I recently explained that I view collectivist politics, including what Americans call “liberalism,” is at war with the middle class. Of course, lots of middle-class people vote for liberal politicians. Conservatives sometimes wonder why people would constantly extend their support to an ideology so hostile to their interests, and distinguished by such a long record of broken promises and failed programs. Some of it is tribal – not everyone backs up their voting with intense meditation on political philosophy. There are people on both the Left and Right who simply vote the way their parents do, or view politics as a team sport, and love rooting for one side or the other.
Among those blue-state voters who do put some effort into their politics, I find there are four mistaken assumptions about government that guide their thinking. Government is an exercise of authority, so it’s wise to have a clear understanding of the nature of authority before voting to expand government.
The first, and perhaps most dangerous, assumption is that authority confers virtue. This seems to have become rooted in the American psyche after the exhilaration of victory in World War II, and the perceived success of the New Deal. Many people automatically assume liberal politicians are selfless servants of the people, who only want what is best for everyone. The media actively cultivates this mindset through its worship of bold Big Government initiatives, and the heroic statesmen who make them possible. If solving the problems of society is a noble endeavor, and the only solutions are titanic government programs, then the proponents of such programs must be noble!
Certain branches of the government, such as law enforcement and the military, tend to attract selfless and dedicated people. However, there is no reason entering government service, or winning elections, automatically makes someone virtuous. If this were not true, there would be no need for military police or internal-affairs divisions.
The federal government currently employs something like two million people. A system of this size cannot function if it must assume the majority of those employees will be tireless, self-sacrificing people of impeccable character and honesty. Government employees respond to incentives, just like private-sector workers. Politicians are no less avaricious than rich businessmen – especially since they can rely on their supporters, and the media, to conceal their greed beneath the pure white robes of the “public interest.” Imagine the outcry if a captain of industry announced the kind of power and money grabs that litter the endless press conferences of President Obama.
The second assumption is that authority bestows wisdom. There is a powerful desire, among much of the American public, to believe the government employs the best and brightest experts in every field. This is one of the reasons the global-warming scam endured as long as it did. Top people from government agencies, such as James Hansen of NASA or former Vice President Al Gore, were credited with honesty and intelligence they simply do not possess. The underlying principle of government-controlled health care is the belief that brilliant people in the ruling class and bureaucracy can engineer a better medical system than doctors, hospitals, and free-market competitors. This belief finally cracked against the inescapably tawdry reality of the back-room deals and political favors in the House and Senate. One of the reasons polls have revealed Americans turning so decisively against ObamaCare is that they can no longer convince themselves the proponents of the plan have anything resembling a plan. In a free country, the authority of government does not long survive the public’s loss of faith in its wisdom.
The third assumption is that authority implies benevolence. We elect our officials, and we like to think of them as “public servants” who work for us. The popular vote becomes a magic spell that transforms ambition into compassion. Liberals are comfortable with this Administration’s mad scramble for power because they’re serenely confident it will someday be used for the public good. They don’t like to think about power being hoarded for its own sake, placing tenured lions of the Senate on the same moral plane as money-grubbing capitalists. Because they disdain materialism and sneer at the pursuit of the almighty dollar, they imagine some invisible, sacred currency allows the government to express the will of the people.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the last few decades, it’s that Big Government lives beneath a shroud of corruption that grows vaster, and darker, as the size of the State increases. The supposed benevolence behind a government program cannot be used to evaluate its performance. In a system woven from trillions of endlessly moving dollars, credit cannot be given for good intentions… any more than the honest good will of a Cessna pilot could suddenly give him the ability to fly an F-22 Raptor. It’s no comfort to the people crushed beneath failed government programs that the authors meant well.
Finally, there is the persistent, but ridiculous, superstition that authority creates wealth. A shocking number of people believe, at some primal level, that government can produce goods and services out of thin air, or “create” jobs through brilliant spending initiatives. In reality, the sole resource of government is coercion. Its only “product” is compulsive force. This is a useful resource – you want plenty of compulsive force handy when criminals invade your home, or terrorists attack a city. However, it is not a substitute for wealth.
