Tag: bureaucracy

The search for purpose: Nature and Nurture – Genes and culture

Every healthy boy and girl searches for the meaning and purpose of their lives. We ask why we are here and what we should do with our lives.  Where do we want to go and be in the future? How do we think we can best get there?  What should we strive for or should we strive at all?  The search for meaning can be agonizing but it is part of human nature to ask, “Who am I?”.

But we do not search in a vacuum.  That we search at all can be attributed to our genetic inheritance. Over the millennia our ancestors who pondered this question and chose and worked toward goals of mutual help and cooperation, prospered and multiplied relative to those who didn’t.  While personal and family survival and wellbeing come first, working together with others enhanced the wellbeing of both. In a fascinating presentation at the Cato Institution, Nicholas Christakis, Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science, Yale University, discussed his new book “Blueprint: evolutionary origins of a good society”  He argued that the evolutionary survival of the fittest also favored (selected) those disposed to love, friendship, cooperation, and teaching. Homo sapiens with those qualities formed more successful and durable groups.

This happy genetic predisposition, however, was just the start, the foundation from which the search for the meaning of our lives was launched. The rest of the answer is the product of the values taught to us by, or absorbed from, our parents, family, and community and its religious and other institutions, and filtered by our reason, which is another capacity favored by evolution. The cultural values from which we learn what our peers value and respect in us can contribute to successful and prosperous societies (and their economies) or not. Children growing up in poor neighborhoods dominated by gangs are more likely to see success in terms of the demands of their gang. The esteem of their gang peers will be earned by very different behavior than in neighborhoods in which honesty and respect for the law are valued.  Gang culture does not contribute to safer, more prosperous neighborhoods or societies.

Cultures that reward cooperation, honesty, and trust enjoy more successful economies as well. Financial wealth is only one source of esteem, however, and after being well feed and well clothed, the respect of our communities probably tops the list of aspirations for our lives. The cultural values in which we map out our goals profoundly influence the choices we make.  Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” guiding our actions for our self-enrichment serves us individually and the society we live in best when functioning in a culture of mutual respect, honesty, and cooperation.  In free market, capitalist economies, individual workers and entrepreneurs profit by satisfying the wants of others. Thus, competitive capitalism encourages a culture of serving others and such a culture encourages successful economies.  These are win – win societies.

“The overwhelming weight of evidence supports the conviction that when human beings, created in the image of God as free, rational, social, and moral animals, are allowed to creatively serve each other’s needs and responsibly plan their own lives, they flourish. And when a nation’s citizens flourish, the nation as a whole flourishes as well.”  “Dylan Pahman: Why-economic-nationalism-fails-conservatism”

So where should today’s Generation Z and Millennials look to find meaning and purpose for their lives? Most of us want to “do good” for our community, country and the world as well as for ourselves and our families. Will today’s youth see this marriage of public and personal good in the world of personal freedom and responsibility described by Adam Smith, or in the world of greater central government assistance (control) advocated by Bernie Sanders?

Sanders says he is a socialist, but I doubt that he means government ownership and direction of the means of production, which is the traditional meaning of socialism.  Rather he seems to mean government provision of important goods in our lives (heath care, education, jobs, etc.)  But the provider also determines what and how to provide.  Are the key decisions in our lives to be made by each of us within the legal and cooperative framework of norms and support provided by our culture and government of limited scope, or to be determined centrally for our benefit by a larger more dominant government and its employees? Government employees no doubt feel good when they help others, but capitalism provides a financial reward for doing so as well. Human greed is more likely to be tempered by the requirements of success in free markets than in government bureaucracies.

Though the average family, and especially the poor, have never before had such wealth broadly defined, today’s world suffers many shortcomings. The social safety net of a properly limited government is not always effective or well designed.  Each person in our newest generation in seeking the esteem of its family and community will ask how best to fix these shortcomings and to address and reduce the barriers to their’s and their neighbor’s fulfillment of their potential for a rich and fulfilling life. Will they turn to the “socialism” of Bernie Sanders or the individual/family-based free market model of Adam Smith?

So called “socialism” is enjoying a resurgence of popularity among American youth today. Even before Trump’s election a majority of 18-29 year old’s viewed socialism favorably. “Why-so-many-millennials-are-socialists”  Why is this, given the strong theoretical and empirical case against it?  For one they were not alive to see its greatest failures (though we now have Venezuela and North Korea).  They seem to think of countries like Sweden as socialist. While the free market capitalist country of Sweden has a larger government than the U.S., it ranks only a bit below the U.S. on the Frasier Institute Index of Economic Freedom (8.07 versus 7.83 in 2015).  For example, Sweden adopted a nationwide universal voucher program (school choice) in 1992, well ahead of the U.S.  https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/economic-freedom

Like every generation before it, today’s youth wants to “do good.” They want to contribute to making the world better than it already is. Those of us who highly value our personal freedom as the basis of how we live and who have studied the weaknesses of government provided and guided economic resources [e.g., https://wcoats.blog/2020/01/25/crony-capitalism/] must take up the challenge of explaining the superiority of a family based social structure and honest, law abiding, mutual respecting, cooperative culture. While free market capitalism has produced incredible riches for almost everyone, its primary virtue, and potential appeal to Generation Z, is its promotion of caring for and serving our fellow man.

