August 24, 2000

Celebrating the irrelevancy of politics

The Republican and Democratic national conventions have come and gone, and the major television studios barely covered the proceedings. Apparently network executives have figured out that most Americans would rather play with their kids or go shopping than watch politicians give long-winded speeches.

This is decried in some quarters as a sign of apathy. I view it as a healthy recognition by average citizens that most professional politicians are irrelevant. After all, what is it that members of Congress actually do each day? They get up, go to the office, and spend someone else's money. As far as passing laws goes, we've had Congress around for more than two centuries. How many more laws do we really need?

A few years ago, when Republicans were actually talking about cutting back government, the Wall Street Journal published a list of 750 federal agencies, boards and commissions that were being considered for elimination. What was astounding to me was that I had never even heard of most of them. I could not imagine what they were all doing with my money each day.

Of course, Congress did not abolish very many of those agencies; it's possible they didn't abolish any of them. Republicans occasionally talk a good line about limiting government, but when push comes to shove, members of both parties are equally addicted to power.

Distribution of power is the central issue of how we organize ourselves. There are two basic ways to approach this: one is to centralize power in government (creating a Political Society), and the other is to disperse power among individuals (known as Civil Society). In a political world, the government takes large portions of your wealth through taxes and regulation, dumps the money in various pots, and re-distributes it based on the preferences of the political class. This is a world of coercion. You either behave as directed, or go to jail.

In a civil society, most interactions are based on mutual consent. People choose their occupations, accrue wealth, and spend their earnings as they see fit. Individuals are free to pursue their own interests, and to gather together voluntarily with like-minded people. The government exists only to protect your rights.

In a civil society, voluntarism flourishes. People participate in Little League, Kiwanis, United Way, Girl Scouts, Mountain Rescue, or any of the millions of other organizations where people work together for common goals, acting on the basis of mutual respect, not fear and coercion.

This is the society originally envisioned by those who risked their lives by signing the Declaration of Independence. But that vision has been corroded by the continual growth of government, especially in the 20th century.

Many government programs such as Social Security or public transit have a seductive appeal, in that people seemingly get something for nothing. But there's no free lunch. The modern welfare state has put us all in golden handcuffs. Not only do we surrender more than a third of our income each year in taxes, we find our freedoms limited at every turn. Zoning restrictions, tax laws that no one can even understand, business licensing requirements-the list of restrictions is very long.

Fortunately, we still have some freedoms left. Everyone is familiar with the separation of church and state doctrine. Because there is no state-sanctioned religion, America is one of the safest places on earth to practice religion. Everyone is free to choose a religion, build buildings, collect donations and worship together-all on the basis of individual choice. And those who don't have religious beliefs are not forced to support those who do.

Imagine what society would be like if such freedoms were extended to other aspects of our life. Separation of school and state. Freedom to plan your own retirement. Real property rights, where you don't have to grovel before some local planning board just to get permission to build a home on your own property.

Imagine that the obscene phrase, "take-home pay," no longer existed, because your full weekly pay actually was your take-home pay.

The unprecedented rise in affluence of the past decade has shown millions of Americans that most of government is simply irrelevant. Free trade is the engine that creates wealth, not political pork-barreling. So don't worry if you missed Al Gore's 45-minute monologue at the Democratic National Convention last week. Whatever else you were doing was probably a lot more useful to the development of a civil society.