Good government is a balance between anarchy and despotism, and the balance, if it is achieved at all, is made on such a razor’s edge that the times in human history when government might be considered to be enlightened, benevolent or even competent, are rare indeed. The problem is that human organizations such as governments and corporations, or even churches, little league teams and ice cream socials, become lenses which magnify human nature along with human effort. Human nature, along with all the compassionate and altruistic impulses of which it is capable, is also capable of greed, lust for power and a brilliant capacity for rationalization and the justification of one’s dubious deeds.
Recent polls indicate the continuation of a longstanding dissatisfaction with government among the governed. We are generally unhappy with Washington and also with our state and local governments. Our unhappiness is exacerbated by the return of that traveling circus of politics and punditry which seems, like the hot weather now, to extend well beyond its appointed season. A President has about two years to get something accomplished before he has to start running for re-election; a Congresswoman, about six months. With a presidential election due next year, we will get to hear from our two perennial parties for the next year and a half just how miserable we are and why our misery is directly attributable to that other party.
As voters we will likely do again what we have done so many times before. We will skim the surface of the speeches and the arguments looking for clues that our candidates are just like we are, and they will offer us ample material to convince us of just that fact via slogans and key words. If we voted for Coke in the last election and are dissatisfied with the results, many of us will vote for Pepsi this time around. If the polls indicate that the elections might be close, look for our tried and true polarizing issues to be hauled out and hoisted up the flag pole: abortion, gun control, immigration reform. The candidates will make impassioned speeches and promise reforms that they have no means to deliver. Very little will change, but our anger will be assuaged for another few years while business as usual continues.
The real issue behind our general dissatisfaction is, in fact, that “business as usual.” It is the business which, like a tapeworm, extracts wealth from the economy without producing wealth. It is the uber-bank borrowing money from the Fed at 1% interest and then purchasing treasury bonds that pay 4 percent rather than lending that money out. It is the continuing favoritism by the rule of law for the corporate rather than the individual as corporate profits soar to all-time highs. It is the continued disenfranchisement of labor in favor of management.
Let me elaborate on that last statement. It was not a political endorsement of unions, although unions do serve a useful purpose in our economy when they are not, themselves, tapeworms feeding on productivity. The statement about labor and management is an attempt to illustrate the growing problem of the shrinking middle class. The problem with every democracy and with every society which attempts to be egalitarian is that, at some point, those who manage a society’s institutions learn how to use those institutions to leverage personal benefit. In a society such as ours where honor and morals have been replaced by relativism, it is easier to rationalize those benefits. Consider the local company where the managers have special privileges unrelated to productivity: They come and go as they please while regular employees are chained to their cubicles. Managers go to meetings and conferences at company expense, attend luncheons and benefits during working hours and they use company time to pursue interests unrelated to business under the guise of “reaching out to the community.” Regular employees are monitored for productivity throughout the day. They are limited to strictly enforced break times and lunch breaks. They make the widgets, sell the widgets, provide the customer support for the widgets, but they make a fraction of the salary as the corner offices which may never have seen a widget – or a fraction of the money made by someone in an office a thousand miles away trading stock of the widget making company.
If you want to understand Washington and what is wrong with our national government, look no further than your local institutions of business and government. The deck is stacked, legally, socially and systemically against those who produce wealth in favor of those who extract it. The system will not change until our dissatisfaction exceeds the ability of those who hold power to distract us from the real issues. Keep this in mind while you enjoy the political season.
