alt Hacker NewsIt's not a linear relationship where you trade one for the other. You don't just get a more competent government by giving up freedoms.
It's not a linear relationship where you trade one for the other. You don't just get a more competent government by giving up freedoms.
There is a relationship here. It is not a perfect one, but it is real, and pretending otherwise just avoids the tradeoff.
Take California’s high speed rail. Every individual has the right to object. No one wants an eyesore in their backyard. Everyone gets a hearing. Everyone gets a lawsuit. Everyone gets a veto in practice, if not in theory.
The result is predictable. I will never see a functioning high speed rail system in California in my lifetime. Neither will anyone alive today. Not because we lack money or engineering talent, but because the accumulation of individual rights makes collective action nearly impossible.
Now look at China. They decide to build it, and it gets built. If you are in the way, you move. If persuasion fails, coercion follows. Freedoms are not part of the equation.
That contrast is uncomfortable, but it is real. Freedom buys dignity and protection from abuse. It also buys paralysis. China sacrifices individual rights and gets infrastructure. California preserves individual rights and gets endless meetings, delays, and nothing on the ground.
You can argue which system is morally superior. You cannot argue that they produce the same outcomes.