Ah, The New Year
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Policy | Small Government | The Dangers Of Central Planning — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
A time for renewal. For resolutions. For a renaissance in thinking. And this new year, let us renew our resolve to bring about a renaissance for small-government principles by remembering that government planning is a sociological exercise in self-sabotage.
Read on . . .
Everybody plans. But private plans are flexible, and we happily change them when new information arises. In contrast, special-interest groups ensure that the government plans benefiting them do not change -- no matter how costly. Like any other organization, government agencies need to plan their budgets and short-term projects. But they fail when they write comprehensive plans (which try to account for all side effects), long-range plans or plans that attempt to control other people's land and resources. Many plans try to do all three.
Comprehensive plans fail because forests, watersheds and cities are simply too complicated for anyone to understand. Chaos science reveals that very tiny differences in initial conditions can lead to huge differences in outcomes -- that's why mega-projects such as Boston's Big Dig go so far over budget.
Long-range plans fail because planners have no better insight into the future than anyone else, so their plans will be as wrong as their predictions are.
Planning for other people's land and resources fails because planners will not pay the costs they impose on other people, so they have no incentive to find the best answers.
It's good to remember all of this in an election year. It may help us be an informed citizenry and make better choices.