There is the big picture for every politician who seeks to be more than a mere manager of the state’s business, a part of the mechanism of collecting Caesar’s taxes. Good government from a Christian point of view is about the acknowledgement and reinforcement of human dignity. And to see it in this way may help us out of the useless standoff that sometimes arises when we try and talk about what ‘strong’ government is and whether it is desirable.
We react against certain kinds of strong government or ‘big’ government on the grounds that we don’t want to be patronised or bullied or stripped of the fruits of our own work. And the mistake is then to hand over all responsibility to non-state agents ”“ which in practice often means non-accountable interests. Or, on the other hand, we try to make sure that government controls all outcomes and averts all risks by law and regulation. And this produces a culture of obsessional legislation, paralysis of initiative and pervasive anxiety.
Well, the last three decades have seen plenty of both these odd growths ”“ the delinquent children of Milton Friedman and Sidney Webb. Is it a fantasy to think that we just might be on the verge of discovering another register for talking politics and doing politics? One thing that the remarkable recent election has surely told us is that some of the historic party identities of British politics are not making much sense to a lot of the electorate; party loyalties are not what they were, because people have been unclear about what the arguments really are (despite the high-profile debating). The leaders of a new government, a new leadership in opposition, have the chance to put the question of human dignity at the centre of public debate by affirming that strong government is government that makes strong citizens ”“ not by resigning responsibility but by deliberately building capacity for co-operation, encouraging mutual dependence and skill-sharing, helping to create what some have called a ‘social-quality market’ in which people collaborate to define the goods they are seeking together instead of being reduced to the level of the simple relations between producer and consumer.
[blockquote]…the delinquent children of Milton Friedman…[b](????)[/b][/blockquote] Unless he intends to imply by his use of [i]delinquent[/i] that the children were wholly disobedient to Friedman as their (metaphorical) parent, +Rowan Cantuar has displayed how little he actually understands of a discipline which, as his quoted remark makes overwhelmingly obvious, is beyond his understanding, [i]i.e.[/i], outside his area of expertise. The poor man seems not to know neither when to hold, or loose, his tongue, without giving himself cause for embarassment or future self-contradiction.
(Full disclosure: When first he was elevated to his current office, I had a great deal of difficulty in not referring to him as Rowan [i]Atkinson[/i], as that was the only other person with the same given name the awareness of whom I recalled ever having. I am now not entirely certain that there might not have been something prophetic in that phenomenon.)
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer
Yes, I do think that’s right – his forays into economics are cringeworthy. He’s more respectful of, and knowledgeable about, the thought of Richard Dawkins than he is of economics.
Clearly I was reading a different article. Aside from a modest critique of St. Friedman (who’s policies have only been adapted in dictatorships), and a socialist, he made a thoughtful plea for dignity, a dignity that those who believe in the existence of homo economicus don’t always quanitfy.
[b][i]3. John Wilkins[/i][/b],
Mild criticism, my foot. To lay the blame for the current world economic crisis or the rise of unbridled consumerism, not to mention the issue of a preferential option for the poor at the feet of Friedman, and those who agree with his preferred policies, particularly the unambiguously implied claim by +Williams that Friedman, or anyone who agrees with him, believes in [emphasis mine] [blockquote]…[b]hand(ing) over all responsibility to non-state agents[/b] – which in practice often means non-accountable interests…[/blockquote] is a quite thorough misrepresentation of Friedman, not to mention his teachers Hayek and Mises. All three economists are quite outspoken advocates of [i]strong property rights[/i] for the individual under the [i]Rule of Law[/i]. +Williams statement can only be interpreted, absent the potential explanation in my first sentence, as indicating he somehow reads Friedman differently than anyone else does.
Secondarily, Friedman [b]insists[/b] on [i]strong property rights[/i] and the [i]Rule of Law[/i], in order that the law should hold [b]every[/b] player in the economy fully accountable for their actions.
Tertiarilly, no dictatorship could possibly be honestly claimed to have adopted Friedman’s prescriptions, at least not in any extensive manner. For you to imply otherwise can only signify that you have either not read, or read but not comprehended the ideas put forward in, the Friedmans’ 1980s work [i]Free to Choose[/i]. Any dictatorship that implemented those prescriptions would remain a dictatorship only until such time as the grreater majority of them were adopted, if that long.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer