A brief Mankiw explanation of his view on government power, in the context of medical care, which echos my views but is more concisely expressed. A quote:
(My) philosophical inclination most likely influences my views of the healthcare debate. The more power a centralized government authority asserts, the more worried I am that the power will be misused either purposefully or, more likely, because of some well-intentioned but mistaken social theory. I prefer reforms that set up rules of the game but end up with power over key decisions as decentralized as possible.
and:
What puzzles me is that Paul (Krugman) seems so ready to trust solutions that give a large role to the federal government. (In the past, for instance, he has advocated a single payer for healthcare.) I understand that trust of centralized authority is common among liberals. But here is the part that puzzles me: Over the past eight years, Paul has tried to convince his readers that Republicans are stupid and venal. History suggests that Republicans will run the government about half the time. Does he really want to turn control of healthcare half the time over to a group that he considers stupid and venal?
Read the whole short piece. Then I saw this interview with Princeton's Utilitarian Philosophy Prof Peter Singer. One exchange in that interview:
Do you really think the government can make choices regarding care fairly and efficiently?
Mr Singer: Since my New York Times article appeared I've had many people write to me with their heart-breaking stories of being denied care, or being unable to afford care, for themselves or for their families .No human system is going to be error-free, but I'm convinced that the government can set up a process that will make choices that lead us to obtain better value for our health-care dollars than the completely uncontrolled system that exists now.
Utilitarians always give me the creeps. It's always about having "experts" in "control" of our lives - preferably them. Speaking of power and control, Kaus makes a comparison with the proposed IMAC with base-closing commissions, with this wise comments:
Why isn't a base-closing style commission the solution to every one of our problems? After all, it's logical that the problems our peculiar system of government--featuring a Congress that gives powerful voice to regional and local interests--hasn't yet solved will be precisely the problems that our peculiar system of government is almost incapable of solving. Otherwise they would have been solved already!
and
The Constitution created an unwieldy system--requiring that every law pass two houses and get approved by the President--that we long ago concluded was incapable of generating the quantity of binding laws a modern society needs. The response was the creation of the administrative state--the "unelected fourth branch of government" that writes enforceable rules subject to nobody's veto (except the lawyers and the courts). At least the base-closing solution grounds the outcome in the consent of elected officials.
The "administrative state." That's the word for it. Like Versailles.
