Comprehensive Reform versus Piecemeal Reform
In the previous two articles in this three-part series on bipartisan comprehensive political reform, we dealt with the excuses for extortion and evasion such claims for reform provide and with the fact that such claims often lead to more comprehensive ignorance being applied to social problems. Now, we turn to the question of comprehensive reform versus piecemeal reform.
When it comes to bipartisan comprehensive political reform, beyond its rhetorical use to enable government abuses along with its massive destruction of usable information and inaccurate accounting of the costs of government, there is still another issue. The presumption that comprehensive political plans must be preferred over piecemeal improvements is highly questionable.
As Friedrich Hayek has noted, “in complex conditions . . . a division of authority will actually extend the possibility of overall order.” However, this potential is undermined by centralization because “the more the state ‘plans,’ the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.” In other words, more central planning often means less, and less effective, planning in addressing the problems unavoidably imposed by scarcity and limited information.
To see this more clearly, some questions are in order.
If you and I believe we have discovered a way to arrange our affairs to better serve us both, should everyone who might be affected in even the slightest way, or even not at all except by pimping their votes on legislation, get to vote on our “reform”? Or is it enough that you and I, whose rights and resources are involved, both vote yes? The first is an invitation to robbery; the second is a defense against it.
Did early America “work” so well that other countries sent deputations to discover and try to replicate the “magic” because of some sprawling, comprehensive political plan? No. It was precisely because government was strictly prevented from imposing
Article from Mises Wire
