Well, Clio and I both hope not. As a matter of fact, I am truly puzzled about why I have found it so difficult to return to blogging. Certainly I set myself a difficult and, as it now seems, overly ambitious task when I proclaimed that the Other World would provide its readers with all history, all the time. But I don’t believe that’s the only reason for my difficulty. I expect it had something to do with the fact that my time is far more divided now than it once was. That is, I’m not necessarily busier, and anyway there are people far busier than I who nevertheless manage to blog very regularly, but I have more different kinds of chores to attend to, and they occupy my mind so that much of the mental space I once allowed to blogging is no longer available.
All the same, I haven’t given up yet, though I do think the history project as such will have to wait to come to fruition, in spite of Clio’s loud and impolite protests. (Never mess with a Muse, people. They get so difficult when crossed.) Instead, I will resume the old mix of a little artiness, a little current events, a little Pseudo-Intellectualism. By the way, is there a blog called Pseudo-Intellectual? There certainly ought to be.
As to our purpose in writing now, we were much troubled in our minds this morning – at least, I was troubled, but Clio was amused – by a round dismissal of the value of working for the government, which apparently originated with comments made by Ann Coulter and which I saw quoted in Kathy Shaidle’s Five Feet of Fury.
HAYES: My Mom works for the government. She doesn’t have a job-job?
FOREMAN: That’s not a…
ANN COULTER: No. She is a drain on society.
(Applause)
Well, really, I knew that. Government workers are a drain on society. Some of them certainly are, at any rate. Here I must confess that I’ve never worked at anything but government jobs, unless you count university lecturing posts, which I don’t, as in a sense they have become merely the propaganda wing of the government, unfortunately. (That is not entirely true or fair, but there is more truth in it than I like.) So I’m not exactly disinterested. Yet though I’m willing to confess freely that I don’t imagine any of my government work to have provided any kind of essential service to anyone, there are many government positions that do exactly that. What would we do without the – well, let’s see – the soldiers (and all the many different trades among them), the pavers, garbage collectors, custodians, street-sweepers, water-pipe layers and maintainers, sewage-system engineers, traffic-light and street-light monitors, policemen, and not least of all, the administrators who organize and manage them? Libertarians like to imagine that some or all of these services except soldiering might be provided by the private sector, but they’re wrong. Aside from the fact that the private sector is not likely to take an interest in providing many of these not especially profitable services, their failure to do so in the least profitable sectors can make life very unpleasant, not just for the handful of people intimately concerned, but for everyone who lives in the same city.
When airlines refuse to make particular runs because there’s no profit in it for them, it could be argued (barely) that the only people affected by this decision are those who live in the cities to which they will not fly. But surely if we ever reached a stage in which, let’s say, sewage companies refused to provide their services to Quarter X because its inhabitants could not afford them, would the whole city not soon acquire a rather stinky reputation? Clio and I have both lived in cities in which public services of this kind were not provided from public funds, but only by private contractors and only selectively. The results were not pretty and could not be avoided unless one simply did not leave the confines of one’s own garden – and even there, the smells of the untamed and unserved city could penetrate when the prevailing wind was in the right direction.
The fact that too much public money is wasted on services that no one wants, or that are poorly provided, or over-priced, or – in some cases – non-existent, should not blind us to the fact that many essential services are still provided by public servants of one kind or another, and that their place could not readily be taken by private contractors.
Meanwhile, I have long accepted with melancholy certainty that I am myself not an especially Useful Person. I might feel more melancholy than I do about this, were it not for the fact that I do not believe that being Useful is or ought to be the principal goal of human life. Let me quote the great Reepicheep now, from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:
“But what manner of use would it be ploughing through that darkness?” asked Drinian.
“Use, Captain? Use? If by use you mean filling our bellies or our purses, why then, I confess that it will be of no use at all. But so far as I know we did not set sail to look for things useful, but to seek honour and adventure, and to refuse this adventure would be no small impeachment of our honours.”
(I admit that the above is quoted from memory and may be slightly off.) I don’t for a moment suggest, of course, that I expect anyone to pay me to sail around the world having adventures. Or even to pay me a civil servant’s salary, necessarily – a goal that still remains elusive for me, alas. I only mean that I don’t like a) the suggestion that public servants are, in general, useless, and b) that being useful ought to be our ideal.
