Government That Just Doesn't Care

In the last century the people of the European nations have conducted a great experiment. Upon the advice of experts they demolished the “little platoons” between the individual and government that provided support and aid when times were hard. Instead they bought into the idea that government programs could look after the poor and the unfortunate much better than private charity and mutual aid.

The driving force behind this great social experiment was an elite that assured the people that “we care.” In particular, we “care about people like you.”

There is one problem with this idea. Governments don’t care. People who work for government and who have lifetime employment tenure don’t care about you or anything else except their paycheck and the number of days till retirement.

The result of 100 years of caring is a government that just doesn’t care. Libby Purves in the London Times writes about how this works in detail.

Good Morning. Here is the news. Owing to a bank error, several thousand people have had their accounts emptied and credit barred, in some cases losing a job or university place. The bank refused to apologise, pointing out that it put the money back within three weeks — well, in 90 per cent of cases. It added that it is better to be on the safe side. In a separate incident, 2,700 blameless householders returned home to find bailiffs removing their furniture, owing to an IT error at a [finance] company that assumed the stuff belonged to them. The company expresses no regret, saying that errors must be kept “in context” because sometimes two houses look similar. It added that “customer satisfaction” with its activities is “at an all-time high”.

Imagine that! Imagine the outrage! But government does that all the time.

Here’s a horror story from Robert L. Woodson, Sr’s The Triumphs of Joseph. A woman in Philadelphia had her pregnant teenaged daughter give up her baby for adoption. Years later this woman had become commissioner of Philadelphia’s Department of Public Welfare. She found out that her grandson had just been “aged out” of the foster care system. In eighteen years the public welfare system had failed to arrange for an adoption for this child. The government just didn’t care. They allowed the child to bang around in the foster care system for eighteen years.

In the current sour political mood the American people are right to feel that, if the Republicans don’t have the competence to keep gas prices under control, what is the point of them?

But if the welfare state sponsored and defended by the Democratic Party just doesn’t care about kids, then what is the point of Democrats?