On taking in each other's washing

Steven Moore has a truly terrifying article in the Wall Street Journal on the subject of government employment.

• Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) as in all of manufacturing (11.5 million)

• More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined

• Every state in America today except Indiana and Wisconsin has more government workers on the payroll than people manufacturing industrial goods

• California has 2.4 million government employees, twice as many as people at work in manufacturing; New Jersey has just under two-and-a-half as many government employees as manufacturers; Florida and New York each has a ratio of more than three to one

• Iowa and Nebraska are farm states, but each has at least five times more government workers than farmers

We regularly hear about the pyramid scheme of Social Security, in which an ever-growing pool of retirees is supported by an ever-shrinking pool of workers. But we naively think that the workers, at least, are productive. That's becoming less and less true, as more and more people work instead for the government, in effect doing nothing more productive than washing their neighbors' laundry, while the neighbors in turn do theirs. To say the least, this is not a recipe for future greatness. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford