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Reinventing Government by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler review by James Kraft-Lorenz
The authors, Osborne & Gaebler, are very effective in selling more efficient government by changing the labels on various functions and players in the Citizen vs. government game. They know that the general tax burden is very close to 50% of every American's wages and income. They know it is either change the beast or change the appearance of the beast before there is a collapse on the model of the ex-Soviet Empire's. As Gertrude Stein said: "A rose is a rose is a rose." A play on the bard's: "Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?" Government 'services' like those 'offered' by the United States Postal Service for 'mail,' are under duress and coercion, due to an act of Congress that established the postal monopoly behind the barrier of federal bayonets. Identifying users of the United States Postal Service as customers or postal patrons does not change the odor of coerced power to the sweet scent of freedom of choice. Let us take for example the author's choice of words for the title of their introduction: An American Perestroika. However sly, they have told the truth. What Osborne & Gaebler advocate is not the reduction of government to the Lockeian minimum of the state's duty to prevent invasion from abroad and breaches of the peace within. They do want to consolidate the expanded, self-serving, grasp of governments at every level by disguising the various government's monopolies of force with the language of free markets on a subject people. Yet, without the liberating effect of the free market on a free people. Isn't this the argument that is going on in the ex-Soviet Union as this is being written? Aren't the various ex-Soviets the victims of real Perestroika? They all know from hard experience that overextended governments that attempt to provide equality of outcome by attempting to control almost every aspect of life only produce two classes of people: The governed and the governing, the rich and powerful and the poor and dependent. Overbearing governments that attempt control of economic factors such as wages and prices, provide subsidies for favored goods and make declarations that certain other goods are contraband, do create at one stroke oversupply and shortages. In this situation the best that can be hoped for is that the waste, shortage and concomitant corruption are only on the same scale as that government's infringements. Not to say that bureaucratic techniques cannot be improved or given a more human face. Not to say that civil workers cannot be stimulated by the appearance of competition. But to call such net tax consumers "public entrepreneurs," and to give credit for: "significant intellectual debts to Robert Reich" sets the tone for this rather Soviet-smelling attempt to save the American socialist system by crying Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring), while holding on to the discredited principles of centralized power and coercive taxation. It must be a coincidence that this is the mirror image of a Marxist technique called the dialectic. This is the trick of the big lie combined with thousands of smaller lies to wear down all but the most tenacious of committed freedom-loving logicians, such as a Solzhenitsyen. It is no wonder that the chief printed internal tool of the evil communist empire was the newspaper, "PRAVDA," which word translated into literal American-English means TRUTH. Avoid the deadly euphemism. For those who do not consider truth for lies as deadly, I ask them to soberly reflect on the millions of Soviet citizens who became customers of the NKVD and got a free funeral in the bargain. Lies, like mighty oak trees, are best set straight when very small. If you are curious about what our entrenched believers in monopoly bureaucracy have planned for your money, don't buy this book. Borrow it at your fellow taxpayer's expense from the local public library. The library will count you as a customer in their budget request for more tax money. You will save about $10.00, plus tax, in direct cost, and the authors should be just as happy. It's your choice, and it's very close to Hobson's. Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector, David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, Plume Books, (Penguin Group) New York, Feb.,1993.
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