Today as I was updating usgovernmentspending.com with the new numbers -- and Trump is proposing a couple of years with $1 trillion deficits! -- I heard Michael Medved telling his audience that the partisan divide is rather overblown, and that Democrats are really good guys at heart with different ideas for America.
Well, not quite, Michael. First of all, the differences in ideas make a big difference. And second, there is a very large stream in the Democratic side that regards politics and political power as a saving religion, and that to oppose them in any way is a damning sin, of racism, sexism, and homophobia, and that the power of the state should be used to shut the opponents up.
In my view, that is a big deal.
First of all, the basic differences in ideas.
Democrats believe in the administrative state. They believe that numerous things that we do together should be done under the supervision of experts and administrators and paid for with taxes. There's a trillion in government-administered pensions, more than a trillion in government administered health care, and more than a trillion ind education.
If we conservatives had our druthers, we would get these importance social protections out of the hands of government, because government does things very badly.
But the truth is that the Democrats own the inside track on this. Most people have enough of the serf in them that they feel safer with the local liberal in charge of their protection: guaranteeing pensions, health care, and education for the kids. People like me would like to persuade the American people to change their minds about this, but we recognize that we have a long way to go. So, for me, there is a quiet resignation that things are not going to get better; we are going to have big government and the administrative state around for a long time, even if, with President Trump, we are taking a whack at out-of-control regulations.
But the big thing, and the thing that is really non-negotiable, is that most Democrats, and certainly all the little kiddies going through elite finishing school, have a saving faith in the power of politics to change peoples' lives and fight injustice. In other words, they believe that political power is the means to bend the arc of history towards justice. I call this the "activism culture."
In my view the activism culture is built on the truth that, at the beginning of the 19th century as the industrial revolution was getting into full swing, the vast majority of people in the industrializing regions were "outside the system." The whole governing thing was reserved for the absolute monarchs with help from the land-holding aristocracy. In the first half of the century the issue was to include the rising middle class into the system, and after the middle-class got the vote then the issue became the franchising of the working class. The activists assumed that revolution would be needed to get the unfranchised into the system.
The assumption of revolutionaries like Marx and Engels was that the rising power of the bourgeoisie, the captains of the new industry, would become the equivalent of the old aristocracy and grab power, using the wealth of the new industrial system. Just as the old aristocracy kept the jealously kept the wealth of the land for them and their descendants, so the captains of industry would rule over the world tightly holding on to their industrial gains. The workers of the world would be "immiserated."
Obviously, the only way the unfranchised could get the attention of the rulers was by marches and demonstrations and demands, and so the modern activism culture was born. And it makes sense. If you are inside the system with a vote then the powers-that-be will pay attention to you, because they need your vote. But folks outside the system need a more direct way of influencing the government.
But there is a problem. Once a group has been franchised with the vote, and admitted into the system, what is left for the activists to do? This was the problem faced by the intellectuals of the Frankfurt School after World War I when the Social Democratic Party of the German workers became the government of Germany. The answer for them was to realize that there were others in the world not yet franchised and admitted into the system: women and racial and sexual minorities. The activists that once championed the workers could now advocate for the victims of the patriarchy and of slavery and of colonialism.
This has been tremendous fun for the activist community, right down to the present moment, giving meaning to the lives of countless well-born scions. But it is based upon a lie.
The lie is the notion that the captains of industry and the middle class is a ruling class intent upon its own power project and determined to keep down the people outside the system. In fact the captains of industry are not that interested in power, and the middle class is not that interested in power. It is a monstrous injustice to act as if men have been keeping women barefoot and pregnant since the dawn of time and enslaving and colonializing brown people since the days of Columbus.
In fact the capitalists and the bourgeoisie got out of slavery in the 19th century and colonialism in the 20th century because, frankly, they did not pay.
