Government action at what cost?


How many problems are caused by government action in the first place?
Thomas Sowell makes some great points.

Most people do not know the rest of the story, however. Why was there racially segregated seating on public transportation in the first place? "Racism" some will say -- and there was certainly plenty of racism in the South, going back for centuries. But racially segregated seating on streetcars and buses in the South did not go back for centuries.

Far from existing from time immemorial, as many have assumed, racially segregated seating in public transportation began in the South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Those who see government as the solution to social problems may be surprised to learn that it was government which created this problem. Many, if not most, municipal transit systems were privately owned in the 19th century and the private owners of these systems had no incentive to segregate the races.

These owners may have been racists themselves but they were in business to make a profit -- and you don't make a profit by alienating a lot of your customers. There was not enough market demand for Jim Crow seating on municipal transit to bring it about.

It was politics that segregated the races because the incentives of the political process are different from the incentives of the economic process. Both blacks and whites spent money to ride the buses but, after the disenfranchisement of black voters in the late 19th and early 20th century, only whites counted in the political process.

It was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of the white voters to demand racial segregation. If some did and the others didn't care, that was sufficient politically, because what blacks wanted did not count politically after they lost the vote.

The incentives of the economic system and the incentives of the political system were not only different, they clashed. Private owners of streetcar, bus, and railroad companies in the South lobbied against the Jim Crow laws while these laws were being written, challenged them in the courts after the laws were passed, and then dragged their feet in enforcing those laws after they were upheld by the courts.

These tactics delayed the enforcement of Jim Crow seating laws for years in some places. Then company employees began to be arrested for not enforcing such laws and at least one president of a streetcar company was threatened with jail if he didn't comply.

None of this resistance was based on a desire for civil rights for blacks. It was based on a fear of losing money if racial segregation caused black customers to use public transportation less often than they would have in the absence of this affront.

I bring this up because usually a government solution causes more problems than it solves.

Right now, Senator Hillary Clinton has suggested that oil companies should be punished for "excessive" profits. Never mind that no oil company has profit percentages as high as the Dow Jones 40 or the Fortune 100. The profits are high, and therefore must be taxed.

Let's look at that a little closer. Oil prices today are dropping, not nearly as low as they were, but they are dropping as the supply catches up with the demand.

Oil companies are major employers in the hurricane devastated gulf states. Reduce profits and those companies won't be able to employ as many people or do as much capital investment.

A government solution usually causes more problems than it solves.

With Prohibition, government went after immorality and "that demon alcohol." Result? A explosion in the violent crime rate, an increase in alcohol consumption, and the glorification of criminals. You can pretty much repeat that for the War on Drugs.

A government solution usually causes more problems than it solves.

With the Great Society, government set out to take care of those who could not take care of themselves. Result? More unmarried mothers, more single men not taking responsibility for their families, increase in crime rate, and more children without a male role model.

A government solution usually causes more problems than it solves.

The scary thing is how many times the government solution backfires, and then another more drastic solution is proposed to fix the problems caused by the first "solution."

Both the Real ID program and the National DNA database are being touted as solutions to terrorism and high crime rates. But there is no anti-terrorism benefit and no law enforcement benefit from these programs.

There is a lot of government monitoring of individual action though.

A government solution usually causes more problems than it solves.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sun - October 30, 2005 at 05:10 AM  Tag


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