This site has moved to robert.williamsonline.us.
I have been thinking about that last entry and thought it would be wise to post some additional thoughts and clarifications.
Our society is not a robust system when it comes to protecting individuals, although we are superb at protecting the state and our way of life. What I mean by robust is a system that is self-correcting and stays on course even in the face of unanticipated situations, or at least fails in a predictabe, recoverable, and safe manner.
As an example, consider terrorism. We can keep America safe from terrorists. There's no question about it. We have the technology, intellectual capital, people, and money to do it. It wouldn't take most folks even an entire day to draft a plan that would safeguard us. Unfortunately, it would trample all over the civil rights of most folks. That's where our system fails when measured according to the extent it protects individuals. There is no "reverse" in the march of increasing governmental and institutional power. There is no means to correct the system. It's like entropy. All it can do is generally get worse.
I am very pro-government, pro-police, pro-military, pro-business, and pro-capitalism. I am in favor of the individuals as well as the institutions. But I am in favor of these institutions only when they contain a "manual override" - some means to rein them in or shut them down when we need to. We have to be able to turn the system off and know that it is off.
The problem is not that institutions and individuals accumulate power and wealth. It is that they turn around and use that power and wealth to keep others from also gaining it through anticompetitive practices, legislative and regulatory antics, legal maneuvers, etc.
For instance, consider the medical profession. I'm all in favor of doctors. I don't begrudge doctors and hospitals one cent of their fees. But the medical profession has managed to put legislative and regulatory things in place that prevent Joe Sixpack from competing with them. You have to have a license to practice medicine. And who ultimately decides who gets a license? Medical professionals.
I am in favor of boards to voluntarily certify professionals. I am utterly opposed to legislation that requires people to hold certain licenses or certifications to engage in certain occupations. This is an example of a group gaining wealth and power, then using that power to control who else can gain wealth and power the same way they did.
This same sort of argument can be applied to many other areas. I object any time a person, agency, government, group, or institution uses its power to raise barriers that serve to protect its position. That is oppression.