Aside from the basic governmental function of defending the people from enemies, foreign and domestic, most government action actually Makes Things Worse. This is particularly true of our modern progressive educated ruling class, whose religion is that politics can bend the arc of history towards justice.
We have already seen how government education and pensions and government healthcare and home mortgages have Made Things Worse. Let us continue.
Government Civil Rights. When the United States Senate debated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) spoke out against it. He argued that the Civil Rights Act should only ban discrimination by government. It should not ban discrimination by corporations and individuals. Thus he said on the floor of the Senate that the act
would embark the Federal Government on a regulatory course of action with regard to private enterprise in the area of so‐called “public accommodations” and in the area of employment — to be more specific, Titles II and VII of the bill.
This act branded Goldwater -- who had demanded the desegregation of the Senate cafeteria on behalf of his black aide -- a racist to the end of his days.
But imagine if the Civil Rights Act had confined itself to discrimination by government. Then we wouldn't have the current regime of government forcing private institutions to discriminate on the basis of the latest fashion in elite circles.
The necessity of Jim Crow laws in the South was that outfits like bus companies, railroads, and ordinary lunch counters, needed to be forced to discriminate against blacks. Because the logic of the market economy and private enterprise is that a customer is a customer. What matter is whether the customer is trustworthy, whether the customer pays his or her bills.
But the natural instinct of government is to discriminate, because that is the nature of politics: for US and against Them. Political leadership is all about rallying the tribe or the nation to arms in the present emergency against the existential peril. So, what is needed is not legislation to supervise individuals and corporations; what is needed is legislation to supervise politicians and bureaucrats, to forbid them from following their natural political instincts and discriminate in favor of "our people" against "their people."
Is discrimination against other people by race or by sex or by national origin by private individuals and corporations wrong? Probably. But not illegal. Humans have ways of socializing people away from wrong that falls short of government force. It is call naming and shaming, and women are particularly good at it.
The conclusion is obvious. Government laws that forbid discrimination by private individuals and corporations is wrong and Makes Things Worse.
Government Sexual Revolution. Back in the day, fathers made sure their daughters were safe from guys unless "their intentions were honorable." Back in the day, divorce was unthinkable. Back in the day, abortion was monstrous. Back in the day, nobody got married unless their marriage was primed with a dowry or a bride price that basically provided the wherewithal to survive. What happened?
In part, of course, our increased prosperity and our increased medical knowledge has transformed the world. An abandoned mother can, sort of, raise her child. A girl pursued and abandoned by a faithless lover can get an abortion. Divorce isn't the end of the world, especially when women work in the market economy.
If we say that the meaning of life, the universe, and everything is for humans to produce the next generation and leave a better world for their children, then it makes sense to restrain young men that just want to get laid; it makes sense to force men to support and father their children; it makes sense to pressure married couples to stay married and not imagine that they could solve their problems with a new spouse.
Back in the day, the old rules were a matter of life and death. Today, not so much. Still, if you want a successful life and you want to leave prosperous children and grandchildren behind you then you need, in the breach, to follow the old rules. Girls need to feel that their lover will stick around. Children need a mother and a father: their mother and their father. Women need to feel that they will not be traded in for a newer model. Men need to feel that their wife will not suddenly take up an opportunity for a bit of hypergamy.
But today, the fashionable elite advances all these notions. And they are Making Things Worse.
More to come.
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