Governments, Bureaucracy and Sustainable Living
Date Tue 22 May 2007
When you boil it all down sustainable living is about efficiency. That’s why no serious discussion about sustainable practice can ignore the rise of big bloated governments and their attendant bureaucracies.
Fact is the institution of government is directly responsible for unsustainable practice.
The French philosopher and libertarian, Bastiat, said it best:
“Government is the myth whereby one half of the population live off the other half.”
That’s precisely the problem faced by all so-called developed economies and the world at large. We are seeing the sickening, debilitating rise of an unproductive sector.
An ever-growing percentage of our workforce is engaged in a whole range of unproductive pursuits; administration, ensuring compliance, rubber-stamping, pen-pushing, bean-counting and big brother style tracking of others.
Big bloated governments have a natural tendency to drive the growth of non-productive “work”. Their focus on “full employment” or low unemployment as an election aid means they do not consider the intrinsic value to the community of the jobs created. To them it’s job creation and simply a numbers game – a job is a job.
But the reality is we’re seeing an explosion of administrators and public servants paid reasonably well for doing unreasonably little of real value for the community. They’re given perk packages, government cars and travel allowances to abuse. All in the name of job creation and low unemployment.
It’s essentially a grandiose public dole scheme that’s open to abuse. And abused it is…
The government sector suffers from entrenched cronyism and jobs-for-the-boys mentality that ensures further growth of the non-productive sector.
What we are seeing is an explosion of parasitic bureaucracy and over-regulation that stifles creative enterprise and produces vast inefficiencies. Big bloated governments are unsustainable. Tell them to get a real job.
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