Comments: The Empire of Poverty
Government is like Old Man Potter in It's a Wonderful Life. It isn't really a profit motive. Potter could have made much more money teaming up with George and the Building and Loan, bringing in new businesses and factories, making the town more attractive to potential buyers from other places, growing Bedford Falls.
Instead, Potter wanted most of all to be the focal point of everyone's life. He knew what was best for everybody, and he was going to see to it that everybody got exactly what was coming to them. You know, in fairness. You can see his end game in the alternative universe without George where the town is renamed Pottersville, and he was their "benefactor".
Like Potter, government is impotent apart from its agents of force and intimidation. It can produce nothing, so it finds its raison d'etre in the enhancement of its power and control.
Posted by mushroom at April 30, 2012 1:35 PM