Is there anyone else out there willing to say a word or two in favour of government workers and their works? By “anyone” I mean people who aren’t essentially left-wing in their outlook, but who are aware of the services that public servants provide and that it would probably be difficult to find some equally satisfactory means of providing them, for all the liabilities of the present system.
> university lecturing posts … in a sense … have become merely the propaganda wing of the government
Would you mind expanding on that? Please?
I suppose I intended to suggest that education is becoming not exactly politicized – which implies allegiance to a political party – as a way for the governing classes and their servants impose or withhold certain ideals on their charges. Now, there are many people who will tell you that this has always been true, and I can understand this. I did a good deal of research at one time into the history of education, and it has never been politically neutral. It was always used to inculcate certain virtues or truths considered useful by the ruling classes.
But at some periods in our history, universities were more independent from the learn-to-earn approach or the slogan-of-the-day method of education than they are today. Historically, it was first elementary schools, and then secondary schools, where this mode of education was most visible. Universities affected so small a part of the population that they were largely exempt.
Of course, I don’t mean that universities were once hotbeds of radical dissent, exactly, whether of the left- or right-wing variety. I mean only that they were far more likely than elementary and secondary schools to showcase a hotch-potch of opinion and not to see their goal as the creation of Useful Citizens. That in fact was where they derived their prestige, since any learning that smacked of the obligation to earn a living was once regarded as suspect. Now, of course, any form of learning or skill that doesn’t prove immediately useful in the sense of filling bellies or purses is thought to be not merely useless, but unworthy of existence.
Hi Clio,
Nice to see you’re back.
The reason why you’re unlikely to get any responses of the sort you hope for is that you’re framing your question wrongly. You’re asking for an argument in favor of civil servants based on the same premises that lead people to condemn them by straightforward observation and logic. People observe the actual work of civil servants, and they compare it with the theoretical ideal image that the state presents of itself (and which follows from its ideology, i.e. modern liberalism). This comparison simply cannot make the civil service look good if any remotely realistic view is taken. At best, you can selectively point at some parts of the civil service that do a much better job than average, or that do something essential that can’t be done better by any realistic institution. This however can’t get you a general argument in favor of government workers, but only piecemeal praise for some exceptionally good specimens.
So we get to the debate in which the mainstream left and right try to either excuse or attack various parts of the government that they respectively like or dislike, both taking almost the same idealistic liberal framework as their standard. The mainstream right stands out with its attacks, since larger parts of the bureaucracy are disliked by them, and also because they compensate for having to keep quiet about things that are beyond the bounds of political correctness, so that they end up being even more angry and aggressive about things they’re allowed to bring up. In turn, the left replies with awful ideological cant that is clearly disconnected from reality.
With this in mind, if you want to respond to the usual mainstream right attacks on government workers such as that by Ann Coulter, and you want to do it in an honest and insightful way, what can help is some far reactionary perspective, unencumbered by the ideological baggage of the last century or two (or even three). Unshackling yourself from the need to justify things from the standard liberal viewpoint can lead to many interesting lines of argumentation. I’ll outline two of them very briefly, and feel free to take up the discussion on any that might interest you:
(1) The standard debate is based on the dichotomy between government vs. private sector, which is a historically recent invention, and basically an artifact of liberal ideology. It doesn’t apply to other historical systems of governance, and more importantly, it doesn’t even describe the present system accurately. So you can simply refuse to frame the debate in these imprecise terms. This disarms any generalized attack that just goes after the abstracted negative image of “government” and not concrete issues.
(2) The modern civil service state as a whole performs the vital function of defanging democracy. In the modern world, we are doomed to live with the terrible mass delusion that democracy is an appropriate system for large-scale government, and the best that can be done to avert the imminent disasters that inevitably follow from true mass democracy is to place an non-intrusive but impenetrable buffer between the theater of electoral politics and the real operations of the government. The civil service are the unsung (and mostly unconscious) heroes whose labors are worth far more than they consume when you consider the scale of the disaster they’re skillfully preventing this way.
