Micromanaging
One of the failings of government is its tendency to attempt to micromanage things not appropriate to micromanagement, or things for which micromanagement is unnecessary.
During the first lockdown, government rules decreed that only ‘essential’ goods could be bought at supermarkets. Immediately the question arose as to what was or was not essential. Food was essential, but was a chocolate Easter egg? Alcohol was, but were crisps? Police forces threatened to search shopping trolleys to watch for goods they deemed non-essential, and would probably have done so had not they been firmly slapped down.
Similar confusing detail emerged when people were allowed to drink in pubs and bars provided they were eating. Eating what? Peanuts? Beef jerky? The order went out that it had to be “a substantial meal.” But what counted as substantial? Again came the confusing detail, highlighted when ministers contradicted each other over whether a scotch egg constituted a substantial meal. Similar complexity prevailed when exercise was allowed, but rules attempted to specify for how long and under what circumstances people were permitted to rest on benches.
It raises the question of whether it is appropriate, even during a pandemic, for governments to be going into fine details over what people might buy, what they might eat outside the home, the circumstances under which they can drink, and where they might sit and rest out of doors.
The Department of Health might regard it as part of its duty to recommend that people should drink alcohol sensibly and in moderation, but to suggest a limit of 14 units a week, a figure plucked at random from thin air, is to attempt to micromanage something that might be better done by sensible advice. The figure is so plainly absurd that most people just ignore it.
A regulation might specify the conditions required for a toilet at work. Pages of detail might cover the width and thickness of the seat, the material it may be made of, the height from the floor, and the shape, be it an oval or a horseshoe. Yet more pages might cover the provision of toilet paper, and the location of washing facilities. On the other hand, the regulator might specify a requirement for employers to provide “decent toilet facilities” for their employees. The question as to what constitutes “decent toilet facilities” would soon be decided by a series of complaints, suggestions and tribunals.
When the governments go into the business of attempting to control wages and prices and to set limits, upper or lower, on some of them, as governments have been doing for over 4000 years, they enter a minefield. The reason is that prices are signals, and there is no such thing as a fair price. Prices tell about the relationship between supply and demand. Shortages lead to higher prices which in turn encourage greater supply. To impose a price cap is like blocking up a thermostat to prevent a room becoming too hot or too cold.
The government’s price cap on energy, and the decision to raise it, are micromanagement of something best left to find its own level. When the wholesale price of energy went up because of a supply shortage, without suppliers being able to match it by retail price increases, many suppliers went bankrupt. A better policy would have been to make it easier to increase energy supply and allow the market to bring the price down.
Governments can sometimes manage, with varying degrees of efficiency, to provide those collective things difficult to obtain individually, things such as defence and the administration of justice. But when they try to micromanage the behaviour of disparate individuals through detailed and complex rules, it usually results in arbitrary requirements that seem to owe more to whim than to common sense.