There Is No Them, There Is Only Us
I’ve been following the Healthcare debate and thinking about government and thinking about people and thinking about The Wire and how all of it informs my personal point-of-view on things.
I suppose I have a Hamiltonian view of the nature of man. I like and want to believe in the inherent goodness of a single man but I’d like to reserve that belief until I’ve been given evidence to the affirmative. And I have a fundamental problem with big groups of men. Institutions.
I don’t trust them.
I am deeply skeptical of their ability to do good things. I am deeply skeptical of their ability to correct themselves once they’ve been sent in a bad direction. Once big groups of people come together, perverse incentives manifest themselves, politics and bureaucracy come into play, simple problems become complex, constituencies take root, and, ultimately, things become frustrating and weird and the system subsequently breaks.
It doesn’t matter whether you call these big groups of people ‘companies’ or ‘government’ or ‘lobbyists’ or ‘environmentalists’ or ‘tea partiers’ or whatever. Well, maybe it matters a little bit.
But, ultimately, from my perspective, it all boils down to the same basic premise that institutions are comprised of people and people will pursue the incentives that the system has established for them.
The bigger the group of people, the more complicated the solution. Sometimes there aren’t solutions. I fundamentally assume that the reason big institutions have trouble finding solutions to difficult problems is because they are difficult, because the institution itself is beholden to so many diverse interests that the very assumption of simplicity is a misnomer and a lie.
I know and believe that there is a fundamental error in most of the Left’s calculati0n about the role of government and the forces that oppose its expansion. And that is that “them” exists in any meaningful way. “Them” being lobbyists or “big government” or an “other”. That there is a good force of good people in the world and a bad force.
That “profit-seeking companies” are bad and “government” is good. I don’t believe that. I believe that the same issues plague both groups of people. That the incentives in place will necessarily dictate the outcomes and that, the bigger the group, the more likely that you’ll see perversity of incentives corrupt the means of the institution.
That is to say, I suppose the only thing I truly trust is a small group of people pursuing a simple objective and having the courage and the focus to forgo other opportunities and distractions.
And a large group of people, like the Federal Government, I simply don’t trust. I don’t trust the government to spend my money wisely nor do I trust them to be efficient nor do I trust them to hire and fire based on the right incentives and metrics.
Large groups of people, like companies or the government or huge non-profits like The Red Cross, become ends unto themselves. They exist to continue their existence. And to grow. All they know how to do is eat more and more.
