Politics Creates Craters

I have just received an interesting email, which I have permission to share:

George Stigler once spoke about power, It was in the context of perfect competition - i.e. market power - but it's a simple step to apply theories of the market with political stories. So we can think of his insight with regard to politics;

"the  essence  is.  .. the utter dispersion of power...[-] annihilated.  ..just  as a gallon of water is effectively annihilated if it is spread over a thousand acres."

We drop a bucket of power from above. A gallon of power. And in the framework of perfect competition it becomes annihilated, dissipated, drained away. If politics were characterized by the same conditions as a competitive market - free entry, etc - then we might expect the same result. But it isn't. Politics corrupts the landscape. It creates craters.

The socialized provision of insurance subsidizes the building of housing in dangerous areas. To bail out last years victims, we encourage more next year. To force people from their homes, we destroy the fabric of social order. Man doesn't turn to animal on account of poverty. He does so in the absense of hope in civilization. Remove his property, and you remove his hope. Remove the police, and you remove his constraint.

Some regions are characterised by incompetant, corrupt politics that mutilates the framework of freedom - politics that favours those in power, their friends, at the expense of their citizens. The flow of funds removes money from the people, and bundles it within red tape so that when needed, when needed, it's unavailable.

When the gallon of water was dropped over New Orleans, the power was not annihilated. The craters of a corrupt political landscape acted as a resevoirs, retaining the water, the power. And rather than the constitution of a free society annihilate power, the gallon of water annihilated the people of New Orleans.

In favour of a free horizon.

Comments

[Matthew Whitfield]

There are so many things wrong with that blurb, I don't know where to begin. However, having read it I would like somebody to help me to answer two questions that this piece begs.

1) Can it seriously be argued that smaller government was what New Orleans required after the flood?

2) Why is it assumed that power will always be dissipated if it were moved away from politicians?

[AJE]

1) I think the argument is that smaller govt. was needed before the flood
2) Politicians are the only people who have the legal right to coerce others

[Matthew Whitfield]

Surely the Katrina issue can be defined in terms of those holding power and responsibility not acting quickly or efficiently enough. In such a crisis, the vision of a completely flat power structure would not solve the problems that were created, it would just mean a multitude of poor decisions being taken a micro-level (pot holes rather than craters, if you will), with more people left unevacuated or dead. Indeed, as it was the confused division of responsibility between State and Federal government that caused so much of the confusion and chaos, why would an even more fluid structure have been better?

[AJE]

I'm not sure of the details, which is why I was talking about before the crisis.
But if you want to turn it into the completely different issue of the response, then why not have left things to the UN?
The confused division of responsibility is a consequence of overlapping jurisdictions, and the bureaucratical delay thus created. I wouldn't be so fast to assume that the structure of power has no affect on the quality of decision, but even if it did, surely lots of potholes is better than one giant city-sized crater?

[Molly]

XS19Np Kudos to you! I hadn't thought of that!