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Choose Your Tyranny

Entry 2295, on 2023-09-29 at 14:38:55 (Rating 4, Politics)

We live in a complex society and we need some structure, don't we. I don't think many people would disagree - apart from anarchists, who are a very small minority - but the question soon becomes how should the structure be implemented.

There are two broad approaches, neither of which ever occur in their pure form because actual societies exist in a continuum between the extremes. The two approaches, put in simple terms, are central control, or top-down; and distributed control, or bottom-up.

I'm sure it will come as no surprise that I prefer the second, but I recognise that some central control can sometimes be helpful, if not essential. As my repeated theme on this states: I always form opinions based on nuanced views away from the extremes.

The two approaches sometimes manifest as left and right, or socialist and capitalist, or collectivist and individualist, but what lead me to wanting to discuss this topic now?

Well, you might think it is related to the upcoming election, here in New Zealand, and that is partly true, because that involves a fairly clear choice between the left (Labour, Green, Maori) versus the right (National, Act, NZ First). Labour have centralised several services during their time in power, and that appears to have been a complete disaster, so I'm hoping the right parties (who are very likely to win) might be able to reverse some of this damage.

You might also think it is related to global trends demanding centralised control to help mitigate the worst effects of alleged existential threats, such as climate change, and that is also partly true.

But what really got me started on this path was some interesting interactions I recently had on social media: YouTube, Facebook, and X (aka Twitter)...

The first was regarding a couple of extreme, woke politicians: Justin Trudeau of Canada, and Jacinda Ardern from New Zealand. After an item criticising Trudeau for his extremely draconian actions during COVID, I commented that he was one of the few politicians who was even more of a tyrant than our own Jacinda.

A commenter asked me what it was about her that I disliked so much, and I had to stop and think for a while, because after you get into the habit of criticising a public figure for a while, you can easily forget the actual reason you're doing it! In her case I think it was her authoritarianism, total confidence that she was right even when there were good reasons to doubt that, and insistence on centralising power around herself. In other words, she was a tyrant.

Luckily, because we are still a democracy here, although Ardern and her followers would like to change that, we managed to get rid of her. In fact she ran away like the coward she is before we had the chance to unceremoniously throw her out, like we are very likely to do to her unfortunate successor.

The second interaction was an item blaming climate change on private companies. The implication was that business and capitalism in general is bad because it encourages self-centered behaviour which favours the privileged company owners while causing harm to everyone else.

I agree there is some truth in this, and I have discussed this problem, in the context of game theory and the tragedy of the commons, in the past. But it's a very simplistic way to look at this, because businesses provide a lot of good as well as bad, and bad outcomes often come from more centralised institutions, like governments, as much as companies.

I replied to the discussion with something like this: if companies are to blame for climate change, why is it that China has built more coal fired power stations than the rest of the world combined, and this is primarily because of the communist government there?

I didn't get a reply.

The US, which primarily has a capitalist economy, has reduced its carbon emissions quite substantially, while China, with its primarily communist economy, has increased theirs massively. Yet companies are to blame? Really?

Note that I'm not making any absolute claims about this, and I recognise that the reductions in the US are at least partly due to government regulations, but as I said at the start of this, I believe in a mixed model, and it's the extremists who see it too simply that I object to.

So I think a competitive model, based on capitalism, is the better approach, but sometimes government control is necessary to correct any "market failures". Market failures might include climate change, because it's to each individual company's advantage to not be too concerned with the environment... until they all follow that approach! Climate change is a "externality" that traditional economic models do not consider.

There are plenty of examples where large corporations have acted in very uncaring, dictatorial, and malicious ways, but at least when dealing with companies you generally have a choice. With governments you have tend to have few options, and when their tyranny becomes extreme, like it did during the pandemic, you have no choice at all.

So I prefer the tyranny of companies rather than the tyranny of governments. It's a slightly less inescapable version, and one which is less all-encompassing.

Can you imagine a company demanding that you stay in your house, never interact with other people, and call the police if you see your friends, neighbours, and family members daring to enjoy a little bit of freedom? That's what the evil tyrant Ardern demanded, and to ensure her dictatorship wasn't questioned she tried to shut down alternative opinions and told us that she was the sole source of reliable information, even though she had already got a lot of things wrong by then. Well, that's how Nazi Germany got started!

That last paragraph was deliberate hyperbole, and a little bit of fun (especially the last sentence, which was taken from "Fawlty Towers") but I think there is an element of truth there.

Sure, you could say that Ardern instituted all those controls for the good of everyone during a serious health emergency, but that illustrates the danger of a person who is totally convinced she is right, and acts in a paternalistic way (despite being a woman) because she is on "the right side of history". Watch out for that phrase I just quoted: it is a sure sign of dishonesty and arrogance.

People who do things because they think they know better, have the high moral ground, or are better informed are by far the most dangerous. The others who do bad things and know it are much easier to manage.

I think tyranny is inevitable to some extent, but we should try to minimise it, and try to give people the choice of what type of tyranny they are controlled by. Democracy gives us that ability to some extent, but it can be quite hard to tell the difference between the policies of the left and right at this stage of history. It's very much a matter of choosing the least bad option.

And I have to admit that private companies aren't a lot better in many ways, but they should still be preferred, because only governments have the legal right to use violence and deprive us of your freedoms.

So choose the least bad option, and choose your tyranny!

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