What's a Government For? Parte the First

As I write this series of posts on the subject of Government and Leadership, I should probably note that these are my thoughts and opinions. That those thoughts and opinions are based on the things I was taught in school, in Scouts, in the books I've read, in the people I have knows, the relationships I have cultivated (or mangled), in 30 some years of reading the newspapers everyday. They are rooted in my beliefs in economics and politics and my general thoughts of what we are and who we can be.

Who I hope we can be at our best. I may not make too many citations. You are welcome to disagree (and comment). You are also welcome to highlight anywhere where I am stating what you think is obvious.

So I think I made the point that we need some government. At least, I believe we have to have some government - if only because if we don't then people tend to start banding together to protect themselves. Governments coalesce.

If governments form from people trying to protect themselves (often from other groups of people!) then I guess we can say that a key role of a government is to provide security. Security for the society that belongs with that government. I mean "security" in the sense of physical security. The Army for external defence, the Police for internal. But in the society we live in (and throughout most of the world) governments often provide much more. Why?

I believe the answer to that involves a bit of a digression. Humans seem to be at their best when we compete, and when we cooperate. That sounds a bit contradictory, but we see it all the time. Sports teams are groups of people working together to beat other groups. Businesses are organizations of people that compete for gain against other groups offering similar commodities, products or services. We are surrounded by people competing and cooperating.

How does this involve governments? Well whenever we compete we seem to need to devise rules for the competition. Again, this is a result of human nature. It has been seen throughout history that certain groups, without any checks, can come to dominate or monopolize a market. In that case certain individuals (or groups) can amass so much economic power that they can wield physical power. In some cases take over or form a government themselves. If they then "take advantage" of the rest of society - say by consuming so much wealth and resource that the remainder of society is harmed - then that can be perceived as a violation of the security of the society and thus the government has failed. The results of that can vary from nothing (the dissatisfaction of the population is successfully suppressed, see North Korea for example) to revolution. An example there would be Syria, where 5 years of drought displaced so may farmers to cities that a civil war has started.

Ok, these examples are a little simplified, but what I want to illustrate is that history and current events show quite clearly that people expect more from government than just protection from invaders, thieves, and murderers. A degree of economic and political security seem to be something expected from the rulers.

So once again we've found some boundary conditions. A government needs to make sure (somehow) that the country is not invaded, the civil order is maintained (i.e. the crime rate kept to an acceptable level) and that most people at least can find some life satisfaction. Eat, find shelter, raise children, care for family and so on.

Is that all?

In most societies people trade. They grow and sell food, goods, services. We don't always agree the transaction was fair. The state can (but doesn't always) provide dispute resolution mechanisms. The civil courts. Many people can also contract with a private arbitrator, but in most cases in the Western World, our government provides a legal system that govcrns not only criminal behaviour (mostly physical security between citizens) but also commercial dispute resolution.

In fact, there appears to be a higher expectation. We hear a number of voices calling for economic regulation. The "level playing field". After all, if you are considering investing in a company, you examine the company's books - and you expect them to be honest. How to ensure that without having to find out after the fact, and take a company to court? So we have securities laws, which are there to ensure minimum standards. Whose standards? Well in the case of securities, we have an agreed set of rules "Generally Accepted Accounting Principles" so that we're all talking the same language.

In the same vein, as our society has become more technological, and we engage in using high -energy machines (cars, trucks, planes, boilers, refineries, etc.), and we use them around each other, we have evolved from people sueing each other when things go wrong (like the explosion of a poorly operated, and unprotected boiler) to requiring that those boilers be safely designed and the design registered and checked before it may be operated, and then it may only be operated by a trained and qualified operator.

So we can observe that our government(s) have evolved from groups of people keeping watch for predators by the fire at night, to a complex set of agencies overseeing our activities and regulating... well is it everything?

Which leads us to the flip side, what shouldn't a government do? Philosophically speaking, why does our government not just regulate everything from cradle to grave? Wouldn't it be easier, and safer? Wouldn't we maximize security?

Well maybe, but I see two big objections. In the second place, it's been tried, and has been done very poorly. The Soviet state bankrupted and corrupted itself trying to control everything in its' reach. It's successor state is not quite so extreme. The Chinese Communist party noticed that problem and has begun decentralizing and privatizing much of its' economy, the results are not yet in on how their version is going to work out, but the early results are (economically) somewhat encouraging.

But in the first place, what fun would it be? Humans cooperate and compete. If we turned everything over to the state, where would the competition go? How would we strive and challenge ourselves? Many of the most successful ideas came from people who ignored experts claiming that "it couldn't be done". Both our individual successes and societal advances depend on the freedom of individuals to try new things, challenge the existing order, and succeed with something new! (Or fail, learn a lesson and try again).