(A funny exercise would be to rewrite the above paragraph in modern liberal terms that encode a similar meaning in an obscurantist but respectable-sounding formulation. Also, the only sensible way to attack this position is from the right, arguing that the civil service state is only buying time, causing a slow-motion disaster instead of an imminent one.)
Hmm. I think I’m going to have to read this several times over, Vladimir, first to be sure I understand what you’ve said, and then to be sure I get its implications, and finally to compose a response!
Thanks for taking my post seriously enough to give it some thought; now I’ll have to do the same for your comment.
Maybe I should have been less long-winded. Basically, what I suggest is that you approach the question as a historian, not as a participant in contemporary ideological debates. This should open a more interesting (and perhaps even more cheerful) perspective.
In any case, my online dissertations are of varying quality, so no offense taken if you find it too tedious to grapple with this, or any other one!
Well, I won’t say I found you tedious, but I did find that your meaning in the above comment was less transparent than usual. I don’t say I got nothing out of it – I believe you were suggesting that by avoiding historical context, I was locking myself in to the usual tedious debates between left and right – but it seemed to me that there was more to your point than that, though it remained … just … out of my reach.
In fact, though, I was initially trying to engage that large (I thought) portion of my readers – not that they are in themselves a large group – who, though not big government cheerleaders, are not all-out libertarians either. I am, after all, Canadian, and there are not so many libertarians in this country, though there are rather more conservatives than you might think.
If that last “you” refers to me, I should point out that I’ve been living in Canada for about a decade. And yes, I agree — despite all the intellectual and moral destruction that has swept this country along with the rest of the Western world in recent decades, a great deal of old-fashioned sanity and decency still survives here, certainly much more than the ideological stereotypes prevalent in the U.S. and elsewhere would lead one to assume.
Speaking of old-fashioned sanity and decency, any thoughts on the death of Otto von Habsburg? I’m Croatian, and this being 2011, it’s mind-boggling to think that this same man who was still alive just a few days ago used to be the prince royal of the lands of the Crown of St. Stephen, even if only as a child, back when they constituted a real living kingdom, not just a distant and forlorn historical memory. I was moved by the reminiscence in this article, and especially the conclusion:
I meant the “you” in a more general way, Vladimir, and I’m sorry I wasn’t clearer about that. I’m glad to know a little more of your history – a Croatian living in Canada. How interesting!
I’m embarrassed to say that I know nothing of the life of Otto von Habsburg, beyond the little that I just read in that piece in Takimag. He sounds like a remarkable man.
I do, however, belong to that school of thought that believes that constitutional monarchy was, historically, often more democratic than democracy (of the party-politics, one-person, one-vote variety), and certainly more so than “republicanism” in the classical sense, in which what were in effect oligarchies governed for their own benefit and tended to despise the voteless hordes. (As an aside, our democracies appear to be moving in this direction, don’t they?) Kings are expected to govern in the interests of all their subjects, not just that of their voters or their social class, though of course in practise they usually failed to follow through on that expectation, often for reasons outside their control.
The greatest advantage of monarchy in a very factional and ethnically divided polity is that it can help to create stability and security for all the subjects of the crown. Elections are a disaster in states with no experience of the rule of law. It’s only too tempting for the winning factions to assume that this entitles them to rob the treasury, kill their opponents, and enact laws that favor only themselves. After all, they won an election, didn’t they? Granted that kings can sometimes do this to minority groups among their subjects (though it doesn’t happen as often), a strong and stable monarchy ensures that there is not going to be a civil war every four years at election time, as minority coalitions panic about what will happen to them if their opponents win.
But all systems of government have in-built weaknesses and monarchy is no exception. There are reasons why monarchical systems failed all over Europe from the 18th century on. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on that subject, though.
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Another great advantage of a monarchy with stable and lawful succession is the monarch’s unlimited time horizon. In democratic politics, there is little incentive for anyone to worry about what happens after the next election, and practically no motivation at all to worry about long-term future. In contrast, a monarch not only expects to rule for life, but also has a direct concern for the condition in which the country will be inherited by his family. (Whoever invented that phrase après moi le déluge that’s falsely attributed to Louis XV certainly showed a serious lack of understanding on this point.)
