Are small government conservatives just spitting into the wind?

There is a something of a gag order on this blog right now, self-imposed. With respect to political situation, that is. The recent election was a major disappointment for me, and I'd rather not engage in too much discussion at this point. But political philosophy? Yes, that is a possible area of comment.

There was a reminder of something on the webs, with respect to financial matters. Here's a premise for you: that the presence of financial leverage leads invariably to the regulatory state; and also leads invariably to the welfare state; which also invariably leads to either socialism or communism.

For if you're going to have financial leverage, then you are going to have to regulate it. The necessity of regulation is quite clear. Any type of leverage, whether in finance or in physics, will lead to outsized effects. Some of these outsized effects can be quite unpleasant. Hence, the Great Depression. The Great Depression caused a domino effect due to the use of financial leverage. For example, if one enterprise goes bankrupt, it can bring down an entire series of failures due to the first--just like a domino effect. In consequence to this phenomenon, the modern regulatory state was born. Up to until that time, there was very limited regulation of private enterprise. The Great Depression shook that belief that private enterprise could regulate itself. Man being the fallen creature that he is, cannot be trusted to resist the temptation to abuse power. Financial leverage is power, and it is going to be abused.

Once you got the regulatory state, you also got the rest of the baggage of the welfare state. The welfare state has become self-serving. It acts in its own interest, and in so doing, only leads to an increasing involvement of government into the lives of the people. Before you know it, the government has its hands in EVERYTHING. So it has happened. The trend has been towards larger and larger government. The conservative fight against it has been futile. The leviathan state continues to grow, and it is like a snowball. That snowball will get bigger and bigger until the government owns or controls everything. Once that happens, freedom has gone from the land. That pretty much describes the predicament that we are in now.

All of this can be traced back to the use of leverage. Without it, the need for regulation goes away, and the need for overpowering government goes away.

I've argued against leverage before on this blog. Is all leverage bad? Well, it all depends upon one thing. Do you want to surrender your freedom to some far away entity, or do you want to keep it? All I'm saying here is that small government conservatism is probably incompatible with the modern regulatory state. That this is tied into the need to regulate LEVERAGE. You cannot do this without a large permanent bureaucracy. This invariably leads to more and more bureaucracy until it consumes everything.

Trying to maintain freedom in such an environment is like spitting into the wind. You are fighting against something that cannot be resisted. It is doomed to failure.