February 16th, 2009

My friend is being modest and didn't want me to quote him. Fine. I can still write the essence of what he said without identifying him, so here goes: "Crony Capitalism is Socialism in disguise, and it's killing us all. More Socialism is not the answer."

I think that equating crony capitalism with socialism (its own brand, anyhow) is a stroke of genius—that's why I wanted to quote him.

It's certainly implied in the message of the type of people clamouring to impose more and more restrictions. It is possible that the economic adjustment/decline has just hit our Western society at a bad time: when people are not interested in thinking and competing any more. Instead there's a social movement afoot to impose "fairness" laws all over the place, as though that were going to make everything great for all of us.

Stupid word that, "fair" ...

What I'm getting at here is that there are ebbs and flows and neaps in cultural values. Compare the general social sentiment of the 1970s vs. the same peoples' newfound right-thinking values of the 1980s. In some ways, the metaphor of the pendulum has validity.

It's just that the timing stinks this time around.

One thing I have observed (and I'm sure many people know this as well or better than I) is that heavily-regulated employment and heavily-regulated working conditions don't make anything 'fair' for anyone. The petty, unpleasant, minutiae-minded, anti-social sub-gifted among us thrive in conditions of bureaucratized over-regulation. Those with marginal personalities reign in government offices because they thrive in an environment where the truly exceptional are tied down by restrictive administration.

Hmm ... I should quickly add that as true as the above is, I'm not at all of the mind that we should open up markets wide and turn a blind eye to all activity. I actually don't believe it's true that the market regulates itself and that forces acting on the market will make it socially, environmentally, or even fiscally responsible.

But I do think that when something goes wrong (e.g., banking meltdown), it is almost always the result of some clever greedy idiots finding a way to manipulate or avoid the existing set of laws. Think about it as creating a better rat: Those devious grey-area-minded folks who can find a way to circumvent regulations that were supposed to protect us all are rewarded for their ingenuity and promoted to greater responsibility and power. Therefore, they are building a corporate culture of sharks who can swim through the regulatory cracks. Laws have the ironic 'unintended consequence' of making harsher and more predatory corporate culture.

Regulatory laws tend to be specific, reactionary (as opposed to visionary), outdated before they are enacted, and drafted by idiots who can't (or won't) see past their noses to the Bigger Picture. The spirit of laws are lost in the lawmakers who, not at all coincidentally, are the same minutiae-minded sub-gifted types that the laws end up creating an environment for. What a tragedy that they get promoted.

Let's all free our minds, instead.

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