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The Libertarian Disaster Recovery Fallacy
In the wake of the Midwest floods, we're about to embark on another long and fitful recovery and rebuilding effort. Given that and the post-Katrina mess in New Orleans -- a morass of programs that either half-work, work too slowly or don't work at all -- should the federal government simply pull back and focus on the fundamentals, such as infrastructure, while letting private entities do the heavy lifting in restoring the fabric of the community? That's a recurrent theme these days in conservative and libertarian circles. Here is another take on it from Daniel Rothschild of GMU's Mercatus Center:
Government has a critical but constrained role to play in rebuilding, beginning with quickly setting and enforcing clear rules for redevelopment. That means that government-paid compensation should emphasize speed and simplicity. Don't do means-testing for disaster relief. Don't subtract out insurance payments that homeowners receive for their damaged home. And, by all means, don't use disaster-relief programs to conduct social engineering or "replanning."
Officials need to focus on the fundamentals. Allow communities to fix sewer lines, restore electricity, resume trash collection and make sure emergency services are able to handle the workload confronting them. Announce which infrastructure projects will be undertaken first and establish timelines for completion. And by all means, make these commitments credible and realistic. Revelations of sloppy work or promises made in haste only to be reneged upon do immense damage to rebuilding....
Unfortunately, the scale of major disasters leads many people to conclude that only governments have the resources to deal with the aftermath. This could not be further from the truth. What makes sustainable rebound possible is the rebuilding of communities and the organizations that support them: businesses, civic groups, religious communities and nonprofits. Governments that can't even write checks to those whose homes were destroyed can't be trusted to re-establish day-care centers, religious services or grocery stores.
I agree wholeheartedly with some of this -- certainly people should get their aid money faster, without having to jump through dozens of bureaucratic hoops. Government can only do so much, and politicians and agency heads overpromise. But the notion that most ambitious government recovery efforts a) cannot work, and b) are inimical to the restoration of civil society, doesn't make sense. Obviously, the failure of government recovery programs can result in a kind of secondary disaster. But the lesson of New Orleans is essentially a lesson of failed leadership, not generic government dysfunction. The solution to this is not to throw up our hands and pull back, but better leadership and programs that actually work.
This notion that we can return to an early 20th-century model of disaster recovery, in which the government builds roads and private organizations focus on the community, is appealing but fundamentally unrealistic.
The federal government's increasing involvement in disaster relief over the past 50 years wasn't just random, or the result of Great Society overreaching or the efforts of pork-crazed politicians. It came about because there was a need for it. Urban-suburban footprints became ever bigger and more complex, and infrastructure and development themselves increasingly influenced both the shape and scale of disasters.
That is, a 21st-century catastrophe is not something that "just happens" to a place. There is a real, and ever-growing, element of blowback from decades or centuries of decisions on where stuff was built and how. New Orleans, for example, is sinking because of the long-ago leveeing of the Mississippi; many neighborhoods were built far below sea level in a filled swamp when nobody thought much about hurricane floods, et al. The current Midwest floods are part of the same man-made phenomenon.
This means we need to be more intelligent in how we rebuild, and view this system as a whole -- how development and nature influence one another. Private entities trying to maximize their short-term interests are just not well-equipped to recognize these problems or respond to them by retrenching after a disaster. Not that government agencies are much better -- they're not. But they at least theoretically represent the broader interests that can take this into account and devise policies to address these problems. Just watch -- as disasters get bigger and more complicated, the role of government in disaster recovery and urban planning will have to grow. Let's try to actually improve it as well.
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The problem is that the federal government created government back insurance for people who want to live in places which are far too risky. People should not be living in flood plains, unstable hillsides, wild fire zones, etc... These idiots build houses in areas called "FLOOD PLAINS" and are shocked when their homes are flooded. If these government loans were gone it would be impossible to get loans, so nothing would be built in these places.
You build a house technically below sea level don't be surprised when it floods. They should never have built in most parts of New Orleans.
Your advice is urgently needed in Denmark.
