Open your mind.
Sure, I made photos of all the quotes chiseled in marble there.
These are real problems, but they are just one kind of problem.
They are the main problem, namely concentration of power/control/authority in the hands of a minority rather than distributed among the people.
The misconception of the neooliberal ideology that followed the liberal consensus was, that reducing government and giving things into private hands would be better.
And it is, as can be seen by studying history. But the concentration of power in private hands must also be prevented.
But it creates its own problems. The underlying causes, like cyclical elite overproduction, can lead to problematic outcomes on very different tracks.
The root problem is the same. We, in the US, have deviated from these basic principles to our detriment.
I found this post fascinating:
https://peterturchin.com/living-without-a-state/
It explains how thousands of NGOs in Haiti diminished governement and made the whole situation much worse. NGOs are an outcome of elite overproduction. The latter is detrimental to a society regardless of people going into government or private enterprise.
Power outages in the US are mostly repaired by power utilities (and outside contractors when a natural disaster affects a larger region), not government. Government (usually using private contractors) clears and repairs roadways. Depending on the area, other utilities may be municipal, private, or some combination.
While the 3 day outage experienced by one family after Hurricane Sandy was not unusual, it was also not the average. NY had 95% restoration in 13 days. When I lived in CA I experienced many multi-day outages including several that lasted 5-7 days. No one from government was involved in restoration of power. State and county agencies cleared roads (using private contractors for tree work and repair of washed out public roads). PG&E, sometimes with assistance from out-of-state utilities or contractors, repaired damaged power systems.
When I was a summer intern for BellSouth in the late 80s, their goal was no customer out of service for more than 24 hours. Of course that was not possible after a major disaster, but they held their own after severe thunderstorms and other widespread outage events. It wasn't government regulation that spawned this policy, it went back to corporate culture from the AT&T days where quality of service was core to the business.
Bottom line: private industry is often better than government at providing services. Government's role is in regulation (for quality and safety) and to prevent monopolistic situations or other concentrations of power and authority that undermine the common good of a free society.
I imagine Jefferson and Madison would look at modern society and be amazed by many things, but probably wish they had included some mechanisms to limit accumulation of corporate power/authority in our Constitution.
In an 1816 letter to George Logan, Jefferson wrote:
"I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in it’s birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country."
In an 1816 letter responding to John Taylor he wrote:
"And I sincerely believe with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; & that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
Link to full letter
Small government (i.e. disdain for large government) was not something first conceived by Hayek or van Mises as Turchin states. It started more than century earlier with men like Jefferson. The Tea Party movement and other recent phenomenon are the result of the ongoing struggle by Americans to adhere to these important and still very relevant principles. Turchin fundamentally misses the mark here.
These things are part of the "progress of the human mind" that need to be taken into account.
Progress of the human mind in the past couple of centuries has almost entirely been in the form of technological advances and not sociological, psychological, or governmental. Why? Because basic human nature evolves slowly. Many of us are curious and become scientists, engineers, technologists and help advance humanity on that front. But the darker authoritarian side of humanity still wants to control others and must ever be checked by laws and occasionally violence. Bigger government (and large corporations) are the main danger and we have failed to keep them in check.
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