Government prints money, but it doesn’t create value. It can use coercion to allocate resources, but this is a horribly inefficient and immoral system, compared to free enterprise. Like any other entity, the government “spends” more of its sole resource when it gets in trouble, imposing more compulsion through taxes and regulation.
Deployed wisely, coercive force enhances value. Your money is worth more because the government works to keep it (more or less) stable. Your buying power is enhanced when you can rely on the government to offer protection from fraud and theft. The authority of the government, when used sparingly, builds trust, and this makes its citizens wealthier.
When government power exceeds the limits necessary to build trust, and begins attempting to command the economy, value is destroyed. We’re living through that right now. In an environment of nationalized companies, union payoffs, and reckless deficit spending threatening the stability of our currency, the trust and confidence which lead private citizens to invest, generate wealth, and create jobs is diminished. Government force is the destroyer of possibilities… and what is wealth, but the accumulated value of the possible? Our economy operates at such a high level that marginal reductions in our freedom generate awful shocks to our standard of living. As bad as the economy is now, it can get much, much worse… if the vital energy of freedom is not restored to it.
The first four steps on the path to a proper appreciation of liberty lie in the rejection of these four assumptions about authority. The free market has never accepted them, which is why an anemic economy is desperate to hear a State of the Union address in which this President lists the things he will not do.
Cross-posted at Hot Air.
Well said, Doc, as always. I offer a short list of things that the President could not do at my own blog, but here is all it would take to revive our economy:
O’bama: “In view of the continued economic strains the country is under, I have decided to suspend pursuit of health care reform. Also, I will be putting on hold any further discussion on the cap and trade bill. I recognize that businesses view these initiatives as additional costs and until we determine that businesses can absorb these additional costs, we will halt our efforts.”
After he finished choking on these words, we would return to some semblance of normalcy. http://addednoise.blogspot.com/
John,
You have written another powerful piece which gives insight into the assumptions of this age, which are so different from those of an earlier era in our nation’s history.
I am reminded of Lord Acton’s famous dictum, written in 1887 about the doctrine of papal infallibility, but applicable to many forms of human government. The dictum also speaks to your first three assumptions of the posited virtue, wisdom, and benevolence of authority:
“I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it. ”
In our human lives, we often act without realizing our own unconscious assumptions, and a good counselor helps us discover those assumptions and judge whether or not they are true, and whether or not they are helpful to us. You have identified certain political assumptions which holders also need to evaluate in terms of their truth and their utility. The sooner these assumptions can be revealed and proven to be false, the better for our individual freedom, and for our nation’s future.
John,
A friend of mine sent me your link and your writing is tremendous. The article on middle class frustration is linked on my humble little blog. You are definately a “must read” for me and I can tell that I will be quoting you often.
re: your second point, about “the best and brightest” -
More people need to know the origins and implications of that phrase.
“authority bestows wisdom”
See Jonah Goldberg in re the “Progressive” movement.
Or for sheer cleared eyed reality, George Orwell:
“It was only after the Soviet regime became unmistakably totalitarian that English intellectuals, in large numbers, began to show interest in it. Burnham, although the English Russophile intelligentsia would repudiate him, is really voicing their secret wish: the wish to destroy the old equalitarian version of Socialism and usher in a hierarchical society where the intellectual can at last get his hands on the whip.”
-George Orwell
Another great article in a long line of great articles. I share these with my 16 year old son, thx Doc for helping to educate him about politics and about human nature in general.
I completely concur with your assessment, Doc, yet this assertion should not be solely delivered to those in blue. We, as Americans, are mired in a Socratic understanding of government, where the call to civil service is limited to those that are among the aristos, a gathering of men and women that are among the best and brightest and rule with only the “common good” in mind. We are all men (with apologies to the ladies in the audience) and are all susceptible to avarice and lapse. I would also argue that today’s politician is actually among the average in society; the best and brightest in America wouldn’t enter politics and subject themselves to that humiliation on a bet.
I don’t have children or grandchildren and never will (as a young teen I bought the Marxist Feminist lie that men and marriage would ruin your life; stupid idiot, gullible me) however I take some comfort knowing that at least when I die I will not have to face the enslavement of the next generation.
