Responsibility

Gun crime in the USA is wildly out of line with other nations. Obesity has taken off as a growing problem around the world in the past forty years. Homelessness is increasing, whilst the average age of home owners is rising. Governments tell their citizens that they ought to eat healthy food, tell the young to get good jobs to buy houses, and blame the bad guys for gun crime. In all cases, the problem lies with government regulation and government policy. This chapter looks at how governments blame citizens for failures which are caused by government. They have been encouraged by political philosophers who concentrate upon individual moral responsibility, freedom and autonomy, whilst ignoring the fact that governments no longer seem to want to legislate for the welfare of their citizens. This chapter sets up the argument of the book. Individuals are responsible for the choices they can reasonably make given the menu of opportunities available to them. That menu is the responsibility of government – and the menu is poor fare.

Government Responsibility

The final chapter summarizes the book’s evidence. Whilst citizens can rightfully be held responsible for the choices they make from the menu of alternatives available to them, it is society, and government in particular, that sets the menu. The nature and distribution of problems in all policy areas is largely the responsibility of government. Government tries to blame citizens for its own regulatory and policy failures through the cult of personal responsibility. This chapter looks at some potential criticisms of the argument. Do we really know what the effects of government regulations are? Are some problems so difficult, or ‘wicked’, that they can never be solved? What does the argument mean for individual freedom and autonomy? Shouldn’t we want government to do less, especially as it often fails? The chapter examines the view that government should not regulate and force people but provide information and nudge them to better behaviour. It asks if that is really less paternalistic or better than regulation. It examines how far the lessons of these policy areas can be extended to other issues and offers a final word on government responsibility.

Recreational Drugs Policy

This chapter examines the history of regulating recreational drugs in the USA, UK and Australia. It shows that the criminalization of recreational drugs is a relatively recent phenomenon, based not on citizen welfare but on fears that drugs affect the nation’s ability to wage war, whilst some early legislation was openly racist. It argues that the continued justification of drug criminalization is moralistic and has racist underpinnings. It suggests that whilst the social problems of recreational drug use are serious, they are no more serious than those of alcohol or gambling, and legalization has many advantages over continued criminalization. It examines the results of drug decriminalization in Portugal, and the likely practicality and social effects should recreational drugs be legalized. It argues that such legalization would also require careful regulation, much as we have for drugs manufactured for medical purposes. It compares the policy stance of governments on recreational drugs to that on the other issues discussed in this book.