Looks like the Senate is doing a fillibuster.............High time!
In this entire article, when you refer to government, you mean the federal government. There is an entire entity that you have neglected which is the state and local governments. Many of these have disaster protocols in place. Much of the midwest flooding is being handled by them, and they are actually doing a pretty good job. Why would you want to have a public official who lives in DC telling the local citizens what they should consider important to their communities and how to fix infrustructure that they know nothing about.
Also, you seem to think that the federal government employs people to do all of their own design and implementation of infrustructure and disaster recovery. Much of this work is contracted out by the government and it has since our inception. What we saw in New Orleans was an attempt to handle most of the disaster recovery through government agencies and associates that had little experience with this type of situation and had no idea on who to talk to about getting the process started.
According to "Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security" (Cooper and Block, 2006), the differences between FEMA's response to Charley in Florida in 2004 and Katrina in Louisiana in 2005 could hardly be more stark.
Within ONE DAY:
Urban Search and Rescue Teams - Charley: 6 , Katrina: 3.
Cots, Tents, Blankets, Sleeping bags - Charley: 20 trailers , Katrina: 0.
Sea containers of building materials - Charley: Many , Katrina: 0.
Within TWO DAYS:
Meals - Charley: 2,000,000 , Katrina: 0.
Ice - Charley: 8,100,000 pounds , Katrina: 0.
Disaster Centers - Charley - 12 , Katrina: 0.
Living Assistance - Charley - 19,000 persons , Katrina: 0
After FOUR DAYS:
Meals - Katrina: 1,900,000.
Ice - Katrina: 1,700,000 pounds.
Disaster Center - Katrina: 1 (in Alabama)
Somehow, the same "government agencies and associates that had little experience with this type of situation and had no idea on who to talk to about getting the process started" did very well in Florida, and lost all their expertise and experience in Louisiana one year later.
Government does many things by hiring contractors and consultants. Qualifications testing and written scopes of work are very effective tools for getting the desired product from them.
You are comparing apples to oranges. Even if the statistics are completely accurate, to make a direct comparison between the two, you would have to look at the Katrina response time as a whole and not focus on New Orleans or Louisiana, or you would have to look at the epicenter of impact for Charley instead of Florida (maybe Punta Gorda would be a good start) as a whole. Also, mobilization was impacted in Louisiana by wide spread sustained flooding, which did not happen in Florida. Also, the Florida governments (including the state gov't under Jebb Bush) had mobilized disaster resources between 12 and 24 hrs in advance. The Louisiana state gov't pre-landfall mobilization was very limited, based almost entirely on population concentration, mobilization and evacuation.
Bienville, your compare-and-contrast list should be taught to every American schoolchild, right after the Revolution and the letter 'W'.
Movement conservatives have long strategized a radical rewiring of society; they admitted it openly, when it came to how they wanted to build a Capitalist Utopia in Iraq.
In NO, Katrina was their wet dream, and I get really angry whenever I hear talk of the Bush Administration's "incompetence". This was as intentional as it gets (if you don't believe it, wait 5 seconds for the trolls who doth protest too much).
Under the cloak of "libertarianism", this administration was finally going to send Americans the message about the society that Movement conservatives have wanted to see for generations: "Don't you come around here, looking for handouts. We're not in the bailout business for lower-class types, anymore. If a local government can't help you, too bad; we'll be busy bailing out our cronies with your tax money. It's the new world order".
What they didn't count on was the national outrage... and to them, that was merely a p.r. problem anyway. It didn't change their m.o..
In a more responsible nation, the "leaders" who pulled this off would be yanked from their offices by an angry populace and... shall we say, dealt with in a Mussolini/Ceaucescu fashion.
Katrina could have been avoided if local authorities had shown any foresight. N.O. was unprepared because generation of N.O. and La pols pocketed funds that could have been used to make the city safer. Furthermore, Nagin et al. did nothing to evacuate people in a timely manner. This disaster is a failure of the state and local gov't more than the Federal.
