Is there a political solution to our problems here in The Bahamas?

Rick Lowe

Back in 1998 I came across a wonderful little 143 page book by Henry Hazlitt, entitled Is Politics Insoluble? and is edited by Felix Livingstone.

I was reminded about this book by comments left at this recent post, where it was proffered that we need a new political party to solve our myriad of issues in The Bahamas.

My questions is, why is it that so many of us tend to believe there is a political solution?

From my perspective the answer is smaller government where politics plays a less significant role in our lives. Not more government or nationalism etc.

If we had four political parties, the objective of the political class remains the same. Get elected.

To get elected you have to compromise your principles. Once your principles are compromised, voila! You're back to square one.

Here's a short and simplified example from personal experience:

The government sets out to pass new legislation. It doesn't matter what the law is intended to curb or implement, but let's say they want to introduce a free prescription drug programme.

They decide that the cost of medicine for non-communicable diseases is too expensive for poor people so they design a plan to allow poor people to collect these drugs without direct payment at all the local pharmacies and decide to implement price controls on these drugs to save the government money.

You'll notice there are two groups that will have to be convinced of the merits of this scheme. (There is a third group. Those that have to pay for this pipe dream, but that's for a later discussion).

One group is the poor people who will receive the drugs and the other group is the pharmacists that sell them.

There are obviously two different sales approaches required and the politico in charge of promoting this scheme does something like this.

Imagine a meeting with the poor people with chronic non-communicable diseases if you will.

"My bothers and sisters, your government is working out a plan to help you go to any pharmacy and get free medication for your problem."

Of course the cheers are deafening.

Now take your mind to a private meeting with the pharmacies and drug importers.

"Gentlemen, we need your help. We have all these people that need this medication and the Princess Margaret Hospital is a disaster. People have to wait hours on end to get their free medication and we need to help them out."

"You'll be paid by NIB and just need to swipe the card of those people that are collecting the medication, so no need to worry about getting paid."

The businessmen agree and the law is passed in Parliament.

But did you notice the subtle difference in the conversations?

You're right, the government did not tell the business people that they agreed to a government take over of a major part of their business and to conduct their operations under the terms set out by the all powerful "Minister of Government" who will implement price controls.

It is the doublespeak that the political class specialise in. Oh, many politicians are well intentioned, but they do not really want each group to know exactly what's encompassed in any particular piece of legislation.

What it amounts to is they want to control us with our agreement. It's the old thin end of the wedge.

Incidentally, in the introduction to the book, Livingstone noted: “Aristotle found it ironic that what was unacceptable behaviour in private life was revered in public life – men known as statesmen unabashedly devote time and effort to “dominate and tyrannise over others, whether they are willing or not”.

Hazlitt points out "The Task Confronting Libertarians" beginning on page 119 and coincidentally he touches on the "plight of the poor and unfortunate".

Here's what he says:

"Another very important principle to which the libertarian can constantly appeal is to ask the statists to consider the secondary and long-run consequences of their proposals as well  as merely their intended direct and immediate consequences. The statists will sometimes admit quite freely, for example, that they have nothing to give to anybody that they must not first take from somebody else. They will admit that they must  rob Peter to pay Paul. But their argument is that they are  seizing only from rich Peter to support poor Paul. As President Johnson once put it quite frankly in a speech on January  15, 1964: "We are going to try to take all of the money that we  think is unnecessarily being spent and take it from the 'haves' and give it to the 'have nots' that need it so much."

"Those who have the habit of considering long-run consequences will recognize that all these programs for sharing-the-wealth and guaranteeing incomes must reduce incentives at both ends of the economic scale. They must reduce the incentives both of those who are capable of earning a high income, but find it taken away from them, and those who are capable of earning at least a moderate income, but find themselves supplied with the necessities of life without working.

"This vital consideration of incentives is almost systematically overlooked in the proposals of agitators for more and bigger government welfare schemes. We should all rightly be concerned with the plight of the poor and unfortunate. But the hard two-part question that any plan for relieving poverty must answer is: How can we mitigate the penalties of failure and misfortune without undermining the incentives to effort and success? Most of our would-be reformers and humanitarians simply ignore the second half of this problem. And when those of us who advocate freedom of enterprise are compelled to reject one of these specious "antipoverty" schemes after another on the ground that it will undermine these incentives and in the long run produce more evil than good, we are accused by the demagogues and the thoughtless of being "negative" and stony-hearted obstructionists. But the libertarian must have the strength not to be intimidated by this."

Read more about Is Politics Insoluble by Hazlitt, here...

So what can we do?

Well, if we have failed in so many areas that such a huge portion of our population is dependent on the rest of us for help, rather than the government dealing with these things, should we all be solving these problems by assisting those within our family context for a start?

Beyond that, if we must use the government to solve our problems, if this is possible, shouldn't this be done with the least possible infringement by the government?

In other words, the government cannot even run the post office satisfactorily, how can they be trusted with something as complicated health care?

If I were King Hubert (Dr. Minnis that is) for a day I would implement a voucher system, where the poor and unfortunate would be provided with purchase orders to buy their medication and health insurance services themselves.

Now Dr. Minnis tells us that the government will not be able to "control" private insurer's prices, so the vouchers will increase exponentially.

He presupposes that the government scheme will not increase likewise, and we know this is not true.

The most egregious thing about a discussion with the government about The Bahamas becoming a welfare state is the politicos inability to see there are alternatives available other than following the Jamaican Road to Prosperity...

Frankly, I'm very disappointed in our "rulers" (FNM and PLP) lack of vision in this regard.