Design versus liberalism

The desire to overcome politics is based on the assumption that, if not subject to structures imposed from on high, free human action - whether in international affairs or domestic politics - is unstable and dangerous. People who think in this way cannot conceive of their being an order which they have not consciously designed: they cannot imagine that people and states themselves might be able to devleop rules, perhaps unspoken ones, to foster peaceful free commerce. John Laughland, 'The tainted source', p162

Laughland argues persuasively in favour of the constitutional foundations of the liberal order and against post-national structures, such as the European Union, which he sees as corrosive of liberal values.

What does this mean for an advocate of Social Policy Bonds? Essentially that policymakers have a tendency to be overly prescriptive. Suspecting, probably correctly, that a market free-for-all would bring about unacceptable levels of poverty and a collapse in the social order, they finance programmes and institutions ostensibly aimed at avoiding these disasters. They legislate well-meaning (at least at first) measures, such as trade restrictions, which have such unarguable objectives as the maintenance of decent standards of living for their (alleged) beneficiaries. Within a generation or so, these measures become corrupted, fossilised and counterproductive. Vested interests take advantage of them and ensure their persistence, while the intended beneficiaries gain nothing. If this sounds far-fetched simply look at agricultural subsidies in the rich world, or subsidies to other sectors, such as energy and transport. Under a Social Policy Bond regime, on the other hand, government would not prescribe how its social and environmental objectives are to be met. It would simply reward people for achieving them, however they did so.

Another quote from the same book:

[M]any countries of the European Union ... often have a corporatist understanding of the state. There, the activities of government are identified almost entirely with spending money. Federal states are particularly prone to this understanding of statehood, because the bulk of their doemstic politics is devoted to wrangling between the various layers of government over funds. Ibid, p 194