Derp, unlike oil, is a resource no country truly lacks. Now I would not dream of going for the crown of the Derpetologist, but I am not above sharing some fine vintage local derp. Now, as in all places, we are spoiled for choice around here, derp wise. But I gave a good long 30 seconds worth of thought about it and decided to go with something representative.
You may not have heard, but Romania had a bit o’ ye olde communism going on a while ago. It may have been in the news over there, not that we got news back then. Anyway the fellar leading us through the multilaterally developed socialist utopia was a quasi-illiterate former cobbler called Nicky Ceausescu. Ol Nick presided over a country where food was a luxury, heating your apartment on a bitterly cold winter day a dream, and leaving the Utopia for the evil western countries a risky endeavor. Because what says Utopia like risking your life trying to get out?
Whenever communism is criticized – and believe you me there is plenty to go around- the death, the torture, the oppression, lack of basic goods and lack of liberty – the great counterargument rears its ugly head. Well, someone will say, at least Ceausescu built something. Apartment buildings and industry!! Apartments in hideous brutalist concrete shells. Tiny, difficult to heat, crowded. Narrow alleys, no parking – the proles didn’t need cars, a capitalist affectation – no parks or green spaces. But build them he did, a great act of urban renewal that lead to entire neighborhoods being flattened after the inhabitants were unceremoniously kicked out of their homes. There might be a mayor or two outside Romania who would give this a try given the chance.
Great Industry was built– randomly, badly placed, horribly inefficient and creating almost nothing of quality. But it was built. And then it rusted. But everyone had a job! Well, yes, people did pretend work for pretend pay. Everyone had a job; food was scarcer, but jobs were to be had by all, for all the good that did.
In Bucharest there is one of the largest buildings in the world. It is officially called Palace of the Parliament now, but most Romanians still call it by the communist moniker of The People’s house, or Casa Poporului in the local language.
Now where the derp got truly amusing was when I heard the argument: without a big government could Romania have built Casa Poporului when it did? The argument was followed, amusingly, by a bit of almost self-awareness. The guy actually told me “I don’t want to hear about the need or efficiency of the building, but the principle stands that you need big government for large project such as that.”
For what was before there, if anyone is interested, you can see more here (not my blog/pictures).
So I ask you, libertarians, without big government could you evict hundreds of families, tear down their homes, and waste a tremendous amount of very scarce resources a poor country could ill afford in order to build a megalomaniac’s wet dream of a pointless slab of concrete full of marble and gilded chandeliers, without bothering to ask questions of its need or efficiency. Well, my humble answer would be no. How the bloody hell is that a bad thing?
Funny enough, as a country gets rich enough, you will have some big pointless stuff being build, by rich people using their own money. But probably not to the scale of the Peoples House and probably not in the stage of development Romania was in.
Also, the Danube to Black Sea canal would definitely not have been built. That is the place where the enemies of the revolution were sent to dig hard soil by using spades and shovels, with evening beatings as the recreation and leisure part of the day, and starvation level diets to avoid obesity and diabetes and such. No one knows how many died at the Canal, and how many lived in fear of being sent to the Canal for no apparent reason. So I ask you this, without Big government, who would send the wreckers to dig the canal, huh? Checkmate, libertarians.
But political parties serve an even more important role: they tell us who we should reflexively hate. Without political parties, voters would be forced to evaluate politicians based on the results of their policies instead mindlessly rooting for their team. Chaos would inevitably ensue.
