The argument for less government is the government we have
This is not, in fact, about the politicians. This is about the level below, that permanent state of the civil service:
The government has been accused of “staggering incompetence” after new school buildings it commissioned had to be closed due to safety fears, while others under construction were demolished before they even opened.
Main buildings at two secondary schools and a primary school in England, which were all completed relatively recently using a modular, off-site construction method, were told to close with immediate effect, disrupting the start of the new term for many pupils.
A government minister admitted there were issues with the structural integrity of some buildings, prompting fears they would not be able to withstand extreme events, including severe weather or being hit by a vehicle.
Those Rolls Royce minds knowing best from Whitehall. Well, no, they don’t. Clearly they don’t.
Which poses a problem. A problem for anyone who desires an invasive and managing state that is. The problem being that we’ve simply not got the staff to be able to have such. All the people who actually know things, how to do things, are off knowing and doing things. Leaving a cadre of adminstrators who, umm, administrate. And, as we can see, being able to file Form C in the C shaped slot is not an aid to being able to get a school built by a competent builder.
Therefore, and obviously, that state, manned by incompetents, should not be managing or even administrating the building of schools. Nor anything else complicated beyond the idea of getting out of bed in the morning.
This is not a theoretical nor ideological position it’s merely the result of observation. The British state is incompetent. Therefore we should ask the British state, heck, allow the British state to do the minimal amount necessary to keep civilisation on track. That would mean that night watchman state which does only - and really only - those things that both have to be done and can only be done by government. Maybe defence - which they’ve not been good at these recent decades - and making sure the bins get taken out. Wouldn’t want to tax the skill level too much after all.
That this does neatly match up with our own ideological convictions is both true and fun. And yet an administrative state that allows schools to be built out of dodgy concrete and people want it to be planning how we’re going to compete with the seven billion nine hundred and 30 million odd people who are not British? Not subject to such expert knowledge? We going to sell them JCBs after we’ve sold them the school building method or something?
No, really, there are people insisting that these same minds - the ones who can’t get concrete, a 2,000 year old technology, sorted - should determine what’s the next mineral to be mined, the energy system of the future and who should make, how, the next generation of microchips but three.
Getting rid of the civil service would be impossible, C Northcoate proved that. But we can sever their relationship with the real world easily enough. Leave them filing C in C and B in B and leave the rest of us to get on with life productively. Simply kill the requirement for anything to need civil service approval or oversight. They’ll still be happy with their paperwork and we’ll be amazed at how much better life gets.
That argument, that is, for free markets and liberty is that the opposite, government control, is incompetent. We are in a reverse version of that movie Idiocracy. So, let’s stop doing that then and be free - and vastly more important, let’s be rich by being free. Anyone gets to do anything subject only to the basic Common Law rules of no harm, no foul, and leave government to pleasure itself with paperwork.
Works for us.