Politicians aint got no Crystal Balls

Why Big Government Will Never Make the People Happy

Do you ever wonder why it seems that no matter who is in power in Canada, the people are never happy with the government they get? Indeed, it seems as time goes on that Canadians are becoming increasingly frustrated and angry with their politicians. Over and over we hear the same complaint -- the politicians just don't listen.

Well, what would it be like if the politicians did listen? Since every individual is unique everyone's concerns will be unique as well. What if each member of the Ontario legislature were to give each voter a personal interview?

The job is almost impossible right from the start because individual wants tend to be transitory. But let's assume that this problem doesn't exist... that people's wants remain the same throughout the five year term of parliament.

There are about 130 MPPs in Ontario representing about 7 million eligible voters. I doubt that even one whole hour granted to each individual would be remotely sufficient to determine their wants correctly but let's assume that it is.

Even with a crystal ball and tarot cards which would, in addition to saving an awful lot of time in terms of travel, telephone tag etc., presumably get around language and other barriers to communication thus facilitating concise answers to the politician's queries, the politician would still have an awesome task. Each politician would have to spend, on average, about 54 thousand hours staring into a crystal ball and shuffling cards.

Based upon a 40 hour week, 50 weeks a year, it would still take each politician 27 years on average to interview each constituent at the end of which he or she would almost certainly prefer a well deserved retirement over the awesome task of drafting the corresponding, and enormously complex, set of laws.

The politician's task may be further complicated by the possibility that he may have been out of office for the last 22 of those years. The additional inconvenience of birth and death rates would also present a problem. In 27 years around a million and a half Ontarians will die and many others will reach voting age necessitating constant adjustments to the data through which the politician must sift.

Unless he has a photographic memory and the raw brain power of an omniscient being it will still take years to set up a legislative agenda which gives each and every constituent fully equal consideration.

It begins to appear that even if politicians had crystal balls and tarot cards they could hardly determine what the people want let alone give it to them. The problem with big government then is that too few people have too much decision making leverage based upon much too little information. Is it any wonder that the people grow increasingly frustrated with government, careening from one political party to the next like some drunken fool?

last modified:Wednesday,March 19, 2008 at 04:40