A quick hit on bureacracy

Two guys named William D. Eggers & John O'Leary are causing a bit of a stir in libertarian circles. Their argument is that bad government causes more government.

An important recent academic study called “Regulation and Distrust” shows that, paradoxically, the worse government performs, the more citizens demand greater government intervention. The authors’ explanation for this curious finding is that in societies where people distrust large institutions—whether government or big business—the demand for more regulation and for more government is higher, even when government is incompetent or downright corrupt.

Now notice how the "libertarian" economist Bryan Caplan responds:

Academics who are cynical about government generally are anti-government; see for yourself at the Public Choice Society meetings. Why not teach laymen to make the same connection?

Yeah, all we need to do is educate the public. Just out of interest, who is doing the teaching here? Who exactly are "we" Kimosabe? What are we going to do? Maybe we should set up a bureaucracy to do this education.

Is this anything but the very command and control instinct that is being deplored in action?

No, I'm not trying to go for a new record for rhetorical questions in a single blog post. But, in a democracy, no one gets to teach the voters. You get to try to convince them (and so does everyone else) but that is all.