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"literally everyone agrees that 'government should be as small as possible". Coming from Europe, that strikes me as a fascinating American (I presume) statement

"literally everyone agrees that 'government should be as small as possible". Coming from Europe, that strikes me as a fascinating American (I presume) statement. From countless conversations I (Libertarian leaning - something which I just discovered in the last few years, did not even know that such a thing existed before that) had in the past in various European countries I found that the size of government was usually completely irrelevant for most people and in fact the majority was in favor of laws, ideas, concepts, movements etc, that de facto would lead to more government and more laws. Sorry for the OT, just fascinated :-)

einhverfr 13y ago
And yet, having been owner and operator of businesses in both the US and UK, the UK government is far friendlier to small businesses than the US government is. Part of the US problem is that government has scaled up so far demographically and geographically that the government does need to be as small as possible at least on a federal level. A way to look at this from a European perspective might be the role of the European Union: should the EU government be as powerful as possible? Or should virtually all of the lawmaking power reside with the member states?
mpyne 13y ago
The concept comes out of something akin to the sibling reply to my comment. That there are legal concepts/ideas/etc. that would allow government to regulate something is usually a given, especially in our globalized world where you might buy something online made 3 states away (so that the Federal government is clearly in the lead). The conceit is that just because government can get involved doesn't mean it's a good idea for government to get involved. In fact it's practically axiomatic here that the 'proper' level of government involvement in laws, regulation, etc. is the minimum needed to do the job and that government interaction beyond that level is actively harmful. Even the Democrats tend to toe this line, their disagreement generally comes at the level of "minimum needed" (e.g. there was a push for single-payer option before ObamaCare was finalized as that was felt to be the only way to really meet the goals intended).

einhverfr 13y ago

And yet, having been owner and operator of businesses in both the US and UK, the UK government is far friendlier to small businesses than the US government is. Part of the US problem is that government has scaled up so far demographically and geographically that the government does need to be as small as possible at least on a federal level. A way to look at this from a European perspective might be the role of the European Union: should the EU government be as powerful as possible? Or should virtually all of the lawmaking power reside with the member states?

mpyne 13y ago

The concept comes out of something akin to the sibling reply to my comment. That there are legal concepts/ideas/etc. that would allow government to regulate something is usually a given, especially in our globalized world where you might buy something online made 3 states away (so that the Federal government is clearly in the lead). The conceit is that just because government can get involved doesn't mean it's a good idea for government to get involved. In fact it's practically axiomatic here that the 'proper' level of government involvement in laws, regulation, etc. is the minimum needed to do the job and that government interaction beyond that level is actively harmful. Even the Democrats tend to toe this line, their disagreement generally comes at the level of "minimum needed" (e.g. there was a push for single-payer option before ObamaCare was finalized as that was felt to be the only way to really meet the goals intended).