladly study your company, the current procedures, quality system, operations etc., and will produce some recommendations/ reports on how to reduce bureaucracy, streamline the production process or whatever issues encountered, pointing out the expected quality/ quantity/ financial results.

Apart from occasional mishaps, a good re-engineering (or optimization, six-sigma or call it as you wish) will produce positive results if correctly implemented.

But, does anybody sincerely believe that guv’mint would voluntarily reduce its own bureaucracy in order to benefit the people?

Any ideas on this subject ?

Thanks and best regards from Rio,
R. Halevy.

2

Hallo,

I posted this question over a month ago, without getting any reply.

But still, my doubts remain open…

Is this subject totally irrelevant, or people are perhaps too busy discussing “hotter” issues than the mere strangling of modern man by stupid laws which try to regulate each and every aspect of our daily lives?

I’ll appreciate any contribution on this matter.

Thanks and regards from Rio.

R. Halevy.

3

No, the government does not have the adequate incentives. Businesses attempt to streamline their organisational structure to cut costs and compete better. Since the government is by definition a monopoly, it need not compete, and thus as a whole lacks any incentives to cut costs. Since it does not appeal to customer demand, it can just raise taxes (slowly but surely) or do the old tested method of debasing the currency.

At best, you will have politicians promising to improve the system, but never achieving it. Why? They do not own the organisation. Only proprietors have adequate incentives to improve a system and thus profit. Politicians within government, having only temporary terms, are disinterested in any improvements as this does not benefit them in the long term. They are far more interested in exploiting as much as possible during their short stay, and then making a bunch of more promises before the next election.

Since governments tend to expand into all walks of life, it is unreasnoable to believe that governments can simultaneous expand, while reducing its bureaucracy. In order to reduce the red tape, governments must actually shrink. This has historically happened only in revolutions, civil wars, etc. A new, sometimes smaller, government is set up, only to once again grow into a leviathan (e.g. the USA).

I think improvements through the political system are futile and a waste of time. I recommend you read up on Agorism, which offers a far better solution. The build up of an alternative to government in grey and black markets, providing incentives for people to deal less and less with governments. Only if you drain the revenue stream of a government, will it suffocate and (hopefully) die. I don’t see how you could otherwise correct a flawed system, from within the system.

Hope this doesn’t sound like gibberish, cause it’s late here :slight_smile:

4

Sounds absolutely consistent, no rubbish at all! Your reasoning appears to be logical, it just scares me to think that, according to this view, there’s nothing people can do - apart from civil disobedience or black market.

Would it be possible, for instance, that some “smart” politician with an eye on successive reelections could initiate measures for reducing bureaucracy in specific areas, so as to reap the political benefits of a special status and/ or popularity?

On the other hand, my “feeling” on bureaucracy is that it tended to grow exponentially in parallel with the historic increase of the State power and size. For clarification: IMHO, the only way to substantially reduce the bureaucratic machine all around would be to promote generalized secession of the existing states into smaller units, thus reducing to a human feasible scale the managing structure required to keep the voluntary arrangements working.

But this process would never occur naturally, only through conflict against the present consolidated national structures worldwide, so we’re back again to step zero…

So, we must passively accept the never-ending legorrhea (sorry for the neologism)? Are lawyers the real rulers of the world and will they keep on ruling forever?

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“Alle Macht für Niemand” (“All power to nobody” - grafitti on a German wall)

5

There is a way out. It’s known as agorism.

It is exactly as you suspected, civil disobedience and the black/grey market. You do useful work, without getting permission from the lawyers. You ignore all the stupid taxes and regulations, and you just focus on doing useful and productive work.

The power of government is increasing, not decreasing. The crippling effect of taxes and regulations are increasing, not decreasing.

How do you know that there isn’t someone, somewhere, who’s secretly pulling the strings? Maybe he wants the current corrupt system to completely collapse?