Can you cite a source for this statement?
"generation of N.O. and La pols pocketed funds that could have been used to make the city safer."
There is no official allegation or investigation of NO or La officials related to misappropriation of hurricane preparation funds.
The statement "Nagin et al. did nothing to evacuate people in a timely manner" is simply incorrect. I presume by "Nagin, et al.," you mean the City and the State. In the event, the City and the State evacuated 1.3 million people in about 40 hours. They housed about 270,000 of them in shelters around the state. They also provided food, water and medical care for about 40,000 for 5 days at the Superdome, after being isolated by the flooding. Those things are more than "nothing;" they were accomplished by the preparation and leadership of "Nagin, et al."
This statement is false, too: "This disaster is a failure of the state and local gov't more than the Federal." The Federal government has exclusive control and responsibilty for levee design and construction. The levees failed at far below their design rating. Had they held according to design, there would have been no flooding and no discussion of evacuation. The failure fo the Federal government to build levees is a bigger failure than any city of state failure you could name.
Conservatives in general and Republicans in particular have long run on the idea that "The nine scariest words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" Thank you, Mr. Reagan.
What did we expect would happen when they were put in charge of government? If your leaders think that their own jobs are worthless, exactly how much enthusiasm are they going to bring to the job? If they think they are part of the problem, not part of the solution, exactly what sort of solution are they going to put forward?
This is not a Psych 101 issue. Everytime the gov gets involved with anything, they screw it up and have to pass more laws and spend more money to fix what they thought they could do in the first place. The second round of laws ends up even worse. Then there is a third round, with even bigger govt to resolve the problem, and on and on it goes. The proverbial picture of an idiot in action. There is no constitutional authority for govt to do most of what it does today, which is mostly cause inflation and perpetuate it's power over the people. Bigger Government is not the answer, it is the problem. The closer to home the authority, the better it functions, as when they screw up, the average citizen can grab them by the throat and straighten them out. To grab DC by the throat is an impossibility.
Republican talking point #1: "Every time the government gets involved with anything, they screw it up." That's exactly the point I'm making: If you put people in charge who don't think their own jobs are worth anything, then how can you possibly expect them to do their jobs well?
And it seems you don't know much about just what our government actually does. Social Security is the most successful anti-poverty program this country has ever seen. It is not in crisis. It has never missed a check.
Medicare is the most efficient insurance company in the country. With private insurance 30% of the cost goes to overhead. With Medicare, it's 2%.
The National Endowment for the Arts actually creates money: For every dollar spent, 14 come back in revenue from the productions funded.
It goes on and on. Learn the lesson: If a conservative said it, assume the opposite is true.
Reminds of the old saying that conservatives believe that government can't work, and then keep proving it once they get elected.
The great fallacy among all the leftists who read HuffPo is somehow, someway, these wonderful altruistic beings are going to reside in pubilc offices throughout the land. I could get behind government programs and assitance if they administered correctly and efficiently, but they are not, and it does not matter what "party" is in office. Capitalism, (not corporatism which most people confuse, even St. Naomi Klein), isn't great, but I'd take that over bloated, bumbling bureaucracy anyday.
Not I. I prefer the corruption of Big Government to the corruption of Big Business because the corruption of Big Government usually benefits more people. I'll take Tammany Hall over Enron any day of the week.
Katrina is not proof that the federal government shouldn't be involved, it's proof that Conservatism/republicans/GOP should never be allowed to govern.
research,
let me get this straight, since I'm a moderate libertarian, "it's proof that Conservatism/republicans/GOP should never be allowed to govern."
So your saying Someone like Abraham Lincoln should never have been allowed to govern?
Are you saying you prefer a one-party system like China, North Korea, or the former USSR?
Are you saying that the democratic governor of Louisiana and democratic mayor of New Orleans have no responsibility because we should throw out "all politics is local" in favor of a top down bureaucracy?
Just wondering if you thought this through or not.
Since Hoovervilles, the conservatives have stood for the rich dominating the poor.
