A Quote by John Stossel
As coercive monopolies that spend other people's money taken by force, governments are uniquely unqualified to solve problems. They are riddled by ignorance, perverse incentives, incompetence and are self-serving.
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In a republic there is no coercive force as in other governments, the laws must therefore endeavor to supply this defect.
There's a very good reason that governments aren't supposed to compete with private-enterprise companies. Governments have monopolies on certain things, like eminent domain and deadly force.
Most people will solve the problems they know how to solve. Roughly speaking they will solve B+ problems instead of A+ problems. A+ problems are high impact problems for your company but they're difficult problems.
Doing good with other people's money has two basic flaws. In the first place, you never spend anybody else's money as carefully as you spend your own. So a large fraction of that money is inevitably wasted. In the second place, and equally important, you cannot do good with other people's money unless you first get the money away from them. So that force - sending a policeman to take the money from somebody's pocket - is fundamentally at the basis of the philosophy of the welfare state.
And I've come to the place where I believe that there's no way to solve these problems, these issues - there's nothing that we can do that will solve the problems that we have and keep the peace, unless we solve it through God, unless we solve it in being our highest self. And that's a pretty tall order.
Saying that government is not the way to solve problems is not saying that humanity cannot solve its problems. What I've finally learned is this: Despite the obstacles created by governments, voluntary networks of private individuals - through voluntary exchange - solve all sorts of challenges.
Your financial success is directly related to the size of the problem you solve for other people (solve BIG problems and you'll make BIG money).
Many companies believe incentives, financial incentives, are the answer to every problem or issue. But people are motivated by much more than money. In particular, people like to feel good about themselves and maintain their self-esteem. If companies spent more time working on people's feelings of self-worth, they wouldn't have to try, often unsuccessfully, to bribe people to do work.
Governments have monopolies on certain things, like eminent domain and deadly force.
Authoritarianism and secrecy breed incompetence; the two feed on each other. It's a vicious cycle. Governments with authoritarian tendencies point to what is in fact their own incompetence as the rationale for giving them yet more power.
Collectivists would have you believe that individualism is merely another word for selfishness, because individualists oppose welfare and other forms of coercive redistribution of wealth, but just the opposite is true. Individualists advocate true charity, which is the voluntary giving of their own money, while collectivists advocate the coercive giving of other people's money; which, of course, is why it is so popular.
We are more than our problems. Even if our problem is our own behavior, the problem is not who we are-it's what we did. It's okay to have problems. It's okay to talk about problems-at appropriate times, and with safe people. It's okay to solve problems. And we're okay, even when we have, or someone we love has a problem. We don't have to forfeit our personal power or our self-esteem. We have solved exactly the problems we've needed to solve to become who we are.
Positive market incentives operating in the public interest are too few and far between, and are also up against a seemingly never-ending expansion of perverse incentives and lobbying.
Generosity is a virtue for individuals, not governments. When governments are generous it is with other people’s money, other people’s safety, other people’s future.
Teaching and writing, really, they support and nourish each other, and they foster good thinking. Because when you show up in the classroom, you may have on the mantle of authority, but in fact, you're just a writer helping other writers think through their problems. Your experience with the problems you've tried to solve comes into play in how you try to teach them to solve their problems.
As a former EPA administrator under a Republican president, I recognize that it is easy to hate regulations in general. After all, regulatory action causes people to spend money or change behavior, often to solve problems they do not believe exist.
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