As for the failures of European monarchies, clearly each one has its own complex story, and I don’t think it’s fair to say that monarchical systems “failed all over Europe” as a blanket statement. Some of them indeed perished due to their own problems and failures, but others were swept away, or gradually faded away, due to circumstances outside of their control. (By the way, Liechtenstein is still ruled by a very strong monarch, and its quality of government is among the highest in the world, perhaps even the highest.)
However, one thing that should be recognized about Europe’s old monarchies is that they often perished because their rulers were too humane, gentle, and civilized to deal with the circumstances of mob rousing, political gangsterism, total and lawless warfare, and general decivilization. Ever since the American and French revolutions, in nearly all wars and revolutions that toppled ancient European monarchies, this has been a significant factor.
I was thinking of problems with monarchy other than the danger of violent revolution – although I suppose in a way that is a related problem. But what I was thinking of was the problem of “barons”, that is, a class of noble land-owners connected to but not dependent on the crown, and how to defeat, accommodate, or suppress them, as need might dictate. My academic adviser once told me, in our lengthy discussions of early modern Europe, that the central political issue of the period between, let’s say, 1400 and 1648, was the struggle between the landed aristocracy and the kings of Europe. (And throw in a similar struggle between bishops and popes for good measure, one which rebounded upon Europe’s temporal rulers as well.) Every state in Europe – except Switzerland, I suppose – fought some version of this battle, and its outcome determined their futures.
In Spain, the crown won; in Holland, the crown won (I think); in Germany, the nobles won; I believe that the same was true for much of Eastern Europe, but you would know better than I do. In France, the crown won after a fierce struggle, but paid a price for it in extreme centralization, which may ultimately have brought about the downfall of the French Crown. (At any rate, without the initial support of so many in the French nobility, could the Revolution have succeeded?) And then there’s England, a different case, because the English crown was weak by the standards of continental Europe, having lost ground to the barons with the Magna carta as early as 1215. And yet, with fewer formal powers, it ended up more secure and, arguably, stronger than they were, perhaps because it faced fewer external threats, though there were many internal ones. But it’s one thing to fear that the Scots may attack you, like Elizabeth I; it’s another to know that there’s several miles of sea between them and their potential allies across the Channel.
It’s been years since I’ve given much thought to these matters, and I fear I’m a bit rusty, but it’s always fun to discuss these things with someone who takes an interest in them.
In my comment, I had in mind more recent, post-1648 European monarchies. What you write is true about the earlier period, though, and in many places also about the later times.
The Habsburgs’ luck varied greatly in this regard: as Holy Roman Emperors, they failed to uphold any significant authority in Germany, but they got the upper hand in their core duchies around today’s Austria and Slovenia, as well as in their role as kings of Bohemia. At the same time, as kings of Hungary (and Croatia, whose exact constitutional status was controversial), they fought many bitter struggles with the nobility, which they largely lost — all until the defeat of the Hungarian revolution in 1849. (Some of the most severe clashes happened during mid-to-late 18th century under Joseph II, whose attempts to subdue Hungary were defeated decisively, and who eventually died a broken man.)
In France, the kings’ victory was still far from complete. From what I understand, the regional parlements still had a lot of local autonomy, including significant abilities to nullify and obstruct king’s orders. (Certainly nothing comparable existed in Prussia or Russia.) As for the Revolution, it seems to me that Louis XVI was too naive, kind, optimistic, and incompetent to realize what’s going on when things started going out of hand in the summer and fall of 1789 and to undertake the necessary action. A few decisive shows of force would have probably pacified the situation and prevented any major upheaval. You are probably right that the anti-crown attitudes among the nobility were a significant factor, but I wonder how much this was due to ancient grudges against centralization, and how much due to the more recent fashionable Enlightenment ideas? After all, the king’s cousin, Duke of Orleans, became a radical who patronized and protected the Jacobin Club in its infancy, and later changed his name to “Citizen Égalité.” (He eventually got guillotined during the craziest phase of the Terror.) What else could have motivated him for this craziness?
As for England, it’s interesting to speculate on what could have happened if Charles I or Charles II had been luckier during the periods when they managed to sidestep the Parliament and avoid convening it for a long time in the 1630s and 1680s. Did they ever have a real chance to push the Parliament into obsolescence, like French kings did with their estates of the realm?