Jun 30 Craig Westover: Rebutting Sen. Marty's Vision of Good Government

To paraphrase Sen. John Marty (“In Defense of Good Government”), why does one need to write a rebuttal to a defense of good government? Because Sen. Marty and left wing politicians have made a false idol of government. They willfully or ignorantly (or with willful ignorance) confuse the moral concept of “good” with the economic concept of “effectively achieving an objective.” The irony is Sen. Marty’s definition of “good” government produces “bad” results for those he claims to care about. His policies fail to achieve the objective of helping people.

Fortunately, conservatives understand compassion better than progressives understand economics.

Sen. Marty argues that “as society and the economy become more complex,” the more we need government to “establish justice and to promote the "general welfare." In our increasingly complex society, he argues, we need to work together to educate children, ensure safe products, build roads, bridges and ensure public safety, protect the environment, and help the sick and vulnerable. Indeed, these are honorable objectives. However, they immediately raise the “ought/can” question.

While we “ought” to educate children, ensure safe products, etc., the question is “can” the collective solutions promoted by big government adequately address those problems? As society and economy become more complex, is government more or less able to address the critical issues facing Minnesota?

The answer to the first question is "no" and to the second "less."

The more complexity the less able government is to address an issue. Take education. When Minnesota was primarily a state of Scandinavian heritage, predominately white and Christian, providing a “uniform” system of education was, relatively speaking, not that difficult. Today Minnesota is home to diverse populations with differing values, differing heritage, different learning abilities based on prior education and language barriers and the like. A single person, a single government agency, a centralized system simply does not have the immediate knowledge necessary to resolve that level of complexity. A single one-size-fits-all system cannot address it.

If Peter and Paul differ on the best way to educate their kids, the only way either one can ensure that his views on public education prevail is by controlling the education system through the political system and forcing his views on the other. In the irony of ironies, while public education touts that it takes all students and creates a diverse multi-cultural environment, keeping religion out of schools denies many faiths from practicing those beliefs that make them diverse. Conflict, which detracts from education, is the necessary end of a centralized education system.

Contrast the collective system with actual school choice where state funds are attached to a student, not a school district. The student could apply state funds to tuition at a district school or a private school, an online school, or home schooling – whatever best met the student’s needs. Peter could educate his children one way, Paul another, and neither would have to force his views on the other.

Sen. Marty addresses the complexity issue by setting up a straw man argument: A public water supply is cheaper than having each household drill a well. That may be true, but it is equally true that a private supplier of water, motivated by profit, would have more incentive to provide water at lower cost and higher quality so as to maximize his customer base and profits. Government has no such motivation for efficiency, especially if raising taxes can cover-up for inefficiency.

Sen. Marty, as do so many on the left, idealizes war-time economy. He ignores the death and destruction of WWII to praise the collective effort and “pulling together” of national mobilization. He compares the sacrifice on the battlefield to the “incredible economic sacrifice that needed to be paid with higher taxes.” Caught up in his enthusiastic ode to war, Sen. Marty ignores basic economics.

“Meeting the needs of society can be expensive,” he writes. Indeed, but that expense is not just money, whether printed by the government or confiscated from “the wealthy.” In economic terms, tax dollars represent scarce resources that have other uses. In WWII, we built tanks instead of cars, bombs instead of refrigerators. To carry Sen. Marty’s own comparison forward, in a “War on Poverty,” every one of his advocated government programs must necessarily come at the expense of something else that contributes to our quality of life.

Government cannot do anything for anybody until it first takes the resources from the private sector that produces the wealth that makes compassion possible. Sen. Marty wants low-cost public transportation; fine, but understand that means fewer resources, fewer jobs, less wealth production in the private sector and a net lower standard of living. It means that wealth will be consumed (transit operating at a loss) not produced. How many people must be unemployed or unable to purchase products they want and need because Sen. Marty feels the need to provide low-cost public transportation?

The transportation issue also brings us back to the “ought/can” problem; does low-cost public transportation really solve the transportation problems of low-income individuals Sen. Marty claims to care about? How does a point-to-point light rail line solve the problem of a single mother who needs to take one child to day care, another to public school and then get to work? How does the mother of a family of four bring home groceries for the week on a bus? How does the homeowner improving his property bring a 4’x8’ sheet of plywood home on a train?

Choice in transportation is not about how one wants to travel, but about what one wants to do. Mobility is getting from where you are to where you want to go to do what you want to do when you want to do it. Sen. Marty, however, is not focused on mobility or the needs of individuals; he is focused on government and maximizing systems like transportation, education and health care, irrespective of how those systems benefit (or fail to benefit) the people he claims to care about.

Sen. Marty drawing a distinction between “good” and “bad” government reveals the flaw in his argument; he is all about government. Focus on the individual doesn’t, as Sen. Marty does, force the individual to fit the system; focus on the individual enables systems to develop that meet the needs of individuals as those individuals demand and the market responds. It leaves resources in the private sector, which produces the wealth that makes compassion possible. When we live free, we live better, which is the best rebuttal to Sen. Marty’s collectivist vision of “good” government.

Sen. Marty's article "In Defense of Good Government" can be found on the Apple Pie Alliance website.