Overcoming Hamilton’s Curse, Part 3: Habits & Complexes

Specific Solutions that Only Entrepreneurs Can Provide

This is part 3 of a 5-part article.

Read Part 1 Here
Read Part 2 Here

There are at least two major roadblocks hindering this needed Freedom Shift.

The first is habit. Our society has become habituated, at times addicted, to certain lifestyles.

For example, when the recession hit, people spent more money, not less, at McDonald’s. We are habituated to eating out, and tightening our belts in hard times has come to include eating even more french fries.

Perhaps our most debilitating rut as a culture is a dependence on experts. Until we kick this dependency, how can we rise above the statistics and become a nation of entrepreneurs and leaders?

The answer, as challenging as it is, is for entrepreneurs to show us the way, and to keep at it until more of us start to heed.

The second huge roadblock is our complexity. Indeed, we have reached a level of complexity where simplicity itself is suspect.

For example, the simple reality is that jobs migrate to less difficult nations. It’s the old Rule of Capital: Capital goes where it is treated well.

In nations that have become too complex, taxes and regulation cause at least a doubling of the amount employers must spend on labor.

Many experts call this “progress,” but the natural result is that many companies respond by sending their operations and jobs to less costly nations.

When this happens, complex nations react in an amazing way: They villainize the companies (“greedy profiteers”) rather than reducing taxes and regulations to entice companies back home.

Then they take an incredible extra step: They increase taxes and regulations even more on the businesses that stayed!

The result? More money flees and recession inevitably comes.

At this point, when the need is obviously to lure businesses, capital, and jobs back home with decreased regulation and taxes, nations that are too complex actually compound the negative situation as angry workers cry out for more regulations and controls.

Freedom, prosperity and stability all suffer.

As Ken Kurson put it,

“Our bipartisan addiction to spending and borrowing pairs with a hostility toward employers that makes real recovery difficult.”³

Or, as the Governor of Minnesota said:

“I was talkin’ to people this morning who run small businesses. Where’s their bailout?”⁴

People who point out how ridiculous this is are often labeled extremists or radicals. Simple answers aren’t often very popular in complex nations.

Sadly, only major crisis is usually enough to get people to listen to simple solutions.

Poor Complexion

Another example is found in the issue of health care.

Health care costs consistently increase where voluminous regulations along with medical lawsuits cause huge malpractice insurance costs.

When government seeks to regulate and force the costs down, it must find a way to reduce litigation and payouts.

But in complex society, people want to have their cake and eat it too.

They want health care to cost less and also to leave doctors and insurance companies paying for incredibly expensive lawsuits.

How is it possible to get both? “The government should make it so,” is the answer of a complex society. But how? “The government should just fix it.”

This amazingly naïve view of things is the result of complexity. Far too many citizens don’t even expect to be able to understand the issue, so they leave it to the experts.

And once all is in the hands of experts, they are expected to solve everything without any pain or problem to the populace. After all, they’re the experts, right?

Those who benefit most from the costs of lower health care either need to forego the threat of so many lawsuits or be willing to pay higher prices.

But such simple answers don’t convince in complex societies.

One more example is interesting. Hamilton argued in The Federalist Papers that for society to be free the legal code would need to be long, detailed and difficult to understand.

He based this on the systems in Europe at the time. But these were the very systems the founders fought to abandon.

In contrast, Jefferson, Madison and many others taught that complex laws and legal codes were sure signs of oppression.

They agreed with Montesquieu, Locke and Hume and that laws must be simple, concise and brief, and indeed that the entire legal code must be simple enough that every citizen knows the entire law.

If a person doesn’t know the law, they argued, he shouldn’t be held liable for breaking it or freedom is greatly reduced.

In complex society, most attorneys don’t even know the whole law.

To be continued…

Sources:

3. Ken Kurson, “A Hedge Fund for Little Guys,” Esquire, March 2010.
4. Governor Tim Pawlenty, quoted by Mark Warren in “The Dark Horse,” Esquire, March 2010.

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Oliver DeMille is the founder and former president of George Wythe University, a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd Online.