A Citizen confronts the Bureaucracy

I recently concluded a contract with the National Bank of Kazakhstan to provide technical assistance in their effort to develop inflation-targeting capacity. I am working together with an American and a Czech econometrician, and thus decided it would be best to incorporate as a Limited Liability Company.

I live in Maryland and thus went to the Maryland government’s website and within half an hour had not only filled in the required application and paid the required fee, but had actually received (via email) the official, signed registration and Articles of Organization document for my company “Economic Consulting, LLC.” Sorry about the unimaginative name, I will give it more thought the next time.

Kazakhstan is a signatory of a tax treaty with the United States that requires it to deduct 20% from any payments to me under our contract unless I have provided a number of specific documents. In addition to the above Articles of Organization, I must also provide a certificate of residency for the company issued by the U.S. Treasury’s Internal Revenue Service and certified by an Apostille issued by our State Department. Rather than have 20% deducted, we agreed that the National Bank would not pay me anything until these documents were received. I was on a learning curve that I really didn’t care to be on.

Hence began what I hoped would be an equally efficient e-government interaction with the Federal government that proved to be anything but. For starters, the form 8802 to request the certificate was three complicated pages long and could not be submitted on-line. Thus the printed form and my check for $85 were sent August 27, 2014 to the IRS by U.S. mail. On September 3 my check cleared so I knew the request had been received. One worry eliminated.

A month later on October 6th I received a letter from the IRS that I assumed was the long-awaited certificate. Instead it was an acknowledgement that my request had been received on September 3rd and that the requested certificate would be sent within 30 days. And indeed in another 30 days another letter arrived, but rather than the certificate it was another letter like the last one saying that the certificate would be sent within another 30 days. Shit.

The letter provided a phone number, which I now called expecting a long wait at the end of an automated list of choices. In fact, the wait was only about 20 minutes at which point Karen answered my call. “Oh my goodness. You should not have received those letters (i.e., we should not have sent those letters). Those were the wrong letters because there was a problem with your request.” She proceeded to carefully and politely walked me through the application form to correct the one or two things I had gotten wrong. The confusion resulted from the fact that I will as always file my business expenses and income on Form C of the 1040 rather than filing separately for the LLC. Blaw, blaw, blaw.

Karen gave me her personal business fax number (yes the U.S. government still uses faxes) and said that she would process it right away. As I no longer have a fax machine, I walked down the street to a neighbor’s with a fax and sent it off receiving the normal confirmation that it had been received. Ten days passed. Calling that number had been so successful the last time that I tried it again. After a one-hour wait on hold Ms. Douglas answered my call and assured me that my fax had never been received. A short, pointless discussion followed about the earlier fax and I finally agreed to send it again, this time to her fax number. I needed the exercise anyway. She promised to call me to confirm its receipt, which in fact she did saying that it was now fine and she would process it immediately and I should receive the certificate within ten days. I was excited by the progress, but reflect nostalgically on the 30-minute start to finish, all on-line, incorporation of my company in Maryland.

Ten days passed and it hadn’t arrived so a called again, this time with only a 15 minute wait (note to self: Monday at noon is a good time to call the IRS). Jane informed me that the document had been processed by Ms. Douglas and printed and would now be ship to the Utah center for mailing to me and should arrive within ten days!!! They don’t do this every day, she explained politely. You can’t make this stuff up. I took a deep breath and struggled to keep my voice under control. I reminisced nostalgically about the 30-minute start-to-finish (including delivery to my desk) incorporation of my little company in Maryland.

Jane quickly agreed with me that it would be nice for the Federal Government to catch up with the twentieth century (I meant the 21st century—but would settle for the 20th). Unfortunately, unlike the private sector, which is continually looking for ways to do things better for less, Jane and her boss have no incentive to do anything about the ridiculous process she described to me. The state of Maryland, which seems better organized and better managed, does at least feel a bit of competitive pressure from Virginia and other states, lacking at the Federal level. I am not about to move to Mexico or some other country over this.

The certificate—a one liner confirming my address – finally arrived on December 3, 98 days after my request. Now I can learn about how to get an Apostille and hopefully get paid. I assure you that I have not made any of this up. Please pray for me.

P.S. The State Department office of Authentication informed me by phone with no wait at all that I could not get an appointment (at which time the Apostille could be given while I waited) for 15 days, but that I could drop it off and it would be ready within three days. Sounds encouraging but I am not holding my breath.

P.P.S. As instructed, this morning (December 4) I drove into town to “drop off” my document to be authenticated and was informed that the drop off is only from 8:00-9:00 am — I was too late. Back tomorrow!!!