A Fool's Errand
Ross and Reihan, I will confess at the outset that I haven't read the book, but having digested all of comments from the Book Club, you remind me of Stimson in 1852 trying to get the Whig Party to take a stance against the expansion of slavery in the new territories. Ultimately he realized it was a fool's errand and formed a spin off party, The Republican Party. Ultimately the Heritage and AEI foot soldiers will reject your advice because they stand behind the Deregulatory Ideology that is Stalinist in its unwillingness to recognize that the world has changed. They are only interested in continuing the "Regulatory Capture" regime of the last 8 (or maybe 12) years. It will only be when Big Pharma and Big Energy stop funding these think tanks and the revolving door between them and Republican policy circles stops spinning--that you will see change in the Republican Party.
You might want to follow Stimson's path and form a new party.
Yes, please splinter off and form a new party. George W. Bush destroyed the once-proud, fiscally-responsible GOP.
July 16, 2008 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Except that Reagan and Bush senior ran deficits and presided over government expansion. Ironically, the Reagan Building in Washington was once the largest building in town (note, the Pentagon is in Arlington). There hasn't been fiscal restraint in a Republican Whitehouse in 30 years.
It's a myth.
July 16, 2008 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
conorflynn: Agreed. That's just one of a long list of mythical GOP positions that W helped destroy. I find that that's the only one GOP'rs will concede to easily. :) PS - Love the avatar.
July 16, 2008 8:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well I would not go as far as to say that George W. Bush destroyed the GOP, but it is to me evident that the message of eliminating federal agencies and trimming back the welfare state does not sell anymore, not even among Republican voters. I gotta hand it to you Democrats: you've sold the entire country on the idea that everyone should be wards of the state at some level. I think the real challenge for the GOP right now is to resolve the dilemma between the free market conservatism philosophy that guides much of the platform and principles of the party, and the political reality with respect to the welfare state. It sounds like Ross and Reihan have made a valuable contribution in this area and I will definitely have to pick up the book.
July 16, 2008 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
You honestly think that people in this economy can be considered wards of the state?
July 16, 2008 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I honestly think that people in this nation, for better or for worse, look to government to help them solve their problems. That is the mindset I am referring to.
July 16, 2008 6:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: I honestly think that people in this nation, for better or for worse, look to government to help them solve their problems.
Maybe, but isn't that true everywhere throughout all history? I mean, why would even have government if it wasn't good for something-- like solving problems that are too large to be addressed at the individual level.
July 16, 2008 9:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
JonF311 writes:
Emphatically not. Without sounding too much like a history lesson, let me just say that in the bad old days, government served only to enslave its subjects (both figuratively and literally). The Enlightenment revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries, which produced the American Revolution, transformed the understanding of government as an entity that performed only limited duties that individuals could not do on their own, but for the most part did not interfere with the daily lives of its citizens. In contrast the Marxist/socialist revolutions of the 20th century produced a new understanding of government that was supposed to be deeply involved in the lives of its citizens, giving us the concept of the welfare state and cradle-to-grave caretaking of its citizens.
We of course are not a full-fledged socialist state and hopefully never will be, but in my opinion the socialist mentality, of an activist, involved government that attempts to address the full range of problems of its citizens, has finally won over the libertarian mentality, in which government only performs the "big" jobs that citizens can't do on their own (such as national defense) but otherwise does not try to meddle in people's lives.
As a libertarian-minded person I am saddened, but I am honest enough to admit that the welfare state is not going away anytime soon, and that the best that Republicans can hope to do at this point is to try to run the welfare state in a more sensible manner. That is essentially the message that I get from Grand New Party.
July 17, 2008 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
chemjeff says;
"I honestly think that people in this nation, for better or for worse, look to government to help them solve their problems. That is the mindset I am referring to."
What "people" are you talking about? People who want police protection? People who want city services like trash pick up? People that want clean water?
How about people that want protection from the gang that give us the excesses of unbridled capitalism? People who live in hot spots of dangerous air pollution throughout the country, these people?
How aobut the poor and the sick....how about the elderly? These people? Is this who looks to government for help with their problems?
What about those combat vets who were made lame fighting for this country, them?
There's about 300 million people in this country, I'm sure you can find a dozen or so who are looking for a free ride and point to them as the norm, after all, that's what right wing zealots do.
