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Arnold Kling on the growth in government
1. Institutions are affected by technology perhaps even more than by ideology.
2. In 1800, the United States was a large country relative to the transportation and communication technologies that were available at that time. Further, it was very divided, both politically and economically, over slavery. Thus, one does not see major national institutions of any sort, private or public.
3. The rise of powerful industrial corporations and the rise of a large public sector in democracies over the past 150 years are results of changes in technology. Economies of scale have increased, because transportation costs have fallen and communication is faster and cheaper.
I agree with #1-3. Here is more. I would add that American government grew big as soon as it had the technological ability to do so; that suggests to me that the latent demand for big government, for better or worse, was already in place. I await Brad DeLong's book-length treatment of this topic.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on March 30, 2007 at 12:12 PM in History | Permalink
Comments
A discussion about growth in government and not a single comment about wars? Technology may provide the tools, but something needs to provide the incentive for people to actually get moving and become efficient.
If anything, we're going to see even more government in our personal lives. The only thing that may change for "the better" is the percentage of GDP that goes to government.
Posted by: Robert at Mar 30, 2007 1:41:34 PM
I wonder whether people have a propensity toward "big government," or whether they simply have a propensity toward monopolies, i.e., entities who provide good or services of good enough quality that most people can spend their time and energy worrying about other things.
Posted by: Henry at Mar 30, 2007 1:53:32 PM
On a micro level, post-Watergate there was a shift of power from the executive branch to the legislative branch, and about the same time the sub-committee bill of rights transferred power from the committee chairman. It was at this time that domestic federal spending began to increase markedly as a share of the economy, and has stayed at higher levels since.
Posted by: cb at Mar 30, 2007 3:02:25 PM
"I would add that American government grew big as soon as it had the technological ability to do so"
Somewhat, but there was a definite time lag. The Pennsylvania Railroad pioneered modern large scale management techniques in the 3rd quarter of the 19th Century. The Standard Oil Company took them worldwide in the 4th quarter. The huge growth in government followed quite a bit later.
Perhaps you could attribute the slow growth of the federal government to the lack of air conditioning in Washington DC, which made working in the capital year-round a nightmare until the middle of the 20th Century.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Mar 30, 2007 3:02:27 PM
"I would add that American government grew big as soon as it had the technological ability to do so"
This sounds like a mono-causal claim of inevitability, that we could only fight by dynamiting rail lines, cutting phone wires, and blowing up computers.
Certainly technology helps the state to rule a large empire in a more detailed way, but is it isn't the main reason goverment grows. Besides the wars which were mentioned, U.S. government growth is the result of the Fed bungling the Great Depression (and FDR's idology-fueled response), as well as the Cold War, drug prohibition that destroyed urban environments, rent-seeking by industry and labor, and a host of other things.
Posted by: John Kunze at Mar 30, 2007 5:29:37 PM
Didn't Marx make this point (roughly) a while ago?
Posted by: Sam at Mar 30, 2007 5:31:04 PM
Cheap transportation makes big government possible. Otherwise necessary mechanisms won't come into being. The proof of this is left as an exercise for the reader. [smile] No cheap worldwide transportation network equals no world government. All the socialist should be working to give away gas.
Posted by: Huggy at Mar 30, 2007 8:55:51 PM
1. Institutions are affected by technology perhaps even more than by ideology.
Oh my god, you Marxists!
Posted by: arthur at Mar 30, 2007 8:58:41 PM
It was not so much that technology enabled government administration, but that technology enabled a national "we." Photographic journalism, instant nationwide communications, radio broadcasts, and the like vivified the atavisms of which Hayek spoke, giving new found cultural appeal and power to statism. Technology enabled the arousal of the people's romance, the tribe, social-justice sentiments, and the like.
But another key factor, rising at the same time, is democracy. Without democratic superstitions, the true nature of government is especially hard not to see.
Posted by: Daniel Klein at Mar 30, 2007 10:29:04 PM
No major national institutions in 1800? I think it depends on your definitions. The postal service was national. The Federal government was able to impose direct taxes on real estate in the 1798 Act, though I don't know how much they actually collected. Various churches were at least nominally national, most notably the Presbyterians and Episcopalians (even though the nation was mostly unchurched, at least according to Finke and Stark in "The Churching of America, 1776-2005"). The Society of the Cincinnati was national.
Divided over slavery in 1800? The contest between Hamilton and Jefferson was hardly over slavery, though one supported abolition and the other loved slaves, if not slavery.
Posted by: Bill Harshaw at Mar 31, 2007 9:26:41 AM
It's easy to point to technology changes that came before institutional changes and conclude the former were the necessary and sufficient causes for the latter, but this sounds like a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy to me. I'd say the expansion of the US federal government (at the expense of state governments) came about because the seventeenth amendment in 1913 removed the check that state governments had had on federal growth.
Until then, the Senators from each state were appointed by the state government rather than elected by the people. The Senate in turn ratified the federal judges, who accordingly kept the federal government's rights over the states limited. By the time the Depression started, the federal bench was composed of judges confirmed mainly by Senators whose power would be enhanced not by stronger state governments, but by a stronger federal government. Hence, the federal government started to balloon, and has continued on that course to this day.
I don't think 20th century technology was either necessary or sufficient for federal expansion. There have been empires thousands of miles in reach long before instant communication was possible. And if the US had continued electing Senators as before, I think we would to this day be governed much more at the state level and less at the federal level.
Posted by: Mark at Mar 31, 2007 10:45:26 AM
The range of available technological solutions is everywhere the same, and yet institutions differ.
Posted by: Cyrus at Apr 1, 2007 9:18:27 AM
The Senate in turn ratified the federal judges, who accordingly kept the federal government's rights over the states limited. By the time the Depression started, the federal bench was composed of judges confirmed mainly by Senators whose power would be enhanced not by stronger state governments
Posted by: Steve at Aug 8, 2007 7:09:31 AM
The Senate in turn ratified the federal judges, who accordingly kept the federal government's rights over the states limited. By the time the Depression started, the federal bench was composed of judges confirmed mainly china flowersby Senators whose power would be enhanced not by stronger state governments, but by a stronger federal government.
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