[MD] Down the road of mediocrity

[Ant McWatt]

Platt stated March 24th:

>check out one of my all time favorites, "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree 
>World"
>by Harry Browne.

Platt,

Thanks for the reference regarding Harry Browne's book.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Found-Freedom-Unfree-World/dp/0965603679

>From the reviews at Amazon.com it looks worthwhile even if it was published 
in 1973 and takes itself a lot more seriously than the newly published Tom 
Hodgkinson book "How to be Free".

(http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Be-Free-Tom-Hodgkinson/dp/0241143217)

[Platt]
> >For a projection of where liberals in the U.S. are leading us, take a 
>look
> >at the following description of the socialist paradise in Great Briton:
> >
> >http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_1_oh_to_be.html

[Ant]
>The faults with contemporary British society described in the article you
>cite above has little to do with socialism (a la Robert Tressel, the
>"Cyclist thinker") rather these criticisms (increasing bureaucracy in
>education, the police force etc), are mostly due to British government
>policy over the last 27 years which has generally been right-wing (or "new"
>right-wing since 1997) following your great hero Milton Friedman as per
>Reaganism/Thatcherism (for more details about this right-wing orientated
>increase in bureaucracy, see my essay about the UK education system at
>robertpirsig.org).

---cut---

[Platt]

>Call it what you will, it's a disaster. True conservatives want less, not 
>more
>government bureaucracy.

[Ant]

Agreed.  However, in theory, anarchists and true liberals also want less 
government bureaucracy.
What matters to the MOQ pragmatist is the general outlook that _works best 
in practice_ and, judging from Thatcher's legacy (where during the 1980s and 
1990s, centralisation from London increased and unnecessary bureaucracy 
spiralled out-of-control within the NHS, civil service and education 
sectors), it is conservatism that falls shortest in this regard.

For example, I'll take a a specific point by Theodore Dalrymple in the 
original article you referred to above.  He states:

"Not a single large-scale information technology project instituted by the 
[British] government has worked. The National Health Service has spent $60 
billion on a unified information technology system, no part of which 
actually functions. Projects routinely get canceled after $400– $500 million 
has been spent on them. Modernization in Britain’s public sector means delay 
and inefficiency procured at colossal expense."

What Dalrymple fails to mention is that the reason why the British 
government is now spending this obscene amount of money "on a unified 
information technology system" is because when computer systems were first 
introduced (on a large scale) in the National Health Service (NHS) during 
the 1980s the then Conservative government (under Mrs Thatcher) decided to 
apply the private free economy within the NHS by dividing it into separate 
trusts which were meant to compete against each other in an "internal 
market".

One result of this unnecessary bureaucratic complication (in a system where 
medical treatment still remained free at the point of need) was that each 
trust decided which type of computer system it wanted to install.  Of 
course, each trust chose different and often incompatible systems so now 
these systems have to be integrated (so a doctor can access the computer 
record about a patient whether they are at their local surgery or at a 
hospital at the other end of the country) it will cost far more than if the 
NHS hadn't been divided into trusts in the first place.

The true conservative might make the right noises (especially when it comes 
to making money) but, in practice, conservative governments (certainly in 
the UK) are, by far, the most bureaucratic, divisive and personally 
intrusive (and, therefore, least MOQ friendly).

Best wishes,

Anthony


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