By the way, every day of your life you're living in a world where government is and has helped you with your problems.
July 17, 2008 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
JohnW1141,
I am not talking about freeloaders, and that is my point. I believe we have arrived at a point in this country where the majority of citizens expect and demand that their government assist them with whatever problem they may have, no matter how trivial, and furthermore they are entitled to this assistance because they've already paid for it in the form of taxes.
And I don't deny that government has helped me in significant ways (it has also hurt me in other ways). Such is the world that I was born into. My most fervent wish, however, is to be left alone to pursue my own dreams and aspirations - left alone from the nanny state do-gooders who think they know what is best for me. I don't think that is too much to ask but apparently it is.
July 17, 2008 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is the intention of the welfare state to infantilise the "people" or to mitigate the results of the atavistic propensities of finance capitalism?
And can the latter goal be accomplished without resulting in the former?
July 16, 2008 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hi Ellen,
That is an excellent point. I don't buy into right-wing conspiracies about the welfare state being a secret plot to enslave people to the state, so of course I agree that the intent of the welfare state is to provide authentic assistance to people. But government money is never without strings, and so the welfare state by its very nature has to have a paternalistic effect - to get the money you've got to dance to the government's tune. So we get tax deductions for buying hybrid cars, but not for recycling; for buying a house but not an RV; for getting married but not for cohabitation; for having (or adopting) kids but not for refraining from having kids, which may be argued to be the more ethical choice in an overpopulated world.
July 17, 2008 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you need to make clear distinctions between rent seeking activities and policies intended to maintain a social safety net and to prevent consumer fraud. For me, the latter are principally insurance policies purchased by the government (society in general) which upper income folks -- because they have the wherewithal -- purchase for themselves.
It's just not obvious to me that the programs you abhor(?) and their contradictions are not just those programs which have become captive to rent-seeking special interests (real estate industry, bankers, auto manufacturers, farmers, etc.). Those programs are neither necessary to the welfare state nor necessarily desired by those of us who support the welfare state.
July 17, 2008 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hi Ellen,
First, thanks for engaging in a dialogue with me instead of just calling me names. Of course I'm not going to like the rent-seeking behavior, but I would argue that when you have a government that has as its charter a virtually unlimited mandate to "help people" then it's only a matter of time before clever people figure out how to game the system. And I'm not really talking about a basic social safety net, if it is only limited to things like saving people from real destitution. What I bemoan is the ever-increasing reach of the welfare state to include saving people from other, far less dire, problems, such as what to do when broadcast TV goes all-digital, or how to prevent the pernicious problem of stove-tipping.
I see these things as welfare statism run amok, but an inevitable result when people come to expect government to be there for them whenever sunny skies turn gray, no matter what the issue.
July 17, 2008 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
The late Milton Friedman agreed, calling for the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration. It was unnecessary, he argued: private companies would avoid taking risks with public health to safeguard their reputations and to avoid damaging class-action lawsuits. (Friedman, unlike almost every other conservative I can think of, viewed lawyers as the guardians of free-market capitalism.) Paul Krugman
The consumer nanny-state is the result of 1) the inequality of power subsisting between the individual and the corporation, 2) the corporations' financial support for judges' election campaigns, and 3) the corporations' thirty-year disinformation campaign calling for "tort reform."
As against this overweening corporate power there is no recourse except to depend upon the government and accept its occasional regulatory excesses.
July 17, 2008 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
chemjeff,
if Government doesn't exist to help people, why does it exist at all?
Abe Lincoln once said (paraphrase) 'Government is the coming together of people to accomplish that which they cannot accomplish as individuals.'
You claim;
You obviously need to become a Mountain Man like
Robert Redford's Jeremiah Johnson
July 18, 2008 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
JohnW1141,
Why is it I who has to go live in the mountains? Why can't you just accept my desire to not be lectured to by the state?
July 18, 2008 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
chemjeff,
simple; if you live in society you are subject to their rules. However, as a mountain man you're on your own. Get a horse, some trapping equipment, some warm clothing, a flint for starting a fire, some fishing gear, an ax, a rifle, and a few other odds and ends, move to Yosemite or Yellowstone and you're in Nirvana.
