What Do Conservatives Mean When They Say Small Government?
Executive Summary
- Conservatives like to use the term “small government” as an aspirational goal.
- We cover what conservatives mean when they use this term.
Introduction
Conservatives often use the term “small government.” This makes it appear that conservatives want to shrink the government. However, that is unstated is that when conservatives say this, they only mean shrinking the government that serves the population.
This video does a good job of explaining the argument for substantial government.
This is a cartoon from this TED talk. How will climate change be addressed without “big government.” Small government will result in “self-regulation” and extinguishing the human species, as we have extinguished enormous numbers of other species.
Corporate Charters?
How does regulating the human footprint fit with corporate charters?
Well, corporations are precise in that their only goal is to maximize profits. With a small government, it means private corporations are doing whatever they want.
Private Fire Departments?
This is a scene from the movie The Gangs of New York. It shows fights between rival “fire departments.” Having privatized or “self-fire fighting” rather than a single taxpayer-funded fire department does not work out very well. Groups of thugs punching each other and the leader negotiating with the homeowner for how much they will pay to put out the fire tends to get in the way of actually putting out the fire.
However, conservatives only want this model for the normal population. The elites would have their high-end fire departments that only protect the wealthy who have prepaid.
Small Government Perfection
This is the ultimate dream of conservatives. You pay for everything — private schools (AKA “school choice), private police (AKA high-end security for the rich, corrupt police that must shake down the population for bribes as in Latin America). You also pay to access public parks, toll roads, private health care, and private child care, and social security is privatized and handed over to Wall Street for “management.” And here is the kicker: you still pay the same level of taxes.
Where Do the Taxes Go?
Those taxes go to subsidies for multinationals. This is what conservatives mean when they use the term “small government.”
It also means that “small” regulation will result in corporations doing whatever they want. Because the “small” government is not able to regulate them.
How to Consider Conservative Small Government
The best way of thinking of it is that you, as a citizen, get nothing. That is the “small” part of “small government.” Along with “small government” is big government — which is where the illusion of a government for the people is used to extract tax revenue from the population so it can be handed over to the multinational corporations — and allocated in a way that is proportional with the number of lobbyists that each multinational can provide.
As a synopsis, “small government” does not accurately describe what conservatives are presenting. Instead, what they mean is “small government for you.”
This government has already been tested in Latin America and has proven to be an enormous failure.
Latin America has thoroughly tested the small government. Most of the population receives minimal services. The conservatives want to bring this failed system to the US.
Conclusion
Small government is a euphemism for nothing for the general population, even to those who pay a significant portion of their income in taxes. It could also be called neo-feudalism, the title of a new book describing how this process occurs. It rolls back the gains that were made as societies became civilized and returns society to the “golden age” of medical serfdom that conservatives long for, with no services or protections for anyone but the wealthy.
References
I found this as part of the research for this article.
And this one.
And this one.