I feel sorry for those with children and grandchildren because when the parents and grandparents leave this earth they’ll be the ones facing the heavy guilt of knowing they plundered their own into horrid serfdom.
SO Mommies and Daddies (especially Mommies who advocate abortion), when your children have no choice but to unplug your life because you are too expensive to keep alive remember it was you who enslaved your own children and grandchildren.
One last point; I am thankful Oprah is finally going out of business.
Maybe women will finally grow up, let go of their narcissistic and self-involved sweet-sixteen obsession for a change.
Young girls, don’t listen to Oprah or Marxist Feminist; they birthed Serfdom.
Doctor Zero,
I leave this as a compliment to your fine essay, it was something that I wrote as part of a larger paper while attending college at the ripe old age of 39. It would seem that when Marines go to school for higher learning, the do so with a different undertsanding of history and how our government works than do most of their fellow civilian students. I must admitt that it was quite the experiance. I say that in the spirit of Cato, Jefferson, Madison, and the score of anonymous Anti-Federalist, you must continue your essays, for how else will a common populous fight against the encroachment upon its rights.
“In recent years, with the advent of mass multimedia, people have been inundated with the political circus that is our nation’s government. The ability to reach the masses in America has made the once maligned civic and patriotic duty into a sought after profession, in which the candidates do not even remotely resemble the politicians at the birth of this nation. This new breed preaches that the government is the answer to all ills, from where all power comes and that our shining democracy is an example for all to follow. The problem with that thought process is that the United States was created not as a democracy, but as a constitutional republic where the majority of power lay with the states. That power, however, has migrated to the centralized government, and needs to be arrested back by its intended keeper.
It is important to understand how we have arrived at this current state of affairs, one must know where we started and the reasons why the government was organized in its original fashion by the founding fathers. Most people know about the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War, but few know the system that guided us through that war, nor the document that sustained up until the time of the ratification of the Constitution. If the people were to throw off their apathetic attitude toward government, and reclaim their sacred duty of vigilance over self governance, they would soon realize how much freedom has been lost to the government. They would clamor for the return of controls, which once kept the beast in check, while allowing for the three founding principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to thrive once again.”
Nice article Doc. I have been trying to understand why a couple of my liberal friends continue to think Obama & his gang of thieves are doing a wonderful job. Perhaps it is the benevolence idea that they believe in and also that everything will “be fine” and everything has a happy ending no matter what. But I am not looking forward to any State of the Union address, I already know what the state of the union is & don’t plan to listen to Obummer lie about it.
@DOne:
Regarding your point concerning the aristos, I think that it would be more correct to say that in a democracy, there is a natural tension between the attitude that you describe on one hand and a suspicion of them on the other. I think that this is especially true of the United States; the Jacksonian movement of the 1820′s had powerful and long-lasting ramifications. This explains what technocrats describe as an “anti-intellectual” streak in the electorate, even among a segment that could be described as intellectual. This may be a fair description; what it describes is a sense that intellectuals and technocrats are more interested in and apt with systems than with people, and with the abstract rather than the concrete. It was this attitude that William F. Buckley, Jr., summed up when he made his famous statement that he’d rather be governed by the first five hundred names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard University. If they wouldn’t be prone to as many bright ideas, it would be expected that they would also do far less harm.
Also, as a peculiarly American trope, the legend of Cincinnatus has compelled the imagination of the American political culture since its founding, when George Washington was held to be his Second Coming. It is a fondly cherished belief of most Americans that, when summoned from the plow, any virtuous American could effortlessly take up the reins of state, and happily resume the plow when his/her calling is done. At the very least, such a figure is assumed to understand the problems and concerns of the common man in a way that an intellectual cannot.
Because a defining characteristic of the liberal as opposed to the conservative is his/her belief that the great human problems are capable of solution, as opposed to mere management or benign neglect, liberals tend toward the attitude that you describe, while conservatives tend toward the attitude that I’ve described. Hence the estimable Doctor’s description of his four categories as liberal thought processes.
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