We should become sustainable and when we are invite others to join us not the way that Rudd (big business) wants, especially as we do not know what the future holds with climate change and peak oil. We should be invoking the uncertainty principle.

Rudd is not serious about climate change if he was then expanding the population is not compatible with his rhetoric.

The increase in population is being foisted up on us by being told it is good for us when clearly it is not. Just takes roads when getting to work is many times longer than it used to be.

When I first saw that Kevin Rudd had posted an article on this forum, I was hoping to see something illuminating. However, apart from stating the obvious that the cities are congested and it is costing Joe Blogs a small fortune, he has offered no solution except a vague mention that the federal government needs to step in and clear up the stuff up left over the last decade by labor NSW.

But even there the article is completely devoid of specifics.

In short, Kevin, talk is cheap. If you propose to actually do something about it you will have my full support and maybe even my vote.

Unfortunately this will mean stepping on the toes of labor buddies, and this might mean that someone won't like you, so I personally am not holding my breath.

<Rather than promoting further governmental self-aggrandisement, I wish Kevin would think about what he can do to get government out of our lives, not further into it.> was posted on this string.

Implicit in it is an idea that I think is false. That idea is that the only force in our lives that prevents us from being free, autonomous individuals is government.

We live in a complex society. That is a truism that applies to indigenous people living in tribal conditions also. One difference between them and us is that the identity of the different forces on them and us is not the same. Corporations, unions, advertising agencies and a host of other entities determine our existence.

Government is only one force in our lives. Sometimes it is oppressive. Sometimes it is liberating. It is liberating when by laws enforcing truth in labeling, ensuring competition etc. it acts to restrain the control the other entities have on our life.

During Roosevelt's administration in the US corporate interests realised they could not cope with his appeal during his administration so they formed the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) which promoted the idea that government is the enemy and we would all be better in a laissez-faire economy. Of course a laissez-faire economy embodying free competition is the last thing that corporations want. In the 1950s the AEI helped form the Australian Enterprise Institute which promoted the same ideas here. The AEI succeeded in altering public perceptions in the US and gained national power with the election of Reagan there. The Australian Enterprise Institute succeeded in altering public perceptions in the US and gained national power with the election of Howard.

Australians and Americans have opted recently for somewhat less corporate control, but the Enterprise Institutes have succeeded in implanting the idea that government planning is bad. We are not going to be free, autonomous individuals, and government planning may be good or bad depending on how it is done.

In the case of transportation networks and population distribution we need some good planning.

David, the only reason people think that Government planning is bad, is because it always is bad. The usual result is the unexpected consequence.

Far too much of our planning is by graduates of just a couple of schools. It appears that these schools are run by a mixture of ratbag greenies, & a couple of blokes who admire Holland, & want to duplicate it here.

Until we get 6 months pick & shovel road work, around somewhere like Bourke, as part of the undergrad course for planners, it's most likely going to stay that way. Dreamers are very bad planners.

This fixation on trying to force public transport use onto a decentralised city, & its work force, would be a joke, if it weren't so deadly for business.

One huge problem with government planning is the personel they have to choose from.

Often the leaders of sections or departments are 'under achievers' in the 'real world' so in essence, the governments are left to choose from second tier skill levels.

Take a town planner on say $150K per annum. That's chicken feed compared to someone high up on the board of a development company on say, $2mil plus.

I as a butcher can earn far more than these so called gurus and that's with my limmited education and lack of degrees.

Until we have less people employed by governments, right from the planners up to and including the PM, earning 'real money' we will continue to receive poor value for money.

After all, who is going to work for the government for less than $200K a year when they can pull six figure salaries from private enterprise and only have to be answerable to the shareholders at best.

Put real people in charge. People who have made it from business, people who have risked their livelyhoods. The late Kerry Packer, Lindsay Fox, or the late Richard Pratt are a few examples.

Sparkeys, plumbers and brickies are on more money than most of these gurus. Many don't work weekends and are in the pub by 4.30PM.

As the old saying goes, 'If you pay peanuts, you only get monkeys' and this is no more evident than what we see in governments in Australia today.

david f
The fact that other people exist, and that we have to deal with them in order to achieve our own goals, and the fact that they form themselves into voluntary associations with which we have to deal too, does not mean that they are using force in the way that government is. The difference between government and all other legal organisations is that government uses force and threats to get their funding and enforce obedience, and the other organisations don't because it is rightly illegal.

The fact that corporations, unions, etc. don't want open competition, and hope to cultivate some special favouritism from governments, giving them protection and privileges as against their competitors, is an argument against government intervention, not in favour of it.

"We are not going to be free, autonomous individuals, and government planning may be good or bad depending on how it is done."

It is not for you to tell other people they are not going to be free, or should not be free. The question is, what force is justified to prevent them doing what they want, provided that are not aggressing against others?

Government's attempted planning of society is not ethical, because it alone exercises a monopoly of force and threats, and there is no reason why force or threats should be the basis of social co-operation unless it is to prevent aggression, which does not qualify urban planning.

As to whether government planning 'may be good or bad, depending how it is done', how would you prove that?

Usually this assertion depends on an underlying method that we count only the benefits, but not the costs. In fact most people asserting the benefits of government planning are completely unaware of their underlying assumption disregarding the costs. But obviously if we disregard the costs, anything will seem beneficial.

Are you making the same assumption?: http://mises.org/daily/3804