Labour's "scorched earth" - an inevitability of democracy?

News is filtering out tonight that the recently deceased Labour government may have, Pavarotti like, not been exactly careful with their financial commitments, particularly in the run up to the inevitable election.  This has been described as a "scorched earth" policy, where ministers and civil servants have committed to unbudgeted expenditure, signed contracts that are now difficult to get out of without considerable cost and so on.  And there is general astonishment and outrage all around as the new coalition government finds ever larger "black holes" in departmental budgets.

Now, how much of this is just setting us all up for deeper cuts, blamed on their predecessors, is difficult to say.  After all, so few of the 650 men and women elected to "rule" us understand the first thing about budgets and departmental expenditure, that even they would probably not know a budget black hole if they were sucked into it and spat out into an alternate universe where everyone had to actually make money before they spent it.

But perhaps we should not be so surprised.  Perhaps this is an inevitable function of democratic government.  I'll let Hans-Hermann Hoppe explain:

Predictably, then, under democratic conditions the tendency of every monopoly to increase prices and decrease quality is more pronounced. As hereditary monopolist, a king or prince regarded the territory and people under his jurisdiction as his personal property and engaged in the monopolistic exploitation of his "property." Under democracy, monopoly, and monopolistic exploitation do not disappear. Even if everyone is permitted to enter government, this does not eliminate the distinction between the rulers and the ruled. Government and the governed are not one and the same person. Instead of a prince who regards the country as his private property, a temporary and interchangeable caretaker is put in monopolistic charge of the country. The caretaker does not own the country, but as long as he is in office he is permitted to use it to his and his protégés' advantage. He owns its current use – usufruct – but not its capital stock. This does not eliminate exploitation. To the contrary, it makes exploitation less calculating, carried out with little or no regard to the capital stock. Exploitation is shortsighted and capital consumption systematically promoted. _{[Hans-Herman Hoppe, "The Idea of a Private Law Society", retrieved from LewRockwell.com]}

One could make all sorts of arguments of course as to why it is more likely to happen under a heavy spending "throw money at every problem" government like Labour's, but it is likely to happen under any government to some extent or another.  I remember seeing a smaller example, but nonetheless locally important, when the Lib Dem former administration of Bournemouth were accused of signing off on a contract to redevelop some part of the town centre the day before local elections swept the Tories to power.

Another reason why we should not trust a democratic state, whoever is running it.