Minimalism
Capitalism may not last forever. For
decades I've
been wondering what the next "ism" might be.
I think I've got it. It's Minimalism: a cultural sense of restraint.
Minimalism suggests that:
- The Government that governs least
governs best.
- No one gets any say about another's private behavior.
- Humans have a God-given right to
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,
even if they don't worship their neighbor's god.
- Humans deserve non-interference
from persons that are not human, such as corporations.
What we
have today is the opposite of Minimalism: Grandiosity. Everything's supposed to get bigger forever:
every company, advertising campaign, bulk mail, spam mailing, copyright law, car
and,
above all, government. You know, the Texas-sized notion that everything should
be bigger, flashier, more expensive and impressive. All-pervasive boosterism
and Big Bidness, boy howdy! Guys with big hats and over-dressed
women and huge
Rolex
watches.
We used to say of pilots with fancy chronometers on their
wrist, "Big clock, small cock."
Capitalism has developed
to the point that it vests its chieftains with a grandiosity beyond
belief. Our leader of the free world has not one but two 747's
at his beck and call, 5,900 employees and a budget estimated at $730
million
as of three years ago.
FDR managed a war on
two sides of the world with a staff of 18 and a rail car.
Federal Staff Reductionism
There's only one way to reduce the Washington bureaucracy,
which is the ostensible goal of conservatives, but obviously not
their effect. Minimalism can only come about when the bureaucrats embrace
smallness. But how to
do that?
Web applications.
We all know that most bureaucrats could
be replaced by a reasonably
well programmed web app. Whether public or on an intranet, a properly designed
web site can elicit the information needed to replace many a bureaucrat's
job of repackaging information for the consumption of those who think they
need a bureaucrat to define the obvious.
I propose a crack team of experts on call to help bureaucrats
eliminate their positions–a web site, an 800 number, bulletins on boards,
etc. The message: if you can help us devise a web application that moves
information as your job description specifies, then you get to go home and
continue receiving
the pay and benefits you're getting and reasonable increases, plus a great
retirement package when the time comes.
Yep. We're ready to do that for you, Mr. Bureaucrat, to keep
you from dreaming up programs to make your position seem necessary; to avoid
the endless rounds of committee meetings and studies and travel and consulting
contracts to make
it appear that how you move information needs more study. No, we realize
that the expensive part of government is the programs you dream up, not the
cost of paying and retiring you.
Save the Children
But what about the programs that matter, you ask? Is this
merely a variation on the NeoCons' idea that if we just stop spending gummint
money then we can return
to a
pristine world of bucolic villages and faith-based socials
and solutions (don't pay attention to those smokestacks and fetid water)?
No, there are real needs and real money to spend. Undernourished,
under-educated children need a better future. Minimalism doesn't have
a problem with spending money on kids and job training and a
health care safety net. It also doesn't mind spending money defending us
against real threats, like people who actually possess WMDs. No, Minimalism
has a problem with ideological politicians funneling so much money through
a bureaucracy stealing money from real problems.
Minimalism has an abhorrence of corporate welfare supporting
obsolete business models and legislation
to jail customers who invent their
own media packaging and an arms race against ourselves. Rather, Minimalism
seeks a spareness in
all things, whether government, legislation, business, marketing or car stereo
volume. It's not a matter of making laws defining efficiency and slim government,
it's a matter of allowing a culture-wide sense of restraint to permeate
our shared aesthetic about how to conduct our affairs. The time seems to
have arrived.
When we get it right, we'll know it, and the simple act of
defining ourselves as minimalists may be a start. Howard Dean has ignited
voters by
saying that
deficits need to be minimized, that federal gun control needs to be minimized
and that the feds have no business telling states what form of ritual qualifies
their citizens as life partners.
I've been traveling to Vermont for 42
years and got married once in Dallas, so I have a sense of the contrasts.
Vermont's always been a place of few words and laws. A quiet place where
people keep
to themselves
but
help
their
neighbors.
Sure,
there
are
more ex-urbanites
there now, but the place hasn't changed that much. The last president from
Vermont was a man of few words. When asked to comment on Niagara Falls
by its enthusiastic boosters, Calvin Coolidge took a look and asked, "What's
to hinder?"
Ayep, Vermont's a good place to spawn an overdue sense of
minimalism.
10:55:46 PM 
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