Welfare State on the Street Where You Live; T. Machan

Rather it is the sort of activity that people should organize for themselves, via their social clubs, churches, the extracurricular activities of their firms, and so on. City-run recreation facilities instill the belief, at a very early age, that if you want something, it is only natural that the government should provide it. And from this belief, of course, has sprung the gradual but certain bureaucratization of nearly all of human life. Tibor R. Machan teaches philosophy at Auburn Uni versity,Alabama. As I was waiting for my daughter to finish her gymnastics lesson one night, I overheard a brief conversation between members of the board of our city's parks and recreation department. They were walking out of a room in which they had just held a meeting. One was noisily complaining that the city never has enough money to do this busi ness right, and there isn't going to be any relief soon, so they might as well learn to live without.

Of course. Whenever government tries to pro vide for people what they should provide for them selves, it never will be able to do well enough indeed, it's most unlikely that there ever will be a well enough! One can always think of some addi tional support, yet another basketball or tennis court, more lifeguards at the city'sswimmingpool, still another baseball umpire to hire, and so forth. It never ends, does it? "The MoralTragedy of the Commons" This is what I have come to call "the moral tragedy of the commons." When there is a suppos edly common pool of resources, people always have their own idea of how to make the best use of it. And the most use of it. So no matter how much one resolves to tighten the belt, there always will be a good reason to want to do more and better after all, it's for the children, for the future of the community, or for some other noble cause.

365 People have leamed to depend on govemment to do a great deal for them that it shouldn't be doing at all. What few people stop to think about is that gov ernment programs are costly-they require peo ple's labor, ingenuity, skills, and innumerable resources. And the taxpayer pays the bill.But since he or she is being forced to put money into a com mon pool, no one worries about how much a par ticular taxpayer has contributed so that there can be some idea of how much each family might take from the pool. Instead, everyone just wants more money and resources for their favorite projects. Why are cities, counties, states, and national governments going broke all over the world? Because we all want to improve things with more funds, but no one has any idea what the limit is. Pri vate property solves this problem, but was aban doned a long time ago when taxes reached the point where we can steal our way to being provided with all sorts of things we desire, never mind think ing about paying for them or long-range budgeting.

If you want to understand why we have deficit spending at the Federal level, think about it in con nection with your own parks and recreation department. Ask how one can control costs when the funding source is an impersonal common pool of resources belonging to no one. The answer is that without a reasonably precise relationship to a person's own limit of expendable income, there is no hope of putting a lid on government spending. It doesn't begin with S&L scandals. It doesn't have to do with Pentagon extravagance. These are but symptoms. It has to do with the gradual expansion of the public sector and corresponding contraction of the private sector. As Aristotle said: That all persons call the same thing mine in the sense in which each does so may be a fine thing, but it is impracticable; or if the words are taken in the other sense, such a unity in no way conduces to harmony. And there is another objection to the proposal. For that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Everyone thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. For besides other considerations, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects another to fulfill; as in families many attendants are often less useful than a few. 0 366 Individual Rights: The Crumbling Foundation of American Government by Robert Higgs A lmost everyonerecognizesthat govern ment can perpetrate great evils. One has only to think of the regimes of Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot, three of the most hideous examples. But government is also widelyregarded as a potential source of great good. Even Ludwig von Mises, an archenemy of statism, declared that government is "the most necessary and beneficial institution, as without it no lasting social coopera tion and no civilization could be developed and preserved."1 How can people enjoy the benefits of government while avoiding the dangers? Upon what principles must a tolerable government be built?