Paternalism test - opposition to big government - Editorial

Reason, Dec, 1994 by Virginia I. Postrel

The current wave of anti-government resentment presents a rare opportunity to attack not just big spending but big government. But that will take courage and political entrepreneurship: Taxation and spending come up for a vote in every Congress. Regulation, once in place, generally lasts forever and increases yearly.

And most regulations come wrapped in a cloak of good, often superbly good, intentions. Imagine, for instance, how hard it would be to wipe out those housing-ad rules when it means attacking a provision in the Civil Rights Act. Americans may be irritated at bureaucratic intrusions into our own lives, but an awful lot of us still want the government to tell other people what they can and cannot do.

This past year's health-care debate suggests that Americans can indeed be convinced that adding new regulations will do more harm than good. The question now is whether the new Congress, and the allegedly anti-government public, can be convinced that subtracting old regulations will do more good than harm.

That, not cutting taxes or reforming welfare, will be the real test of whether we're ready to shed paternalism for self-reliance. Are we willing to let people decide for themselves with whom to share their bedrooms and what their employees can wear to work? Until we are, the "anti-Washington" mood will remain little more than a rhetorical fad.