Two apparently disparate events
Conel, more precisely Termoelectrica, needs about $1 billion to keep the power and heat running this winter. And since the same Conel, more precisely Electrica, cannot gather the money from consumers in exchange for the power it delivers, the state, more precisely the Government, has decided to borrow, for starters, $200 million (about as much as education got from the budget in the first quarter) on behalf of Conel, which money, if all goes as always, will be paid by the aforesaid Government, that is, by the taxpayer. After all, it is only normal that the final beneficiary of power and heating, the taxpayer, should pay for what he consumers - but in some countries this happens in an organised fashion, with bills and other such paperwork. On the other hand, the Industry Ministry's paternalistic action is apparently explicable in the serious consequences of a behaviour in Electrica's style, which would have every argument in the world to cut supplies to nurseries, retirement homes, and energy-intensive industries, which, in a way, are a sort of philanthropic institutions in their own right.
Another recent event, apparently unrelated to the energy dilemma, was admission to high schools, an event that once again proved what a poor manager the state is. By means of a very sophisticated process that escaped most parents' comprehension, the ministry, this time the Education, tried to optimise a process. That this process was to allocate a given number of students to a given number of high schools, following a set of criteria, is less important. What matters is that the ministry felt that it alone had the wisdom to deal with the problem. We, the state, know better what's good for you; just keep bouncing endlessly from one high school to another and stop asking all those questions, after all, this is capitalism, the free market.
Their common essence
The element that makes these two events more similar in nature than at first glance was the state's intervention, which, although arrogant, appeared as a salvaging gesture - but which under this deceptive mask had an even deadlier effect. In the attempt to rescue whatever was left of the ideals of socialism, this paternalistic behaviour does nothing but compromise liberal principles, either deliberately or unconsciously, because of the deeply rooted beliefs that transcend political parties and are communism's real and burdensome leftover. A liberal state can be generous and good to its citizens even without paying for their electricity and dealing with their personal problem directly. What matters is that the state refrains from believing it is the one chosen to bring well-being to the people - the people itself will take care of their well-being, everyone to his/her abilities, and display a predictable and rational behaviour in doing so. Today, however, this is not the case.
Nurseries, retirement homes and educational establishments exist in market economies, too. They, too, have problems, sometimes they fail to pay the energy bill, they, too, have the problem of limited seats in upscale universities and schools. And though the Government doesn't take care of these problems, nurseries are never left dark and cold, and when children are appointed to various schools, there is none of the hubbub we have witnessed this summer in Romania.
Justifications for paternalism
Besides its communist origin, the idea that the state, from the height of its wisdom, is the one justified and even expected to deal with the nation's "global" problems, has another justification - a global optimum is always superior to any local optimum. The state's solution, therefore, would beat one imagined by direct market participants.
But it's not like that - the state does not share the interests of market participants, therefore the solutions it puts up are often catastrophic, modest at best. The educational, medical and economic systems developed by paternalistic states, with their modest results, demonstrate this statement conclusively. Paternalistic-democratic systems, like the Romanian one, even those closer to the market, such as the French, suffer from a much more modest evolution compared to other nations which accepted competition as the driving principle, and where the state acts as a referee. Education in Continental Europe, not to speak of its economy, is somewhat behind the American one, which not coincidentally is less centralised and closer to the principles of competition. Only the tradition of old European universities and of a continental economy built on the healthy Protestant principle prevents this gap from further widening. In case of countries without the traditions of Western Europe, such as Romania, centralised solutions can only yield extremely modest results. With this in mind, the principles suggested by the European Union can only be minimal in lending momentum to the Balkan region. Opening and closing negotiation chapters, positive appraisals by European officials during symposiums are not genuine guarantees that things are going in the right direction.
The liberal solution
The liberal state, instead of stubbornly trying to solve the citizen's problem, segments it into many smaller issues and passes it through to market participants. The game of their interests, arbitrated by the state, leads to better solutions, furthermore, to a continual search for the best one. A whole system of evaluating competitors, allocating resources according to value criteria and preventing crises, was developed to allow the state to retain a minimal role. These are not perfect criteria or ideal mechanisms - they are merely functional, much more functional than any of the systems concocted by paternalistic states that really expect to be perfect.
For instance, the issue of education in the United States is solved by creating competition among institutions that offer such services. This competition appears even in a rating system. American universities, even those run by the state, charge a registration fee which may seem exorbitant, antisocial, a sample of old capitalism. On the other hand, there is a long list of scholarships and grants on racial, ethnic, social or religious criteria which do not infringe on the democratic rules, so often brought up in the post-communist demagogic egalitarianism. The advantage of a clear price, set by the market, charged for education services, is that it permits an assessment of value - only a good university will be able to charge more and thus will pay more to its staff (regardless of state or private ownership). Foundations, companies and the state can then come up with grants, scholarships and loans, because they know precisely where the money is going. The criterion of competence also applies to this allocation. The result needs no further commentary. The same procedure, splitting the problem into smaller portions and then letting the interested parties deal with each other, works for nurseries, retirement resorts, the medical and social insurance systems.
The illusion of the producing state
The illusion reigning in the non-liberal (paternalistic) state, which is post-communist in principle and beyond it, is that the state can create something, that it can produce wealth by its mere presence. In reality, its presence only reduces the global efficiency of the economic system, and only its role as a referee, watching for aberrant situations, saves it from redundancy. Any tax, however well redistributed into the social security system, decreases global wealth created by the economic system. In this hypothesis, one may well expect the state to reduce its attributions, even with top professionals among the staff. When professionals are scant or when they are absorbed into the private sector, the state is only bound to perform disastrously. In this case, what it can do is create the legislative structure and encourage the establishment of an institutional structure that would channel the wealth created by economic agents to schools, retirement homes and hospitals. This can be achieved by making financial flows transparent - everyone must know precisely what they are paying for, otherwise the temptation to default on payment will be constant (electricity, utilities, social security contributions). When that happens, Conel, more precisely Electrica, will easily cut off electricity from a debtor, mindless of the social consequences of this act. Someone else will then think about nurseries, retirement homes and energy-intensive industries. Today, the state, that is, Electrica, Termoelectrica, the ministries and a handful of other institutions, molten together into an amorphous structure, is much more preoccupied with issues that are not its own, and, over its head with the responsibility, cannot deliver on its natural functions.
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