July 19, 2008 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hi Ellen,
About #2: I don't think that we should have popular election of judges, for precisely the reason you mention - timeless standards of justice shouldn't be up for a vote.
About #3: Of course many corporations support their idea of "tort reform" out of narrow self-interest, but no serious person wants to stop the ability of a person to sue a corporation if that person really believes he/she has been harmed. Corporations that are convicted of wrongdoing should of course pay full compensatory damages, and nobody, other than the narrowly self-interested, seriously disagrees with this. The problem is and always has been with punitive damages, where juries award zillion-dollar damages simply because corporations are cast as the "bad guys" and they have deep pockets, and NOT as compensation for any harm the corporation inflicted on a person. This is tantamount to punishing a corporation just because it's rich. It wouldn't be fair if the defendant were a person and it's not fair when it happens to a corporation. If you just hate corporations, that's fine, but the courtroom is not the appropriate place to unleash your fury.
Now, as to #1: If you accept that the battle lines are between big corporation vs. little consumer guy, then you'd have a point. But really the battle lines are between big corporation vs. an even bigger market. Furthermore, your analysis presumes that the government will be the organization that stands up on behalf of the little guy against the corporation. This is not necessarily the case.
July 18, 2008 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, manufacturers are fighting to limit product liability cases (that kid should never have gone near that pool water circulation intake; he should have known the way we designed it he'd get sucked in) and insurance carriers are fighting to limit awards in medical malpractice (yeah; I know that doctor has botched five operations before but we can't suspend his hospital privileges; he brings in too many paying patients).
They care little about the very few headline grabbing punitive damage claims which are ordinarily 1) reduced by the judge and 2) settled for a lower figure by the plaintiff. Spin, propaganda -- all part of the "tort reform" disinformation campaign I earlier referred to.
July 18, 2008 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
thanks for engaging in a dialogue with me instead of just calling me names
I want to thank Ellen for that, too. Because it ended up being a very interesting exchange. Wish that kind of exchange happened here more often. I don't get a damn thing from people calling each other names.
July 17, 2008 10:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
After all the war profiteering and cronyism of the last seven years I would say you Republicans are the "wards of the state".
July 17, 2008 5:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
In other words, Republicans gotta pretend they're actually Democrats Lite.
I think Reagan called that "me tooism."
July 17, 2008 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't read the book either, but I wholeheartedly disagree with Chapter 7. What were you thinking!?
July 16, 2008 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I honestly think that people in this nation, for better or for worse, look to government to help them solve their problems.
One question:
WHO FUCKING CARES?
That's what government is there for. Governments exists to solve problems. If we didn't have problems, we wouldn't have governments.
July 16, 2008 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
"welfare state" heh, heh, heh.
How many times has the transfer upward of an ever increasing share of the country's total wealth been shown? Might that be annually?
A welfare state for who's welfare?
July 17, 2008 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Corporate welfare-the enormous and myriad subsidies, bailouts, giveaways, tax loopholes, debt revocations, loan guarantees, discounted insurance and other benefits conferred by government on business-is a function of political corruption.
Corporate welfare programs siphon funds from appropriate public investments, subsidize companies ripping minerals from federal lands, enable pharmaceutical companies to gouge consumers, perpetuate anti-competitive oligopolistic markets, injure our national security, and weaken our democracy. Ralph Nader
Are we allowed to quote the "demon" on this blog?
July 17, 2008 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen,
for as long as I can remember I've admired Nader
and have been a member of Public Citizen. To this day I still admire him, but I'm pissed off at his 2000 antic. I still haven't forgiven him.
He should have run for the House or Senate.
July 17, 2008 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen,
for as long as I can remember I've admired Nader
and have been a member of Public Citizen. To this day I still admire him, but I'm pissed off at his 2000 antic. I still haven't forgiven him.
He should have run for the House or Senate.
