{"id":21944,"date":"2016-10-04T22:29:41","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T03:29:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=21944"},"modified":"2016-10-04T22:29:41","modified_gmt":"2016-10-05T03:29:41","slug":"spain-is-without-a-national-government-and-spaniards-are-digging-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=21944","title":{"rendered":"Spain Is without a National Government \u2014 And Spaniards Are Digging It"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"page-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/blog\/spain-without-national-government-\u2014-and-spaniards-are-digging-it\">Spain Is without a National Government \u2014 And Spaniards Are Digging It<\/a><\/h3>\n<h3 class=\"page-title\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Spanish flag\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/slideshow\/public\/27030_basque-mayor-fined-for-failing-to-fly-the-spanish-flag-properly_1_large.jpg?itok=RsNb7jJM\" alt=\"Spanish flag\" \/><\/h3>\n<div id=\"slideshow\" class=\"group-image-wrapper field-group-html-element pull-left\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"body-content clearfix\">\n<p>With neither major party able to secure a majority of seats in the national\u00a0legislature\u00a0and the two\u00a0parties unable to agree on a coalition government, for the last 10 months\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/10\/03\/world\/europe\/spain-socialists-sanchez-rajoy.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">Spain has had a do-nothing\u00a0caretaker\u00a0government for the first time in its history<\/a>. While basic government services\u00a0continue, no new legislation is being proposed, foreign policy is stuck in place, and many infrastructure and other government projects are frozen. In\u00a0contrast\u00a0to dire\u00a0predictions of chaos, everything is proceeding smoothly and some\u00a0Spaniards are learning a valuable lesson about the resilience of society when left to its own (voluntary) devices. The lesson has been pithily summed up by Felix Pastor, a language teacher, who states:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p data-para-count=\"188\" data-total-count=\"332\">No government, no thieves.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p data-para-count=\"188\" data-total-count=\"332\">Mr. Pastor\u00a0believes that,\u00a0without politicians around to inflict more harm, Spain could last without a government \u201cuntil hell freezes\u00a0over.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-para-count=\"188\" data-total-count=\"332\">Website editor\u00a0Ignacio\u00a0Escolar\u00a0agrees,<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p data-para-count=\"188\" data-total-count=\"332\">A\u00a0lot of people said we would go to hell if we didn\u2019t form a government.\u00a0But we\u2019re still here.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p data-para-count=\"188\" data-total-count=\"332\">And Ana Cancela, a civil servant, recognizes the corruption and incompetence endemic to\u00a0political institutions,<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p data-para-count=\"188\" data-total-count=\"332\">We already knew that politicians were corrupt, but now we also see that they can\u2019t even make politics work.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spain Is without a National Government \u2014 And Spaniards Are Digging It With neither major party able to secure a majority of seats in the national\u00a0legislature\u00a0and the two\u00a0parties unable to agree on a coalition government, for the last 10 months\u00a0Spain has had a do-nothing\u00a0caretaker\u00a0government for the first time in its history. While basic government services\u00a0continue, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14441,7617,14442,743],"class_list":["post-21944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-joseph-t-salerno","tag-mises-institute","tag-national-government","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21945,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21944\/revisions\/21945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}