On December 15,  the US Government Accountability Office released a report on the Internal Revenue Service’s failings in “providing customer service to taxpayers.”

Are taxpayers “customers?” Let’s have a look at that idea.

“For years,” George Ochenski writes at CounterPunch, “we’ve all heard politicians claim they should ‘run government like a business.’ But of course government isn’t a business …. the governor’s ‘duties’ are not to make a profit for himself and his corporate shareholders as he did in business. Rather it is to serve the people of the state and uphold his oath of office to protect and honor our Constitution.”

That’s a riff on the old myth enshrined in the US Declaration of Independence:  “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed …”

In reality, government can be run like a business, and government is run like a business, because government is a business.

But, as with broadcast television, social media platforms, and “free” Internet services, the taxpayer or “average citizen” is government’s product, not its customer.

What kind of business is government? The best metaphor is that of a sprawling ranch, raising various types of livestock, each of which may be put to various uses.

As a taxpayer, you’re a cow to be milked, or a hen whose eggs are gathered, or a sheep who’s periodically sheared.

As a prospective incarcerated “criminal,” you’re a pet whose kenneling is paid for by those cows and hens.

As a prospective conscript, you’re a steer or hog or fryer being fattened up for future slaughter.

And as a prospective parent, you’re “breedstock,” charged with keeping the rancher supplied with new generations of cows, hens, pets, steers, hogs, and fryers.

Those are the roles played by members of society’s productive class — the people who make useful things and provide useful services.

Government is the rancher.

The customer is the political class — those who buy you, and everything you produce that the rancher doesn’t eat himself,  paying the rancher with both material wealth and continued power to run the Lazy G Ranch operation. Government employees. “Defense” and “prison” and other “ranch services” contractors. Ostensibly “private” businesses seeking preferential treatment from the rancher for their own enterprises.

Do you benefit at all? Well, yes, in the same sense that the hogs get slopped, the steers get grain and grazing space, etc. But to the extent that this is a trade proposition, let’s face it: You’re working for chicken feed.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Talking with The Daily Beast about the new Dyson Zone — a $949  wireless headphone that also purifies the air its user breathes via an attached face mask —  Dr. Anthony Wexler, an air quality researcher at University of California Davis complains:  “These things are terrible because only rich people can afford them …. if you’re wealthy, you can breathe clean air — whereas if you’re poor, well, too bad.”

At first blush, Wexler’s criticism seems sensible. My sprawling Wyoming ranch, nestled in its pristine valley in the Rockies, probably boasts far better air quality than the densely populated urban areas, right next to belching smokestacks of death, where all you poor people live. Well, when my private chopper and private jet aren’t revving up for action on my private helipad and runway, anyway.

[Note to reader: I don’t own a ranch, helicopter, or airplane. Heck, I don’t even own a house or car.]

But let’s step back a moment and look at how the market treats expensive new devices.

Dyson’s first product was a “cyclonic” vacuum cleaner. Its first major licensed release, in Japan, sold for about US $2,000 in 1985 — more than $5,000 in today’s dollars.

James Dyson spent 15 years developing the first bagless cyclonic vacuum. He went through, by his account, 5,127 attempts to get it right, after quitting his job and soliciting investors and lenders so that he could work full-time at it.

Today, Amazon’s search results return cyclonic vacuums in every format from handheld to upright to canister, many for less than $100 (about $39 in 1985 dollars).

What should we say to James Dyson? Hopefully something that he can answer with “you’re welcome.”

The first cell phone, introduced by Motorola in 1983, retailed for $3,995 ($7,335 in 2022 dollars).  Today, nearly everyone carries one of that phone’s great-great-grandchildren in his or her purse or pocket, with the cheapest “burner” models — leaps and bounds smaller, many of them “smart” — going for less than $20.

The Apple I — really just a circuit board, not a full-fledged computer — retailed for $666.66 in 1976.  How much computer can you buy for $3,361.20 in today’s dollars? Well, that’s about what a top-shelf  Apple MacBook Pro goes for … but I’m writing this column on a $150 machine.

The Latest New Thing is almost always expensive, for various reasons. Inventors spend a great deal of time and capital developing it. Patent protection gives them exclusive rights to manufacture or license it for a little while.

And as soon as The Latest New Thing looks like a winner in the market, everyone else goes to work making something like it. Only better. And cheaper.

What makes that process possible? Those rich people spending big money on The Latest New Thing, talking it up, and making it cool.

“Supply-side economics” has long been derided for its supposed “trickle-down” effect.  Dyson’s high-end offerings demonstrate the REAL — and desirable — “trickle-down” effect in action.

If the Dyson Zone works well for, and sells well to, the well-heeled, us poor people will be able to grab it, or something like it, on the cheap come Black Friday 2023.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

For the last 20-odd years, my jobs have pretty much entirely revolved around, in two words, “the news.” For the last eight years, I’ve written 150 (give or take) op-eds per year here at the Garrison Center.  The basis for any good opinion column is its “news hook” — what’s going on in the world, what I think about it, and what I hope to convince YOU to think about it.

I love the job, and I hope you enjoy the columns. I’ve also (among other things) cleaned toilets for a living. I didn’t like doing that as much as I like doing this. But there’s one way in which janitorial work is more enjoyable than news work:

Once I put away my scrub brushes and mops and so forth, clocked out, and went home, I didn’t spend all evening continuing to think about toilets.

Jesus’ disciples may not have been opinion journalists, but I can’t help thinking that he laid out my job description as he addressed them in the 24th chapter of the  Gospel of Matthew:

“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.”

That, friends, is my beat. And haven’t we had quite a year of it? 2022 has proven itself chock-full of everything he predicted, with hurricanes, mass shootings, and toxic politics to boot.

It’s enough to keep one up nights.

My family celebrates Christmas. Yours may celebrate other winter holidays with different roots and stories. But all of those holidays, I think, express in common the desire celebrated by the angels in the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke:

“On earth peace, good will toward men.”

What do I want for Christmas this year? One day with no news.

Well, maybe not NO news, but at least no BAD news.

I’m fine with stories about the cute mutt who finally got adopted, the little girl whose cancer miraculously went into remission, and the teens who helped their elderly neighbor carry her groceries. A one-day hold on this “wars and rumours” of wars business.

One day, just one day, with nothing on my mind to keep me from drifting off that night, sleeping hard ALL night, and hitting snooze two or three times without a care in the world.

I guess that would put me out of work for a day or two. But I’ll always have my toilet-cleaning expertise to fall back on, right?

Happy holidays.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY