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Comment by thomasmallen | Hacker News Reader

That's where I stand. I want a small government, and I think it's crazy that a government as hulking as ours doesn't provide something as essential as healthcare. On the other hand, I'm against social security and think that a general welfare system will do fine to take care of poor people, young or old.

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It's unfortunate that the desire for an efficient government has been tied into the desire for "small government" and libertarianism.

An efficient government is a laudable thing that everyone should want, and so cutting away the fat is a natural thing to do in any sort of political light.

I don't know why libertarians at large seem to claim ownership of this notion.

A part of the reason may be that lots of people make their living off this "fat."

Hence, we need to change up our notion of government as fixed institution to government as agile organization.

And other nations would be licking their chops.

Not sure what you mean by this? I wasn't advocating anarchism. I'm simply saying we need to think of (and implement) government as an agile entity, one that dynamically allocates resources as necessary rather than suffers from "institution creep".

Then I think what you are looking for is very small government -- as in everyone is at least an acquaintance of their leader(s). When everyone knows everyone else in a system, they are able to provide for one another because they personally know what everyone needs and can react quickly without going through seven layers of bureaucracy. When the government's reach grows so large that they don't know their citizens, then they have to rely on formalized metrics and laws to determine how resources should be allocated, and it is that sort of overhead which causes the inefficiency that you speak of. This effect is similar to companies: When they first start out, they are agile and able to outpace their competitors in the market, but once they get too big, they cease to innovate and have a hard time meeting the demands of changes in the market.

Good point, although I think G2C tech can substantially improve communications between citizens and government leaders. This is assuming there's a strong initiative to adopt such tech across the board, and that it's competently designed.

There are plenty of good people working in the civic media area, so there's a good talent pool to draw from.

The revolution of Public Choice economics was to examine the incentives faced by actors in the public sector, instead of viewing public policy as exogenous to the economy as previous models have done.

In the past, if economists discovered an inefficiency in the market, they would say "and the government should correct this inefficiency with policy X". Public choice economists don't ask if governments should do X, but rather will they do X.

It turns out the incentives facing government actors aren't very good. They have much fewer incentives to act efficiently than market actors. It is possible to have competent officials at the head of a small bureaucracy produce good results. However, I doubt this is possible for the United States, which owns the largest bureaucracy in the world.

So, there are real reasons for limiting the scope of government.

Food is pretty essential. Why don't you get the government to provide that too? And water? What about work? People need work - it's a human right! Why stop there? Head on up Maslows. Why shouldn't all people reach the top of Maslow's hierarchy. And if they should - well then surely it's the role of their fellow man to facilitate it through the efficient, modest and even-handed institution of government!

Food is pretty essential. Why don't you get the government to provide that too?

Done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_Sta...

The subsidy programs give farmers extra money for their crops, as well as guarantee a price floor. For instance in the 2002 Farm Bill, for every bushel of wheat sold farmers were paid an extra 52 cents and guaranteed a price of 3.86 from 2002–03 and 3.92 from 2004–2007.[2] That is, if the price of wheat in 2002 was 3.80 farmers would get an extra 58 cents per bushel (52 cents plus the $0.06 price difference).

Also, please see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIC_Program

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Nutrition_Service

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Stamp

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