The Jetsons vs the leviathan state

By the time the Jetsons cartoon series came to television in September 1962, I already had great anticipation for the future. Manned space flight was a reality after Yuri Gagarin's one orbit in April of 1961, then came Alan Shepard's flight weeks later.
The Jetsons' cartoon world showed freedoms and possibilities that were only heard of in the pages of Popular Science at the time. Mundane household tasks were carried out by robots, and as Jeffery Tucker writes:
"— people work only a few hours a day, travel at 500 miles per hour in flying cars that go as fast as 2,500 miles per hour, and the main job is "pushing buttons."
The galaxy is their home. Healthcare is a complete free market with extreme customer care. Technology was the best (but of course it still malfunctions, same as today). Business is rivalrous, prosperity is everywhere, and the state largely irrelevant except for the friendly policeman who shows up only every once in a while to check things out."

I yearned for that world, and had every confidence that the way things were going, I would live to see it. I saw every episode of The Jetsons, and so, apparently, did Jeffrey Tucker.

Mr. Tucker is a prolific writer for mises.org, and has written It's a Jetsons World, as you can see in the short video clip below. Over the past few days, in the quite times of this holiday period, I had the pleasure of listening to the free audio book version online. This represents a portion of the full text. The reader is Stefan Molyneux, who needs no introductions, and he does a wonderfully theatrical job of reading. Mr. Tucker's audio book is funny, entertaining, and enlightening. Listening here is a treat. Enjoy.   

It's a Jetsons World from Mises Media on Vimeo.

Psssst......wanna buy some potato chips?

What does the leviathan state do best? That list would be very short. Certainly one of the most proficient if dubious examples of efficacy, is the ability of the state to create criminals, inadvertently, of course.
In Ontario, Premier 'Dad' Dalton McGuinty, uses his government's legislative powers to socially engineer the lives of it's citizens. McGuinty means well, he is a gentle paternalistic bully, but a bully nonetheless. What's he done? Since taking power almost nine years ago, Ontario now has laws that dictate what breed of dog is allowed as a pet, how homeowners must care for their lawns, what must NOT be done while driving, what methods of electricity production are acceptable and encouraged, how to dress while riding a bike, and lately in the government run public schools, what foods may and may not be served or sold at lunch.

Since the 2011-12 school year began, the Ontario Ministry of Education is "committed to making schools healthier places for students" after instituting Policy Memorandum 150. Parents are no longer fully responsible for what their children may or may not eat, the McGuinty Liberals have prescribed some fairly stringent rules about nutrition. How stringent? Well, in-school fundraisers like a weekly "pizza day" or the ubiquitous chocolate bar sales are now verboten.

The Ministry has divided up foods sold or served in schools into three categories:

1. Foods that can be sold or served at least 80% of the time or more.

2. Foods that can be sold or served 20% of the time or less.

3. Foods that must never be sold or served in school. 

The 80% or more category contains things like salad, vegetables, fruits, bread, pasta, cereal, meat, and fish as long as they all have low salt, low sugar, and  low fat content. So, pizza does not qualify because it has too much salt, and likely too much fat. Here is the multiple page appendix that stipulates the new nutrition standards in Ontario schools.

Of course proper nutrition makes sense. French fries and gravy, common lunchtime fare when I was a student, are not healthy foods to be eaten regularly. But is it the job of the school to teach this or should parents have final say? Why don't schools just concentrate on what they are supposed to be doing (and often not that well) and let parents make personal and societal decisions?

The problem whenever government uses legislation to engineer habits, is that the legislation always limits choices and often creates conflict that would not have occurred without the bad legislation. Government run public schools, where most students in Ontario are educated, already come with numerous limitations on parental freedom. Many wealthy parents vote with their feet to keep their children out of the government school system, but even that is undermined, because the Ministry prescribes the curriculum taught in ALL schools.

My cartoon, suggestive of a black market in illicit junk food, may seem a bit over-the-top, but is it really? In many school districts in the American states and elsewhere, the intrusive regulations we have adopted in Ontario, have already been field tested. A recent posting at LewRockwell.com (below) shows how black markets have sprung up in Public School cafeterias:

Though the Los Angeles Unified School District has received accolades for its new, healthful lunches, the appearance of quinoa and whole wheat bread has created “an underground market for chips, candy, fast-food burgers and other taboo fare.”
At Van Nuys High, a Junior ROTC officer and an art teacher have been caught selling candy, chips, and instant noodles to students. And, as Hank Cardello, the author of Stuffed: An Insider's Look at Who's (Really) Making America Fat, and a former food executive with Coca-Cola, General Mills, and Cadbury-Schweppes, pointed out in the Atlantic, candy dealers have sprouted up wherever fresh food is sold:

• Last week, Van Nuys High School juniors, Iraides Renteria and Mayra Gutierrez told the LA Times, they considered the new school fare "nasty, rotty stuff," as they pulled three bags of Flamin' Hot Cheetos and soda from their backpacks – which they very well may have purchased from one of the junk food “dealers” on campus.
• Following the passage of the Texas Public School Nutrition Policy, which banned candy, enterprising students at Austin High began selling bags full of candy at premium prices, with some reportedly making up to $200 per week.
• Similarly, young entrepreneurs at one Boca Raton (Florida) middle school make runs to the local Costco and buy candy bars, doughnuts, and other high-calorie snacks in bulk. They then offer these goodies for sale in an environment that has supposedly eradicated such goodies.
• An eighth-grade student body vice president in Connecticut was forced to resign after buying Skittles from an underground "dealer."
• The U.K. has also seen its share of black market trade in banned foods, snacks, and beverages, with schools in Oxford, Dorset, and Essex reporting healthy underground markets trading in food contraband. The plots ranged from kids selling McDonald's hamburgers in playgrounds to bicycle-riding entrepreneurs hauling bags of soft drinks and milk chocolate for sale.