So there is certainly a tension to try and find the balance between providing security (physical, economic, political) and allowing freedom.

But how do we find that balance? Well we have a group of people we select from amongst our citizens to deal with the day to day provision of security, rules, and other benefits(?) of our society.

The Government.

What's with Government Anyway?

With the election campaign here in Canada in full swing, and the current American style free-for-all of criticisms, witticisms, copy and paste talking points and general tit-for-tat between the various supporters of our three leading parties, I find myself getting a little tired of arguing minutia.

There is a major problem with democracy as we practice it right now. The skills needed to get elected, are largely different from those required to provide good government once elected. On the one hand, you need to appeal to a broad base of people who are willing to make the effort to vote, which means: careful messaging (both content and timing), avoiding pissing people off (thus mobilizing votes for the competition) and spending a lot of money on catchy, easy-to-remember advertising so that when the voter gets out, they can make an "easy decision" to pick you.

Does any of that have anything to do with good government? After all, governing often involves making a lot of choices, many of them which will be unpopular. Many of which would cost you votes if you said you were going to do such a thing during an election campaign. It has been said (at great electoral cost to the sitting Prime Minister who said it)

"This is not the time, I don’t think, to get involved in a debate on very serious issues"

She was right, but saying it during an election, to a reporter was, in hindsight foolish. (When asked why, she stated:

"Because it takes longer than forty-seven days to tackle an issue that’s that serious"

As we can see, an election is a terrible time to try and find a solution to a problem - because what everyone is really chasing is votes to get elected! Thus our problem democracy. We need to tackle hard problems - and the time to pick the people to help lead us to the solutions is the worst possible time for them to open up and say what they really think!

I believe that a lot of people get caught up in the minutia of elections - 1 or 2 % tax increases (or cuts), deficit or surplus, what about the exchange rate, immigration quotes, funding for health care. Are you surprised that I refer to this as minutia? Well these are all the levers and dials that control our big Ship-Of-State, but no one ever seems to talk about where we are going? How fast should we get there? What's on the menu for dinner is very immediate (and hopefully quite yummy), but shouldn't there be someone in the crows nest keeping watch? Just because we haven't hit an iceberg doesn't mean there isn't one out there. So do we pick our Captain based on his cooking? Or on his Leadership and Seamanship?

Why not? Why wouldn't you want to discuss serious issues during an election? Well for one thing, most of the issues we deal with in modern times are complex and difficult. They involve making trade offs, and compromise. It takes time to develop a good policy (as PM Campbell pointed out) and of course, no one wants to hear they won't get their own way. And there will always be another politician out there waiting to pounce on any ambiguity in your message to mobilize their own base and alienate you from swing voters.

This brings me to the two subjects I want to tackle in the next little while. First, what is it we really want out of government? Why do we have it at all? What is it supposed to do? How do we select leaders and representatives who will be able to tackle problems on behalf of our society? How do we forsee the problems they will have to face? What qualifications are (or aren't) appropriate? How do we address the fact that different people in our society

So I pose the question, what is a government for? Why do we even bother?

If you're reading this you probably know I am an engineer, and we love to look at Boundary Conditions. So let's apply that model here.

There have been a few governments which are very controlling, mandating economic five year plans from a very high level, and reaching down to individual lives. I won't name them, there are several well known examples (I'm not trying to polarize anyone, I'm just looking at the extremes). They haven't been very successful. The 20th Century examples either collapsed, or have migrated towards a less centralized approach, or in some cases tried to expand and were defeated by less centralized (although somewhat centralized) democracies. Why did they fail? Well historians are still working that out, but it is observable that their economies were uncompetitive compared to more liberal societies.

What about the other extreme? No government at all? Anarchy. Well that's kind of difficult. The moment there is no government, there will always be someone who wants to "take advantage". To do so often requires working in groups. Other groups then form to protect themselves (or implement their own advantage). What you get is what is usually called a civil war or a failed state. It ends only when one group gains sufficiently to put down the others, becoming the government. Recent examples include Somali, Libya, Syria, and the parts of the Levant currently struggling with Daesh (ISIL/ISIS).

So from the boundary conditions (especially the lower bound, Anarchy) it seems that we need a government of some sort...but for what?

The answer to that question is pretty key. If you are planning to vote, I strongly believe that you should figure that out before you pick a party or a candidate. Because if you don't know the answer to that question, you are voting blind. And voting blind is letting yourself and your fellow citizens down.