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> But "the government" is people.

The way matter is subatomic particles. The same thing at very different scales exhibit very different properties, and although technically true, it's misleading to consider governments as sets of people. They lack some essential features exhibited by individuals and small groups, features which we aptly call _humanity_.

The parent's proposal is to delegate stuff which require humanity to much smaller groups, which operate at scales where humanity still exists. It's a good idea, albeit not a new one: decentralization. It's very difficult to execute properly. Moreover, humanity isn't only composed of positive qualities: poorly executed decentralization easily turns into tribal clientelism.

Poorly executed centralization easily turns into communism, which fails spectacularly on anything but tribal scales.

Decentralization sure has its problems, but tends to beat the alternatives. Of course, where you end up in each system and how you benefit/suffer there may influence whether you agree.

I certainly wasn't advising against decentralizing. Only warning against thinking of it as an easily implemented no-brainer, a la "just decentralize everything, and everything is going to start working smoothly, like magic". Naive libertarianism hasn't proved to be more effective than naive Communism, and most people including myself believe it isn't.

Wasn't intending to contradict you; sorry if it came off that way.

Excellent reply. My take on this is. People who spend other people's money by the truckload are rarely going to spend it in the wisest possible and responsible way. The other points are these... With government spending the money, a small percentage of people are distributing this money that was collected from the general populous and the feeling of giving someones money away to others is not the same as if it were your own money (especially when it is going to poor results programs)

Government being responsible for social security is a pretty new idea. The charity driven system he describes was the main way of doing things through the 1900s.

Churches, professions (benevolent funds), and clubs (as in masons) looked first after their own, and their children, when they fell on hard times. That was what they were for. That was why they were so vital in society.

You remember in Oliver Twist, where child orphans not lucky enough to descend for a professional are put to work as pseudo slaves in a workhouse? You remember when they escape to work as thieves and probably prostitutes for an older gangmaster? Not in your production of the show?

Anyway, that's what a small state, and charity driven welfare looked like.

I totally agree with the sentiment, but "government being responsible for social security" is certainly not a new idea. The bible [1] established a sort of central welfare, and the Roman Empire provided welfare as well[2].

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe#Mosaic_law: The third year was called "the year of tithing" (Deuteronomy 26:12-14) in which the Israelites set aside 1/10 of the increase of the land, they were to give this tithe to the Levites, strangers, orphans, and widows. These tithes were in reality more like taxes for the people of Israel and were mandatory, not optional giving. This tithe was distributed locally "within thy gates" (Deuteronomy 14:28) to support the Levites and assist the poor.

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare#History: In the Roman Empire, the first emperor Augustus provided the 'congiaria' or corn dole for citizens who could not afford to buy food. Social welfare was enlarged by the Emperor Trajan.Trajan's program brought acclaim from many, including Pliny the Younger. The Song dynasty government (c.1000AD in China) supported multiple programs which could be classified as social welfare, including the establishment of retirement homes, public clinics, and paupers' graveyards. According to Robert Henry Nelson, "The medieval Roman Catholic Church operated a far-reaching and comprehensive welfare system for the poor..."

> And if you're American, then it would be doubly great because we haven't seen any political revolutions in America since its founding (though if you're American you probably won't, because Americans like complaining about their government and alienating themselves from it, but they tend to do very little to improve it; at the end of the day, they're just too docile).

Some notable events in American history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_St...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement

I didn't say "no notable events". I said no political revolutions (although the civil war almost counts).

If the US Civil War doesn't qualify as a political revolution, then I would argue nothing possibly could.

It started as a political argument in fact. It was about how to govern, and what rights the states possessed as part of the United States. Every aspect of the Civil War and its outcomes were political in nature.

It was absolutely a political revolution first and foremost. The war settled the political dispute.

"But "the government" is people. Society said, "let people take care of people", and government is the answer to how to do that. The government is "full of corruption and waste" because people are."

The government is one answer for how to do that.

Society and government are not the same.

People spending their own money are almost always less wasteful and more careful where that money goes.

Almost everyone wants to help needy people. Most are just too busy, don't want to see that part of society, or don't know how to get involved.

If someone that you knew said that you could pay $1000 less in taxes next year if you looked through a list of families that needed help and wrote a check to them for $1000, how many people do yo think would refuse?

Do you think that they would spend more than 30 seconds randomly looking through the list for the person they will be helping?

The government largely only cares about that family in terms of employment and re-election. They are nothing but a number in a database somewhere. Most people don't even know the level of suffering some people right here in the good ol USA go through on a daily basis. The more money that one has, the more insulated from that reality they are. This will provide a window at least.

This illustration does not exactly follow the original concept, but hopefully you get the idea of an individual vs govt.

>What you're suggesting is simply a new form of government. It might be great; it could perhaps work. But it's certainly not something to suggest offhand. Our current form(s) of government is a result of centuries (and millennia) of gradual, and sometimes revolutionary, progress. I wouldn't just throw it out the window.

Where on earth did you get "new form of government" and "revolution" from? I am merely suggesting that social services be reformed heavily. This is certainly something that could be evaluated on a small scale (state level perhaps). I do realize that while the concept is simple, the implementation would be far more complex.

Everyone here keeps coming up with all these wild reasons of why this is a bad idea. Funny thing is, almost all their reasons (such as corruption, fraud, ETC.) already exist in the system today. I am not saying that there would not be any regulations, oversight, ETC. I am also not saying that there wold never be abuses. All I am saying is that the government is certainly not the best at getting this type of job done and tax money going to the poor and people not even seeing it happen is dehumanizing us.