Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Division of Labour

I was asked, and happily agreed, to join the Division of Labour stable. So I'll be writing one or two longer pieces per week for them.

My first post over there is on a familiar subject.

Exerpt:
Why is it that Americans don't seem to trust government? We have less regulation than most countries, and the argument "private citizens know better than government what to do with their money" seems persuasive to many. Why? Why not shining, happy people?
The answer is very old, and it involves answering a question with a question, or maybe two: As Jouvenal, in his sixth satire, asked, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will guard the guardians?)." Plato, in the Republic, has Socrates and Glaucon give this exchange, "Surely the guardian is the last man in the world who should be allowed to get drunk and not to know where on earth he is!" "That would be ridiculous. A guardian to want a guardian himself!". My other question/answer, then is this: why is it that people on the left, and many people in other "developed" nations, DO trust government?

ATSRTWT....

As a bonus...some gentle readers suggested that "you can't blame a politician for being a prostitute" would be better than the dog and garbage thing. But I think that's wrong. For one, the comparison defames prostitutes. Politics is the oldest profession. Second, in prostitution, it is the hooker who gets screwed. In politics, it is the customer.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

saw this:
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

first here (many years ago, on paper):
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/prose/StalkyandCo/inambush.html

which I enjoyed. The boys may as well, who knows, I was 30 when I first read it.
karl

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