Read Tyranny of Bureaucracies
Read Tyranny of Bureaucracies II

Editor's Note: This piece was originally written as one essay completed on 11/09/03.

The government is keen to treat the symptoms of an illness rather than treat the cause of the illness. After all, to fix the problem is to eliminate their purpose of existence. Bureaucracies need problems to continue festering so they can keep fixing them. The biggest case of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy ever documented, although largely ignored.

How bout this for a solution to LA’s pollution problem: Let the government publish the pollution study and inform the people of the health risks. Then allow people to decide what is best for them. Here is my example of a pollution fighting policy statement to the people.


"People, there is a buildup of pollution in the LA and surrounding areas. This pollution has been shown to cause asthma and other medical problems in the elderly and children. Travel in designated high smog areas at your own risk. Furthermore, if you travel in the high smog designated areas on your own free will, you will not be entitled to public assistance with any medical problems arising from such travel. Thank you this concludes our public service message."

The problem today is, the people will likely reply, “Fix it, or we will elect someone who can.” And as inevitable as Borg assimilation, someone steps up and proclaims, “Elect me, I can fix it.”

Of course they can’t fix it. But no matter who tries, from whichever party, the enacted solution will inevitably create new programs, enlarging the bureaucracy and ultimately exacerbating the problem.

Some of ya’ll do-gooders might snort, “Well what are these people supposed to do, move away from the smog?”

Well, yes. That’s the point of being free. Forcing people to do other than what is their choice, general welfare aside, is not free. People are free to move if they feel their health is in danger. Given the threat, they should move away. People moving away in droves is the only thing that will eventually fix the smog problem in LA anyway. If those responsible for the problem don’t fix it, and the danger becomes too great, or the solution too expensive, people simply will not work there, at any price. Every other government program to fix the problem up to then is merely a means of confiscation of money and the exercise of power and control. Big Brother at work.

In reality, wouldn’t any decent analyst or manager, once he or she saw the maximum benefit to be achieved from a program is one percent of their goal, immediately apply their time to finding more effective solutions? Not when there are powerful people who want to put in infrared “laser” monitoring devices. Nothing is too stupid then; except for alternative solutions from outside the bureaucracy.

Now here is the real solution. So simple it is almost ridiculous. The people should say, “Yep, govment’s right, that smog is bad today, not going into the smog today. Wouldn’t be prudent. Too risky.”

To put real freedom in to the people’s choice, designate the high smog areas as high-health risk areas on the days smog reaches a certain level and then mandate job protection for those who choose not to endanger their health by going into the smog. Can’t fire or demote or do anything to those who simply choose to exercise their inalienable right to life. Isn’t taking care of one’s health paramount to exercising one’s right to life? Should a person be compelled into behavior that is detrimental to their health? Isn’t to compel someone to do so violating his or her civil rights?

Doesn’t logic dictate that if dense urban concentrations of economic centers are creating a pollution problem, it would follow that a solution would be to disperse the economic centers over a wider geographic area? As a natural, inevitable course of action, the problem is correcting itself in California even as we speak. Companies and citizens are fleeing California to neighboring states in droves. Why? Because the entrenched Californian bureaucracy has tried to seize the wealth of the state in the guise of solving problems that it largely created. Until the state can compel its citizens to stay put, these types of social problems tend to correct themselves. One could easily argue that the right to travel unfettered is a greater guarantor of our freedom than the government and it's bureaucracies.

Think about it, other than the cost of the study, the whole government program would cost practically nothing, nada, zero; except for maybe paying a Hollywood announcer to issue the policy. But wait, the governor can just fill that position. Before the 2010 deadline, probably way more than 1,200 tons of pollution would simply go up in smoke, so to speak.

All of these 55 miles an hour speed limits, curbs on barbeques and lawnmowers, are simply unnecessary schemes by politicians of dubious character who need to seem to be doing something. The real goal: protect the huge investment and the tax base and the contributions provided by the real development and the huge corporations that reside in these dense urban downtown business districts.

What exactly does revitalize downtown mean? To whom is it important? Why should a political entity, such as the city of Los Angeles, be able to create public policy based on whats best for the city of Los Angeles instead of based on what is best for the citizen's of Los Angeles, for whom the city was created to serve?

Basically, as long as the burden of solving a problem is placed with those who did not create it, indeed on those who suffer from it, there is no incentive for those causing the problem to change their behavior. Policies designed from the get go to change the behavior of people who have nothing to do with the problem, will fail, by simple logic. But this is the foundation of current public policy thinking.

Big corporations are not going to stop their employees from amassing in concentrated downtown areas simply because the smog is too bad. Certainly they will not in the name of clean air. They will, however, figure out how to use technology to disperse their workforce if their employees aren’t required to show up when it is too smoggy. This the corporations will achieve even if it required dumping an entire downtown building to do it. It is the nature of the beast.

Textile and steel jobs going overseas were just a natural evolution of our societies economic system, right? Losing these jobs was sad, but just a natural shift in the American culture. A change brought about by overseas competition and globalization, they said. We must retrain and retool our displaced workers so that they can compete in the new economy blah, blah, blah. The old saw is that those platitudes all sound good when it is someone else’s job or industry that is moving overseas, but when it is your job going overseas it is a damn shame and someone is going to pay.

This idea of using up human resources like so much coal moving down a conveyor belt, all the while taxing these chunks of coal for the privilege of being used up, needs to be reconsidered. If human resources are merely a commodity subject to global competition, to be acquired at the cheapest expense, what does that make the American citizens who make up the resource pool? Because it sounds to me like “American citizens are commodities to be taxed and used up.” The authorities should never forget it was average Americans who built this machine. If the powers entrusted with the care of the machine wish to deprive the people a share in the amazing, unprecedented wealth it generates, the people can tear it down. Why is it in this time requiring increased competition in the form of lower wages due to globalization, the government never is called upon to make do with less? We got to have the cheapest labor available in order to have cheaper products to sell to whom? Americans? Are Americans in effect then causing their own jobs to go overseas? Might the never-ending quest for the lowest price by our mass consumer society cause our own demise?

If the preceding question were to be considered, one of the first questions to ask would be why do consumers always demand the lowest price for what is mostly non-essential purchases? The second, is basing a majority of our economy on the consumption of non-essential goods wise? Third, is the highly sophisticated and effective marketing techniques of companies selling what amounts to non-essential, over-priced goods, no matter if it the cheapest, bad for America in the long run?

Take the automobile industry for example. Many people depend on making cars for their livelihood. Their families and communities depend on the auto industry for their daily bread. Even so, does that make it right to prop up the auto industry with inflated car prices? Should anymore than the absolute necessary number of employees be employed to make the product? Should the wages paid to union members be higher than those paid to non-union members doing the same type work?

The only way to move all of America’s jobs overseas is for all the income for all American’s to derive from the ownership of the companies prospering from the overseas corporations. Otherwise, these are no longer American companies. They are only overseas American investments. America is unemployed.

Or you could say, American worker's now live in India and elsewhere. I wonder what their health care is like over there.

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