E-M8 Entrepreneurial Management for Eternal Mission

My personal political view are capitalist, which is slightly more socially conservative than Libertarian, but more socially liberal than Republican party. Economically, I share the Libertarian views wholeheartedly.

Yet, I am now more than ever convinced that Libertarian party will not be a major political player in spite of a substantial support for Libertarian views among young people.

Both “The Republic” and Machiavelli’s brilliant “Prince” describe the changing of the tide in the political systems. In modern terms it looks this way: Anarchy, (Rule of the masses) every man for himself, is replaced by Libertarianism (or Constitutionalism), where basic laws are present and decisions are made by the township meetings (Democracy). Eventually the town selects leadership to make decisions. We now have Republic. Leaders deside to clean up the town and hire the sheriff.  In the republic, the sheriff grows more powerful. People come to expect the sheriff to protect them, they grow reliant on the sheriff. Eventually the sheriff kicks out the governing board (on charges of corruption) and becomes the Monarch. The monarchy persists for few generations slowly deteriorating in to Tyranny, due to the abuse of the power which is the inevedible result of having absolute power long enough. When the tyranny gets bad enough we have a revolution and anarchy.

While there are many variations on this model, the laws of game theory predict that this is precisely what will happen. 1. Everyone is seeking their own benefit. 2. They realise that by cooperating they can do better and form a Compact (Cartel, group, country, or whatever you want). 3. They realise that by cheating the Compact they can do even better. 4. Eventually the Compact falls apart due to everyone cheating.

The conclusion that I draw from this is that as much as I would like America to have smaller government, it’s not going to happen. The only way to smaller government is through the government getting big enough, that eventually it collapses on itself.

In light of that, it seems more practical to focus on making the government as efficient as possible, through transparency than to argue for the impossible, the reduction of government.

What are your thoughts? Join me in this discussion.