Theft at the Public Till
quality of life. Not a gain by an individual at the expense of the collective we, but incremental gains for all of us. Perhaps one person at a time. Perhaps to the rich. Perhaps to the poor. But each time making the pot bigger- not by stealing someone else’s piece so that one can be happier for a moment or two. I believe that is why we have a government in the first place. And with an overriding goal, the problems of what do in our complex world have what the scientists call an attractor -- a base to return to over and over again. This book attempts to recognize the linkages between various components of the whole political system. We will not look at any part of that system in great depth, for the problems of any part - be it the media, lobbying, taxes, poverty or the environment- reflect the nature of the whole. Issues and problems are not isolated and unrelated, even though they are treated that way by various academics and news commentators. In truth, they are interrelated in direct and indirect ways. Political life is replete with deceit, corruption, and plunder. Small wonder that many people seek to remove themselves from it. But whether we like it or not, politics and government play a crucial role in determining the conditions of our lives. And what lives? If quality of life is the goal, then our governing institutions need to be prepared with the world to come as well as the complex world we are in. In short the information age will herald an era where the individual is king. The masses will mean little - whether in terms of mass production or mass consump- tion. Each of us will have the opportunity to be dealt with as an individual. But, for this to happen, we need a government that can deal with it, which can treat us as individuals not abstract members of ill-defined groups. A government that can judge its actions against commonly accepted not goals not ill-thought-out rules, regulations and procedures. A government which matches the times in which we live. This is not our present government. My hope is that with the questions raised by works such as this it may be the government of our future. If the picture that emerges in the pages ahead is not pretty, this should not be taken as an attack on the American people but upon our system. The many brief vignettes which follow serve to illustrate the extent of our prob- lems and to allow the reader to discern their common root - a lack of a clear goal for our government and a lack of goal oriented thinking in dealing with
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