The Administrative State

This summer I taught a course in US Economic History and used the Walton and Rockoff text.

One of the lessons asked students to ponder the debate in the late 19th and early 20th century in our country over the tariff and income tax. Notice, the students were to consider the debate - both pro and con sides.

At the root of the debate was the need for increased government revenue (taxes) and Walton/Rockoff assert that part of the increased need for tax revenue was due to (1) entitlements expanding much faster than anticipated (war pensions from the Civil War) and (2) increased military spending (the "new" and expanded navy was an example of expanding military expenditures).

Neither of these motivations or stimuli would surprise Bob Higgs and other scholars of the period.

But Walton and Rockoff go on to assert that, accompanying this expansion in transfer of income in the form of increasing taxation was an expansive administrative state that had as important an impact on US Economic Change.

The Warfare and Welfare states have to be administered and the acceptance of coercive administration in these two areas of life begins to shape other areas of activity.

A recent article by Virginia Posrtel illustrates the contemporary result of an emergent administrative state that shows little sign of receding. As Bob Higgs points out, this ratchet effect is inherent in the intervention of the state in society.

Need a Light Bulb? Uncle Sam Gets to Choose

If you want to know why so many Americans feel alienated from their government, you need only go to Target and check out the light bulb aisle. Instead of the cheap commodities of yesteryear, you’ll find what looks like evidence of a flourishing, technology-driven economy.

There are “ultrasoft” bulbs promising “softer soft white longer life” light, domed halogens for “bright crisp light” and row upon row of Energy Smart bulbs -- some curled in the by-now- familiar compact fluorescent form, some with translucent shells that reveal only hints of the twisting tubes within.

It seems to be a dazzling profusion of choice. But, at least in California, where I live, this plenitude no longer includes what most shoppers want: an inexpensive, plain-vanilla 100-watt incandescent bulb. Selling them is now illegal here. The rest of the country has until the end of the year to stock up before a federal ban kicks in. (I have a stash in storage.) Over the next two years, most lower-wattage incandescents will also disappear.

Postrel goes on to point out another important component of the administrative state - "scientific" elites who are so much better at planning that to truly "progress" coercion is not only tolerable, but necessary and acceptable. These elites in planning receive support for elites in culture, media and entertainment, as Postrel points out:

It’s a Ban
Now, I realize that by complaining about the bulb ban -- indeed, by calling it a ban -- I am declaring myself an unsophisticated rube, the sort of person who supposedly takes marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. In a New York Times article last month, Penelope Green set people like me straight. The law, she patiently explained, “simply requires that companies make some of their incandescent bulbs work a bit better, meeting a series of rolling deadlines between 2012 and 2014.”

True, the law doesn’t affect all bulbs -- just the vast majority. (It exempts certain special types, like the one in your refrigerator.) The domed halogen bulbs meet the new standards yet are technically incandescents; judging from my personal experiments, they produce light similar to that of old- fashioned bulbs. They do, however, cost twice as much as traditional bulbs and, if the packages are to be believed, don’t last as long.

Washington Knows Best


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-10/need-a-light-bulb-uncle-sam-gets-to-choose-virginia-postrel.html