In several earlier posts I have criticized our government because of how it has either interfered with the free market or not lived up to citizen's expectations. Here is how I came to firmly believe that the role of government in our country should be scrutinized constantly and limited to the greatest degree possible.
During my sophomore year in college I took a political science and an economics course thinking that one of those subjects would be my major. At the same time I also got a job at the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. My task was to look up drivers' records and post them as an MVR (way before computers). It was drudgery but it paid more per hour than I had ever earned in my life and I could work as much as my class schedule allowed--I was thrilled. I was given about 30 MVR requests and marched off into the file cabinet bowels of the DMV. When I turned them in to my supervisor 90 minutes later I was told it took 3 hours to record 30 MVRs and was told to re-check them. When I came back about 75 minutes later and they were all correct I was told again, "It takes 3 hours (180 minutes) to do 30 MVRs."
Besides learning that I could get a lot of school work done while recording MVRs I decided that the profit and entrepreneurial motives of our capitalistic economy were a lot more appealing to me than government bureaucracy. It also led me to major in economics instead of political science (the professors for each class also influenced me but that's another story). As I studied economics I decided that supply and demand operating in the free market should determine the outcome of economic activity. It's not perfect but it's more efficient and trustworthy than any career politician I know.
No comments:
Post a Comment