The Limits of Government

[Tamrin]

King Canute

Prof. John Passmore entitled his 1981 Boyer Lecture, The Limits of Government. He began with the legend of King Canute, saying:

King Canute has been badly done by. An exceptionally able monarch, he is made to appear a silly old fool. So, for once, let us tell the famous legend correctly. His courtiers extolled King Canute's powers in those grandiose terms which are characteristic of courtiers everywhere. His powers, they indeed told him, were unlimited. It was then that Canute ordered the tides to stand still. Not, however, in order to prove that his powers were indeed unlimited. Quite the contrary. It was in order to demonstrate the foolishness of the courtiers. If the story is so often reversed, to make it appear that Canute really thought that by raising his hand he could stem the tide, this testifies to our difficulty in believing that any ruler could have the good sense to recognise his limitations.

[Tamrin]

In his Boyer Lecture, Prof. Passmore, goes on to describe what was, before we stepped into line with the global economy, Australia's peculiar approach to keeping both governments and private enterprise in check:

So far I have been developing my original claim: that in Australia we mistrust governments. Then how are we to account for the proliferation of our government enterprises? In the United States, after all, there is no government broadcasting, there are no government trading banks, no government air lines, to take only the most obvious instances. Well, if we mistrust governments, we also mistrust private enterprise. Many of us read with sympathy Adam Smith's remark that 'people of the same trade seldom meet together but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public'. That is the other side of our fondness for an arrangement by which government enterprises compete with private enterprises. It is a way of mistrusting private enterprise and government simultaneously. One must add, as illustrating our mistrust of private enterprise, the sufficiently obvious point that it is in any case restricted by a formidable array of legislative and administrative rules, designed to protect the worker, the consumer, the environment, or some more vaguely conceived 'national interest'. To sum up, the majority of Australians—there are, of course, many individual exceptions—have not been won over by either of the two most sharply delineated political philosophies, by libertarianism on the one hand or by totalitarianism on the other hand, even in the form of State socialism.

[Tamrin]

Prof. Passmore said in his Boyer Lecture (p.13):

American neo-conservatism is a strange doctrine indeed. In the economic sphere, on the neo-conservative view, anything goes but personal conduct ought to be rigorously confined by government action.

As for business, if it makes libertarian noises from time to time, the next moment it runs to the government for help. 'Get off my back, but before you go put a cushion beneath my backside' not unfairly describes its attitude.

Personally, I'm impressed by the Amish for their fairly sincere, traditional response to modern America.

[Tamrin]

Prof. Passmore concludes his Boyer Lecture, saying:

My conclusion will be very unsatisfying to those who like to believe that there is some single, sweeping social change that will solve all our problems, whether it be the withdrawal of government or its total supremacy. Substantially, I am defending our mixed economy, without for a moment suggesting that we have the mixture right or that we are under no necessity to make any kind of political or social change. If I have some degree of sympathy with the libertarians, it is in so far as they have a genuine enthusiasm for liberty, an enthusiasm which, however, their [Liberal Party] conservative imitators only partially share. Many of the changes we need to make are, I believe, in the libertarian direction. The libertarians accuse me, however, of letting my heart rule my head because I am not prepared to accept their view that nineteenth-century industrial society was a Garden of Eden from which we were expelled for eating the apple of welfare. I grant that when governments do good it is with the slap of command. Nevertheless in my judgment they can sometimes do good, did so in industrial England, have done so in the post-war years, here in Australia. Yet we should never forget the limits of government. Governments cannot create liberty, imagination, affection, the desire to understand, the capacity to cooperate, generosity, tolerance. Indeed, a government has good reason to fear each and everyone of these qualities, it it is intent on extending its power. That is why we have good reason, in our turn, for fearing it. No doubt, it can equalise. But it is no accident that 'equaliser' is American slang for gun. We can be sure that if we abandon liberty in the name of equality it will be equality at the point of a gun, equality in misery.

John Passmore

[Azaziel]

I agree with his observation re governmets, but noticed that he did not include the power behind the government and ministers, the beaurocrats, those unelected opinated people who no matter who is in power have a dispropportinate influence on government policiy.

All Governments have got away from what was intended by the people ,and people in government by a large majority are in it for their own self interest, they now do not look long term but only short term to keep themselves in power

Examples, Take john Howard, every one could see he stayed too long but he couldn't, and now Kevin Rudd, good on spin but does not deliver, only interested in policies that will get him reelected and not on long term solutions for the benefit of Australia

[Tamrin]

Apr 27, 2009 7:51:13 GMT 10 Azaziel said:

I agree with his observation re governmets, but noticed that he did not include the power behind the government and ministers, the beaurocrats, those unelected opinated people who no matter who is in power have a dispropportinate influence on government policiy.

I have only quoted excerpts from Prof Passmore's fifty-eight page Boyer lecture. I'm pretty sure he did speak about bureaucrats and I will check and post accordingly. In the meantime, I doubt one could fault the insights of the BBC satires Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister.

[Tamrin]

Apr 27, 2009 19:03:59 GMT 10 Tamrin said:

I have only quoted excerpts from Prof Passmore's fifty-eight page Boyer lecture. I'm pretty sure he did speak about bureaucrats and I will check and post accordingly.

Another notable instance [of a potential adversarial state institution] is what we call the 'Public Service' but is more accurately described as 'the Government Service'—after all we, members of the public, cannot dismiss its members as we could a servant and they regard it as part of their function to tell governments what they are not at all prepared to tell us. Servant though it officially is, the permanent administration can powerfully resist the operations of any executive of which it disapproves, if only by dragging its feet.When the ministers of the Whitlam Government sought to surround themselves with friends and relatives, or ex-President Carter by fellow-Georgians, this was not out of simple nepotism. They mistrusted the civil service; they did not believe that it would carry out their policies.

Mr Hurford, the Labor politician, has recently suggested that, when a government changes, all first and second level civil servants should resign. This reversion to the old 'spoils' system—one never knows, nowadays, which party will urge us to revert to the ways of the past—would, on the face of it, strengthen the powers of the government of the day, making plain that government servants were its servants, whereas our present tenure system makes it appear that they are servants, rather, of the system of government, with their primary duty to remind Ministers of their responsibility under that system and to keep it going in an efficient manner. Yet many libertarians would agree with Mr Hurford, on the very different ground that the spoils system weakens the power of government by diminishing its expertise. A typical dilemma in fact arises if a government strengthens the powers of those who are supposed to be its servants, it may exercise its own powers more effectively but only at the risk that its instruments will turn against it, if it weakens the power of it servants it may simultaneously weaken it own power to act.

pp.24/5