Bureaucracy and Regulation

Elon Musk has thrown in the towel on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in all but name. Mises correctly anticipated failures like these.

Surveillance technology along with expanded telecommunications erodes our ability to keep private things private. However, the growth of collectivist ideology makes this worse, since collectivists believe that all of life is political. 

We speak of the “economy” as though it produces goods. Yet, the term really is a fiction, as purposeful individuals working in cooperation with each other are the real producers.

Arbitrary and undefined terms like “fair wage” and “living wage” fundamentally misunderstand the nature of work how wages are determined.

Industrial policy was once a relic of the 1980s, part of the failed presidential campaigns of Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. Unfortunately, it has reappeared in the form of policies being put forth by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.

HIPAA was enacted in 1996 to protect the privacy of patient health information. In practice, HIPAA’s stringent requirements may harm patients, create a chilling effect on medical researchers and healthcare providers, and significantly increase medical costs.

So long as the unchecked army of bureaucrats, technocrats, and deep-state operatives is allowed free rein, it will be impossible to make progress in limiting the state’s power over individuals.

It’s the master of public health awardees who are running public health. An MPH is a two-year degree which does not require you to have any prior training in health, in biology, or in medicine. It’s primarily focused on the use of big data and statistical analysis.

We can run society according to the rules of private property and freedom, or we can run it by bureaucratic decree, and the covid episode reminded us of just how important that choice is.

Governments at all levels play the same game—always threatening to eliminate school buses, police departments, ambulances, garbage collection—whatever can succeed in bringing the voters or appropriation committee members to their senses and increasing taxes and spending.