Growing Government – A Modern Tower of Babel?

I recently saw a further sign of the “delegation to government” that I describe in the book. On a TV report discussing the need for private citizens to do more to safeguard our environment, a panel of ordinary citizens all felt they needed government to legislate before they would take effective action. The amazing thing about this was that all these people had strong ‘green’ credentials and were passionate about the need to do something. Yet they still expected, and were waiting for, government to take the lead!

It thus appears that the principle of democracy has been lost and that instead of government being the servant of the people it is now the master. This is not good, but is made worse  by the fact it that is happening at a time when government is becoming is becoming inherently weaker and less well-placed to do anything, simply because declining revenues and maximised borrowings mean it cannot afford to.

A report in the 21 February edition of The Christian Science Monitor gave a clear indication of how government is growing. It stated, “The US now has fewer private sector jobs than it did a decade ago, even though the population has grown by more than 20 million.” So where are all the new jobs? The bulk of them have to be in government or quasi-government roles. This means that they are being funded by the taxpayer and clearly, if the tax-base is declining, this is a model that cannot be sustained.

And the US is not alone in this. Growing central government is a modern Tower of Babel and needs to be recognised as such. If we are serious about finding solutions to our challenges – national and global – we have to look to new ways of delivering them that are not dependent on an increasingly resource hungry government that adds no value.

This blog is one of several that I write, but is not regular and I only post to it when current events prompt me to make a comment and invite yours. I do hope you will contribute to the discussion and thus help to initiate and bring about the change that is so badly needed. Please click on the link on the top right of your screen to subscribe to a feed. My primary blog is my business one at Zealise but you can also connect to me at Facebook or Twitter