Sustainable Leviathan

Before the Asian financial crisis (during the heady boom years), it was fashionable to speak of “sustainable development.” Politicians, public school teachers, environmentalists and the like all embraced the “sustainable development” platform.

Sustainable development simply meant restrained economic growth and development. It meant restrictive government regulations, punitive taxation, and socialist policies catering to statism and protectionism. It meant attacking the garment industry and placing serious and unreasonable restraints on the freedom of economic enterprise.

The “sustainable development” appeal was based on a false premise: namely, on the idea that our economic growth would ultimately outstrip our natural resources. The sustainable development crowd had no faith in the private business sector or the free market economy. They did not trust the private marketplace. They felt that the free market could not properly allocate economic resources, so the government simply had to intervene in order to protect the fragile infrastructure and the environment from the ravages of unbridled, unfettered and unadulterated capitalism.

The rapid economic growth and development, they claimed, was akin to muscles on steroids: eventually, the bones and tendons (the skeletal infrastructure) would not be able to keep up and hence would have to give out.

This bleak scenario never materialized, however–as the Asian economic crisis, federalization threats, Article 12 fears, and local anti-business policies have all put a stop to CNMI economic growth and development.

Today, our problem is not sustainable development, but rather, sustainable government. This time it is the cost and the growth of government that cannot be controlled.

The government is $80 million in the red, and the so-called austerity measures have not put a dent in the growing deficit. The government has not been able to reduce its expenses to keep down with a dwindling tax base. Yet, to date, remarkably enough, there are no serious calls for “sustainable government.”

Where is the sustainable development crowd? Why aren’t they clamoring for sustainable government?

The government is growing faster—-or shrinking slower—-than the private business sector that sustains it. I would say that this is clearly an unsustainable government.