Bigger Government Leads to Bigger Scandals

DallasBlog.com | Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX):

“The larger the federal government becomes, the more it controls who wins and who loses in our society. The temptation for lobbyists to buy votes – and the temptation for politicians to sell them – is enormous. Indicting one crop of politicians and bringing in another is only a temporary solution. The only effective way to address corruption is to change the system itself, by radically downsizing the power of the federal government in the first place. Take away the politicians' power and you take away the very currency of corruption.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

This solution only shifts the corruption to another venue. Like a balloon, squeezing the size of government in one place causes it to pop up in another. Squeeze the federal government and state governments will balloon instead. Squeeze those, too, and big corporations will take over. America's Gilded Age was a time when government was small, our economy was exploding, and private business controlled American life. Corruption was rampant.

Our institutions are big because the demands of modern society are big. We aren't a hunter/gatherer society anymore, where the need for government, manufacturing, services, commerce was virtually nil. We aren't an agrarian society, where the majority of the population was largely self sufficient on their farms. We are a modern, 21st century economy, the largest and richest the world has ever seen. To run that economy, big institutions are inevitable.

Mr Paul has a philosophical opposition to big government. But shifting the function to big business won't by itself cure our society of corruption. Merely calling for a downsizing of government is like sweeping the mess from one room to another. It's a red herring. Instead, society needs to monitor the ethical behavior of all our institutions and stamp out corruption wherever and whenever it crops up. You can't eliminate it forever. But you can control it.