When a medieval serf wanted to
travel to a different area, he or she would need to obtain permission from
their Lord in order to do so. The same was true of many activities outside of
travel. For instance, they needed permission to marry or plant new crops. To
acquire such permission they might seek an audience with their Lord or his
Steward.
The Distance I must Travel in Order to Improve my
Government Experience
Obviously, American society is
not composed of Serfs and Lords. Instead, we have citizens and petty
bureaucrats. Citizens are ostensibly free. Petty bureaucrats exist to give
force to the ‘ostensibly’ in the preceding sentence. If one needs a license to
drive, hunt, purchase a gun or practice one’s trade; one must seek to obtain an
audience with the relevant petty bureaucrat.
Their feudal domains are not
geographically divided; they are divided according to the service they provide.
I suppose this might represent an innovative, new form of government provided
to us as part of the fallout of the enlightenment.
In any case, much like the
medieval serf, the modern citizen does not see his or her government operating
at the grand level. There is much talk of the problems of ‘big government’
which most people roughly equate to taxes on the wealthy or government regulations
of industrial activity.
Although this does harm even the
poorest of citizens in ways he or she may not imagine, the more obvious forms
of government oppression come at the lower levels where the citizen’s activity
is overseen by petty bureaucrats.
I recently decided to attempt to
obtain a license and tag in the state of Alabama, where I live, work and vote. What
follows is a brief list of the various ways in which my individual liberty as a
citizen of this state has been overseen by petty bureaucrats.
1. I went to the tag office, where I was informed
that I would need a state license to obtain a tag.
2. At the licensing office, I was
informed that I needed certain documents in order to transfer my license from
another state to Alabama.
3. The documents provided, I was
informed that due to an (alleged) unpaid ticket from 2009, acquired in the
State of Louisiana, I would need to provide additional documentation proving I
had paid it.
4. After many calls to Louisiana
(where someone humorously asked me if my name was spelled ‘Duc’) I was advised
that the ticket had been paid (in 2009, before it was due) and that I would
need to appear in person to obtain the said documentation which cannot be
transmitted over the ‘unreliable’ internet.
5. Upon the obtaining of said
documentation, I will tentatively, be forced to pay $100 to secure a ‘reinstatement’
of a license I never had in Alabama following an interview to determine whether
I am a ‘safe driver.’
Let me briefly outline for my
readers what this will cost me in terms of non-incidental costs alone.
1. $300 The approximate amount of the initial ticket, paid
in 2009.
2. $100 The cost
of the gas for the trip from Tuscaloosa, AL to Baton Rouge and back.
3. $100 The cost
of the reinstatement fee.
Were I employed on an hourly
basis, I would most assuredly find it more difficult to find the time to make
the trip. Imagine also the hours I would have to spend waiting for the petty
bureaucrat to have time to attend on my case. The opportunity cost would soar
and my employer might find someone else who did not need so much time off from
work to fill my job. Let us not even begin to think of the toll this will take
on my aging car.
There are two competing views on
how to solve the problems created by such incidents. The first is exemplified
by a quotation from President Obama: “What we should be asking is not whether
we need a big government or small government, but how we can create a smarter
and better government.” I like to think of this as the ‘Better Government’
solution, which accepts that all systems oppress people and attempts to make
the system less oppressive than it might otherwise be.
The second view, and the one I
hold to, is that there should be no system which unjustly oppresses people. The
unjust oppression I speak of arises not out of unavoidable problems but out of
predictable inefficiencies. It is predictable that the states should
miscommunicate regarding the status of my ticket, it is predictable that the
system should not allow a fax or email of the same document I must pick up in
person, it is predictable that even at the lowest level government should
operate inefficiently.
An economist of some note, Milton Friedman, who is very
often quoted wrote: “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in
five years there'd be a shortage of sand.” Although the only shortage in my
case is a lack of common sense and justice, the quotation still applies.
Government, lacking any competition is inefficient. There is no reason why Louisiana’s
Office of Motor Vehicles should consider using that system of tubes that we
call the internet, there is no reason why Alabama’s Department of Motor
Vehicles should obtain more staff to reduce waiting lines.
More importantly, there is no reason why either of the two should work
toward the resolution of the problem of miscommunication because I am not a
customer, I am a citizen. A customer is a first-class citizen in a place of business;
a citizen is a second-class customer in the office of a government department. Every
person who has ever been to a government office to acquire any product is aware
of this fundamental truth.
If I was a medieval serf, I might
consider offering my Lord a ‘gift’ to make the problem go away. The same solution
might be cheaper to attempt than the enormous feat of travel I shall have to
attempt in order to resolve this matter.
In the same speech, President
Obama also said: “Government is the roads you drove in on and the speed limits
that kept you safe.” This age-old assumption, that the government should
administer the maintenance of roads and the right to travel on them is one
which we should seriously reconsider.
But the purpose of this brief
article is not to discuss the specific issue of government administration of
the highway system, it is to point out that even at the lowest level,
government is inefficient. Government cannot be made better or less oppressive,
it cannot improve in the same way that a business can because no individual has
any interest in its improvement. Although our methods of oppressing people have
changed since feudal times, this fundamental truth remains: when the government
attempts to regulate any activity such as marrying, hunting or travelling the
inevitable outcome is injustice.
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