My own Libertarian view is that it benefits Government by pushing people to become even more reliant on the State for everything. People get a mindset that says ‘It’s not my responsibility’ and tend to believe that you have to ask permission to do anything to do with your community. When society then starts to decay, people are scared and basically demand ‘action’ from the authorities – so we get a new tranche of laws brought in that remove some more personal liberties.

Here’s a hypothetical example. A community starts getting run down. People ask their councillors, etc. to do something about the graffiti, poor street lighting, etc. The council can’t help because they’re skint. People start to do stuff – remove graffiti, develop community gardens on waste land, etc. Next thing that happens, Council officials turn up with the ‘Can’t do that, gotta wear high vis clothes for doing that, do you have a permit to put the wheelbarrow on the causeway whilst doing that’, etc. Folks jack it in. Situation gets worse. Petty street crime increases (there’s often a causal relationship between apparent urban decay like graffiti, rubbish, etc. and feral scum coming in) and the next thing is local people are demanding police action, SUS, etc.

You could have stopped the rot early on, but by not permitting communities to help themselves you just end up screwing down the pressure cooker.

I’m a member of the awkward squad; I don’t like to be told ‘No’ by anyone when there’s no good reason, especially when they’re not doing anything about the problem themselves.