Two evils: efficiency and government intervention -- *Discussion*

This discussion originated in the comments of a previous post on cognitive dissidence and the ideology of individualism.

Wayne: The Conservative anti-government/pro-freedom view is not that the individual/consumer knows the best course of action, they couldn't possibly. There's two points to make here. First, the government cannot possibly know the best course of action either, for there is no "one-size-fits-all", not in anything. There is wide individuality, human diversity, in just about anything you choose to measure. Secondly, more importantly is to clarify the Conservative idea, which I reiterate is not to propose we know it all. Rather the idea is that as a free individual, you should be able to pursue whichever course of action you deem best for your own life. If that means that you WANT to eat a cheeseburger, then go ahead. It should not be the stand of government to say to you that you MAY NOT because it is not a healthy action. Could you imagine if Government had the power to enforce all the 'generally best' rules of action. You would have no freedom whatsoever, your meals/actions/hobbies/jobs would all be prescribed to you, in an exact amount, as some specialist sees fit.

Me: As for your first point - you're right. Your second point is correct too - i doubt any bleeding heart like myself would disagree with these points. But you'll probably also agree with me in saying that we need a degree of state to insure these freedoms ( ie. to enforce human rights, and to provide a minimum level of social services.). We probably disagree on the degree.

Wayne: Yes, I absolutely agree that a certain level of government is necessary for the protection of human rights and in order to protect the quality of life for many of the less fortunate. It's funny that'd you'd hit so quickly on "We probably disagree on the degree" - I find that to be the single largest factor that seperates my moderate right-wing from many of the left-wing people I debate politics with. How much government is too much? Do we need MORE funding? How much is too much taxes? I'd argue that there is far too much Canadian government, which is painfully overfunded with excessive taxes. It's mostly a matter of efficiency - Government is terrible at spending money - they have few to no free market incentives to drive innovation and improvement.

All right, efficiency… ‘Efficiency’ is not inherently normative, so I think I’m going to talk a little about this. I’ll borrow Lyotard’s definition of efficiency in contemporary society: “a technical ‘move’ is ‘good’ when it does better and/or expends less energy then another.” This says nothing about what we’re trying to accomplish: efficiency is not an end in itself. It only talks about how we make a decision between two comparable ‘moves.’ Arguably, according to this definition, the most efficient act is no act at all, since in an absolute sense this would expend the least energy. I doubt that this is what is meant. I think there is an assumption being made, the assumption that there is actually a kind of act in question, and not just an act, but an act towards some ends – actions don’t come about for and of themselves – acts don’t act for act’s sake… Sigh… Where am I going with this? Oh yeah! So if efficiency isn’t an end in itself, then there has to be some end – but is that end necessarily the most efficient one. This is a trap. Efficiency implies an end, and can only be considered in relation to an end, but it cannot be used as a criterion to decide between two ends. You cannot decide this end is better than this other end, because this other end is more efficient (The most efficient end is no end [thus no need for act] at all.). We cannot argue for more or less government intervention based on a criterion of efficiency, first we have to decide on what end we want to be efficient towards. Now the question is do we agree on that end? Can we agree on this end? Am i making any sense?