No! The State Can't Manage Anything

My guy Curtis Yarvin has a curious piece on the economics of John Ruskin, the Victorian writer. He was, like George Bernard Shaw and Vladimir Lenin, a socialist. So he thinks that it's the job of the government to make sure that everyone has a job and doesn't starve. In other words, the government has an interest in making sure that we all wive and thrive.

Hey, let's face it, says Yarvin,

Since the people are the property of the regime, the people are the assets of the regime. The regime’s incentive is therefore to maintain and improve this human capital.

But is this really how governments act in real life? I don't think so. I think that governments treat their people not as an asset to be carefully managed and tended but as an army to be used in the rulers' glorious fight to win the future. The fight may be a war against the country next door, or it may be to fight climate change. But a ruling class never thinks of itself as merely a night watchman, keeping the streets safe at night. On the contrary, the last thing it wants is for everyone to be nicely tucked up in bed at night. What would be the point?

Yarvin, in his notion of monarchy as the preferred mode of governance, has a point. A monarchy is more likely to treat its people as an asset to be nurtured than as subject people to be looted to reward his supporters.

But even a monarch is not to be trusted with the peoples' welfare. Because his No.1 priority is Number One: himself, the monarch, and his power project. And in his power project the people are just an asset to be exploited for the greater glory of the monarchy, not an asset to be husbanded and improved.

Whether you are talking about a medieval noble arguing with the neighboring nobles about who really inherits some vital dukedom, or nationalist leaders trying to get their nation a place in the sun or American presidents winning glorious world wars, or the present world leaders beating back the horror of climate change, the government is not interested in the wealth and the happiness of the people. It is thinking of the arc of history, whether it bends to national glory or global justice.

Look at the current situation in the United States. The last thing that the present government is thinking about is to "maintain and improve [its] human capital." Instead it is passionately engaged upon expanding the welfare state so that practically every need of its people is the responsibility of some government bureaucracy: so it is going to succeed where a century of bureaucratic administration has failed?

Then the government is passionately engaged upon a total transformation of the energy economy, because climate change. Does anyone really think that this will lead to anything but embarrassment and disaster?

The fact is that, other than making war, governments are absolutely clueless. They know nothing about how to manage the present, let alone prepare for the future.

And if there is one thing we know about the future is that we know nothing about the future. So, any government that makes commitments about the future, whether in workers' wages or workers' rights or workers' skills, it is going to mess it all up. The government cannot make guarantees about incomes or pensions or the future. Because the only thing we know about the future is that it will be a lot different from what we figured.

Yarvin quotes a long paragraph from Ruskin on the situation of domestic servants in a Victorian household, where he argues that the best work is done out of affection -- for the master, presumably.

And so it is, maybe. Until things go south. Guess what happens when things go south for the Victorian gentleman? He closes his house in "town" and sends his domestic servants on their way, with a "reference" attesting to their competence and good will. And when things go south in today's economy and the company can't afford to pay its wages? The company tries to lower wages and the workers probably go on strike. Like that's going to help!

I know. Let's analyze things for the point of view of my reductive Three Peoples theory: Subordinates, Responsibles, and Creatives.

If you are a Subordinate, then you just sit there in your wage-labor job, trusting that you will have that job in the future -- for the next forty years? Really? Remind me what happened to the unionized US auto workers.

If you are a Responsible then you work the best you can, but you know that nothing is forever, so you prepare for a change in the economic weather, figuring to keep your skills up to date, and switching jobs if it looks like the management at your employer is just coasting. But you know that, sooner or later, things will go south and you will have to make the best of it.

If you are a Creative, you will know that the future belongs to those that are creative and have a strategic mind, but even then chances are that most of your brilliant ideas won't work out. So you are always half-prepared to change direction and try something new.

The future belongs to those who...

Yes, what exactly? To those who believe? To those who show up? To those who prepare?

Or just to those who get lucky? Or a combination of the above?

I would say that the key is the spirit of 2 Corinthians, about "things seen" and "things unseen." Government and politics are things seen. But life and instinct and the social nature of humans and the human Lebenswelt are the unseen things that we usually don't "notice."

In my view the whole of the modern miracle of prosperity and science and the market economy are emergent phenomena about which we know a lot less than we imagine.

The only thing I am certain about is that government and politics are probably the best way to smash it all up.