Check out what the Hoover folks want for you peasants:
http://images.google.com/images?q=hoovervilles&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi
What the H%^& is a "moderate Libertarian"? Where do you fit on their social services vs authoritarian graph?
I'm saying that Conservatism is fascism and no sane person wants it.
Let's kill off the conservative party and bring up some of the other parties, like the Peace and Freedoms or the Greens.
Republican Talking Point #765: Katrina was the fault of the Democrats.
You seem to have forgotten that the Democratic Governor of Louisiana followed procedure and notified the Feds that there was a disaster taking place. By doing so, the law specifically states that the Feds are now in charge.
And yet, the Feds did nothing.
What, precisely, was the Governor of Louisiana supposed to do other than call out the National Guard...but wait...they're all in Iraq. Guess we need to get the Feds involved since they're the ones with the resources.
What, precisely, was the Mayor of New Orleans supposed to do other than to try an organize an evacuation, which he did. Again, this needed the services of the National Guard...which were all in Iraq. Guess we need the Feds involved since they're the ones with the resources.
You haven't learned your lesson: If a conservative says it, assume the opposite to be true.
Libertarians are ideologues. Getting government out of the picture and getting the almighty and omnibenevolent capitalists front, center, and in charge has nothing to do with results and never did.
They advocate it not because they believe it will work, but simply because it is the way things ought to be. In a libertarian's twisted mind, turning every disaster into another Katrina is a small price to pay for righteousness.
I left the Libertarian party when the nuts jobs too right wing for the GOP took over.
We left or social libertarians need our own party:
Modern social safety net, but maximum personal freedom.
they used to call us "anarchists"...
but we don't need no stinkin' party!
That makes you a liberal, correct?
Social safety net but maximum personal freedom. Isn't that a paradox?
Visceral,
"In a libertarian's twisted mind, turning every disaster into another Katrina is a small price to pay for righteousness"
Not sure where you came up with this. I don't consider myself twisted because I don't trust the government and I don't want to pay more taxes.
The government bureaucracy has been proven to be less efficient that private business. Congress couldn't even run their own cafeteria efficiently and cost effectively.
The idea is this, how do you pay for everything, Universal Healthcare, Infrastructure, Free Education, Cheap Fuel, Save the Environment, social security and have half a trillion in the bank for the next string of disasters and so on, without destroying the middle class with more taxes? and please don't be snide about the cost of the War in Iraq... thats a done deal and we aren't living in the past, we have to pay for that now anyway.
Just wondering if there are solutions, or just gripes.
Strange how most of Europe has managed to figure out how to do this.
The government bureaucracy has been proven to be more efficient than private business when it comes to large-scale projects. That's why Medicare only has a 2% overhead while your private insurance has a 30% overhead.
Not everything should be done by the government, of course, but certain things can only be done by government because they are too large and affect too many people for it to be handled by private business.
I agree with Visceral to the extent that the Libertarian Party has a regrettable tendency to drift off into la-la land when it comes to policy questions, daydreaming what the world would be like if only it were the way we imagine, neglecting the practicalities of the real world.
But I also agree with K-Dog76 that the government is just as untrustworthy as private business and less efficient in the bargain. The real problem is that government is unconstrained by the market, so its errors and abuses are resistant to market correction.
But if government were more diligent about doing the things that are in its natural purview -- rebuilding the infrastructure, providing emergency services, providing law enforcement so that looters don't pilfer construction sites -- would provide a stronger foundation so that the private-sector participants could make better decisions, individually and collectively, about the direction of rebuilding.
Looks like another chapter in the rise of what Naomi Klein calls Disaster Capitalism.
So, if you go by what they say here shouldn't we get out of Iraq and let them just rebuild on their own?
Iraq can't be built by anybody until their civil war ends.
We can't end their civil war.
So why are we in Iraq?
Some see the government's role as facilitating, rather than prohibiting, profiteering.
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Posted June 24, 2008 | 11:29 AM (EST)