July 17, 2008 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
beating a dead elephant
you might also want to study the demise of the Federalist party
July 17, 2008 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Without sounding too much like a history lesson, let me just say that in the bad old days, government served only to enslave its subjects
Nonsense. You are focusing on the fact that monarchial govermments (the majority, though hardly the sole sort of government pre 1776) could produce some remakably tyrannical or inept rulers who all too often were unchecked, except by tradition or by acts of violence from those who would dethrone them if their rule grew too awful. Nevertheless it was expected that government, howsover it was constituted, would be conducted for the benefit of the people being governed. It's impossible to read any political works from the past (including non-Western writings) and not come away with that basic idea. Yes, yes, a lot of rulers governed mainly for their own benefit and many others who were well-intentioned could not do the job right. Still, governments existed to serve certain large-scale needs that civilization creates and you can't escape that fact. The more complex the civilization the more varied and complicated the things that governments must do. If you find that fact intolerable and would seek out a libertarian paradise, might I suggest trying out one of the few hunter-gatherer cultures still in existence? It's there you'll find your libertarian "paradise". Agriculture first, and things like metallurgy and cities, make your utopian dreams impossible to realize anywhere else.
Re: In contrast the Marxist/socialist revolutions of the 20th century produced a new understanding of government that was supposed to be deeply involved in the lives of its citizens
Oh good grief, you really do need to read some history! Marxism produced nothing truly new there. Governments had always been deeply involved in the lives of its citizens. See: Diocletian's price controls, Confucius' maxims for a good state, Shari'a law, Plato's dissertations on law, medieval morals legislation... need I go on?
Re: but in my opinion the socialist mentality, of an activist, involved government that attempts to address the full range of problems of its citizens
This is a strawman. I doubt even the few remaining dedicated Marxists expect govermment to step in and solve their romantic problems, for example. At any rate, more moderate folk like myself expect government to tackle large scale society-level problems that no individual, were he richer than Bill Gates and smarter than Einstein, could hope to solve. I don't expect my government to resolve my personal problems, but I do expect it to work on public problems.
Re: My most fervent wish, however, is to be left alone to pursue my own dreams and aspirations
Then why do you stay here? Its not easy to secede from society nowadays, but it is possible. I don't understand why people like you, who have such an aversion for modern life, stick around to live it. The old Christian saints, finding their social world intolerable, at least had the integrity to retreat from it, becoming hermits and true anarchists under no authority but God's.
Re: , such as what to do when broadcast TV goes all-digital,
Um, that's a problem being caused by the government mandating that broadcast TV do exactly that.
July 17, 2008 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
JonF311,
excellent post.
July 18, 2008 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
JonF311,
I didn't want it to become an extended dissertation on the histories of particular Western governments so yes I was necessarily brief. I don't disagree that some historical autocratic governments were actually kind to their subjects but those were the exceptions. Show me a king who bestowed rights and privileges to the citizens, and I'll show you an autocrat trying to bribe his way out of losing his head via revolution.
And I was trying to illustrate two different approaches to the scope of government based on two different eras in history: the 18th-century approach, which we today would describe as libertarian and minimalist, and the 19th- and 20th-century approach, which is socialist and requires a vast, expansive government. It is from this latter approach that we get the concept of a welfare state. In fact, the first welfare state, created by Bismarck in Germany in the late 19th century, was explicitly socialist in its origin.
But really, the argument is about approaches to government. Should government have a broad charter, capable of responding to a wide array of citizen's needs? Or should government have a more narrow focus, only performing a few tasks and leaving the rest to non-governmental groups to take care of? Clearly the spirit of our Constitution is the latter, with its focus on enumerated powers, and particularly the Tenth Amendment. But modern times have changed the focus towards the former view. You seem to argue that government has always had a broad charter to "help people". It is instructive to note that Alexander Hamilton, the "big government" guy of his day, advocated for the federal government to spend money on transportation infrastructure among the states, but thought a Constitutional amendment was required to permit it. Well, there has never been a Constitutional amendment to permit the federal government to build interstate highways, and today we think nothing of the government spending money on roads - in fact, we demand it!
You write:
Really? What is the difference between a personal problem and a public problem? Aren't you a member of the public, and doesn't government have a broad mandate to "help people", including you with your personal problem? My point is that if you take an expansionist view of government, there is no bright dividing line between a "personal problem" for which the government should stay out, and a "public problem" that requires government action. And, if you combine this with a view that government has a broad mandate to help people, then eventually you will have government helping (or attempting to help) everyone with everything.
July 18, 2008 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
One more thing: About government assistance for the digital TV conversion. Yes I'm aware Congress mandated the conversion. But TV is a purely optional recreational device. Why should the welfare state help people with problems associated with complete luxuries?
July 19, 2008 6:36 AM | Reply | Permalink