New on the curriculum at the schools mentioned above and coming to Ontario schools is: "flouting the rules" and getting away with it. The children will learn early that dumb rules create a criminal class of entrepreneurs that operate in the shadows, a black market in junk food. Again the leviathan state does what it does best.

  

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." Tacitus

Disenchanted, Disengaged, Disenfranchised

In the most recent Ontario general election voter turnout was at an historic low, only 49.2% of eligible voters actually bothered to cast their ballots. This was despite a concerted effort by Elections Ontario to make voting easier and more convenient than ever.

The following was included in a late summer media release:

“It’s now easier than ever to vote in a provincial general election” said Chief Electoral Officer Greg Essensa today at a media conference held in Toronto. Stating that making voting easy was the core driver for Elections Ontario, Essensa took attendees through a review of the voting options available, highlighting the More Days More Ways approach which gives voters more flexibility than ever before to choose how, when and where to vote. 

On election day, most voting locations:
Will be wheelchair accessible, as indicated on your Notice of Registration Card.
On election day, all voting locations:
Will have magnifiers, Braille ballot templates and other tools to assist voters who are blind or with vision loss.
Will provide pens and pads to help electors who are deaf, deafened, or hard of hearing to communicate.
Will provide the elector the opportunity to book a sign language interpreter paid by Elections Ontario through the Canadian Hearing Society's Ontario Interpreting Services to be with you at your voting location.

During the 15 days preceding election day:
In returning offices and satellite offices, assistive voting tools will be available that feature:
Audio headphones
Tactile buttons
Large keypads marked with Braille
Paddles
A "sip and puff" device
If you have restricted mobility:
You may transfer to a more convenient voting location within your electoral district. Contact your Returning Officer to make arrangements.

Almost $92 million later, it didn't seem to work. In fact, its almost axiomatic (for me) that whenever a big government (like Ontario's) institutes a program to fix a problem, not only is the problem not fixed, but it is often made worse. Such was the case here. Obviously "ease" of voting was not preventing people from voting in this election. It was something more fundamental. Why did 67.8% of the population turn out to vote in 1975, dropping to 49.2% in 2011? Was it more convenient then? Hardly. So the answer must be something else and I suspect the answer is incentive. No, I'm not suggesting that we pay or reward people who vote. Nor would I suggest that people be coerced to vote, as they are in Australia. I'm suggesting that people need a reason to vote, a reason to believe that their ballot may change what is, after all, an entrenched system.
There is some evidence for this. In 2008, Obama's election was a spike in the usual US voter turnout, maybe because people were under the misimpression that an Obama victory would change things. US turnouts seem to be far worse in percentage terms than Canadian federal elections. Ontario turnouts resemble the US.
The upcoming US election will be interesting, or not, depending on who is chosen by the GOP. If a razor blade will be needed to separate and distinguish the policies of Obama and the GOP candidate, then look for a low turnout. That's what I'm predicting.     

Heavily taxed secularists are not very generous

In human relations, at the corner of religion and politics, there lies personal responsibility. For some of us, that corner does not exist exactly, rather it is metaphysics (worldview) and politics. Either way, at that intersection, personal responsibility and self reliance are among the most highly prized virtues among libertarians. Libertarians invariably prefer that people in trouble deal with their own problems or seek voluntary help rather than accept legislated handouts. Libertarians prefer donation to taxation. Many people mistake this attitude among libertarians as being cold and uncaring, but it is more likely an aversion to coercion. Most libertarians regard voluntary donation as their own personal responsibility, helping those that need help in any way they can. Libertarians also believe, that when people are coerced to give, they end up feeling and acting less generously. There is evidence for this.

The Fraser Institute publishes an annual report called "Generosity in Canada and the United States - The 2011 Generosity Index." The report lists the 64 States, Provinces and Territories that comprise the United States and Canada. These two countries that have a great deal in common, with some subtle (and not so subtle) differences that make this a valid comparison.
The Canadian Provinces do not fare well in this comparison. All the Canadian Provinces and Territories are in among the bottom 27 positions out of total 64.  Quebec has the lowest average charitable donation in local dollars with $606 in 2009, while the average amount given in South Dakota in the same year was $7580, a huge difference. In a measure that Fraser Institute calls the "generosity index," Utah ranks as the most generous, number 1 out of 64, while Quebec is 59, Ontario ranked as 46 of 64. So whats going on here?

One of the not so subtle differences between the two countries is that the US is generally more religious than Canada, and likely the most secular of the Canadian provinces is now Quebec. Utah, on the other hand has a large percentage of Mormons that may still practice tithing. Many religions make charity an obligatory part of being faithful. So religion may account for American generosity, though I think Americans are generous by nature. What I don't get is this recent article by someone that clearly hates Ayn Rand, calling Americans greedy etc. They most certainly are among the world's most generous people, as this article posted on the same day as the previous one indicates.

In the National Post, a recent column by Barbara Kay recognizes the religious differences between the two countries. But she goes one step further: "Big governments assign all responsibility for social justice to the state. Smaller governments assign some responsibility to the state and some to the individual. Statism dampens the impulse to be generous at an individual level." Quebec is both secular and has big government, maybe that's why this relatively rich province is so stingy with its donations?

Ms. Kay ends up with: "Taking personal responsibility for alleviating the sufferings of others is the mark of a mature individual. Statism tends to suffocate the blessing of empathy. Statism promotes civic immaturity. One more in a long litany of reasons for working to bring down the size of government." I could not agree more.