Moreover, the record of the last century is that mobilizing whole peoples to fight injustice is counterproductive. The lesson of the Soviet Union and China and other countries that followed the activist agenda is that when you decide to organize a country in a crusade against injustice you create killing fields and miseries and injustice unimaginable under the old regime.
So the position of conservatives in respect of the left and its #Resistance and AntiFa and SJWs and the gender and race studies kiddies at the university is that these are budding totalitarians and must be stopped at all costs. Their ideas are wrong, their methods are wrong, and they must be stopped.
The left's ideas are wrong, because the market system does not require detailed top-down supervision; on the contrary, it stagnates when subordinated under administrative control. Indeed the science shows that socialism cannot work because it cannot compute prices, and the same applies to the administrative state that tries to administer prices: it is called the economic calculation problem. Then the administrative regulators of regulated industry tend to become "captured" by the industry they regulator: regulatory capture. And then legislation on economic matters tends to buy the votes of people indifferent to a project and burden the defeated minority with costs but no benefits. This is the finding of Buchanan and Tullock's The Calculus of Consent. This is why I say that there is no such thing as justice, only injustice. It is one thing to remove an injustice. But once you start to implement a program of justice you will immediately create injustice.
The left's methods are wrong because people inside the system do not need to threaten each other with "peaceful protest." We have had two hundred years of the Great Enrichment since the dawn of the industrial era, and the overwhelming fact is that the market system accommodates and enriches all comers. Force is not needed except to punish people that rob and steal and cheat.
My hope is that the #Resistance will harm the Democrats in the next two election cycles so much that the Democrats will be forced to curb the activists and hide them away. And that will deal with the problem until next time.
The alternative is too horrible to contemplate.
Well, not quite, Michael. First of all, the differences in ideas make a big difference. And second, there is a very large stream in the Democratic side that regards politics and political power as a saving religion, and that to oppose them in any way is a damning sin, of racism, sexism, and homophobia, and that the power of the state should be used to shut the opponents up.
In my view, that is a big deal.
First of all, the basic differences in ideas.
Democrats believe in the administrative state. They believe that numerous things that we do together should be done under the supervision of experts and administrators and paid for with taxes. There's a trillion in government-administered pensions, more than a trillion in government administered health care, and more than a trillion ind education.
If we conservatives had our druthers, we would get these importance social protections out of the hands of government, because government does things very badly.
But the truth is that the Democrats own the inside track on this. Most people have enough of the serf in them that they feel safer with the local liberal in charge of their protection: guaranteeing pensions, health care, and education for the kids. People like me would like to persuade the American people to change their minds about this, but we recognize that we have a long way to go. So, for me, there is a quiet resignation that things are not going to get better; we are going to have big government and the administrative state around for a long time, even if, with President Trump, we are taking a whack at out-of-control regulations.
But the big thing, and the thing that is really non-negotiable, is that most Democrats, and certainly all the little kiddies going through elite finishing school, have a saving faith in the power of politics to change peoples' lives and fight injustice. In other words, they believe that political power is the means to bend the arc of history towards justice. I call this the "activism culture."
In my view the activism culture is built on the truth that, at the beginning of the 19th century as the industrial revolution was getting into full swing, the vast majority of people in the industrializing regions were "outside the system." The whole governing thing was reserved for the absolute monarchs with help from the land-holding aristocracy. In the first half of the century the issue was to include the rising middle class into the system, and after the middle-class got the vote then the issue became the franchising of the working class. The activists assumed that revolution would be needed to get the unfranchised into the system.
The assumption of revolutionaries like Marx and Engels was that the rising power of the bourgeoisie, the captains of the new industry, would become the equivalent of the old aristocracy and grab power, using the wealth of the new industrial system. Just as the old aristocracy kept the jealously kept the wealth of the land for them and their descendants, so the captains of industry would rule over the world tightly holding on to their industrial gains. The workers of the world would be "immiserated."
Obviously, the only way the unfranchised could get the attention of the rulers was by marches and demonstrations and demands, and so the modern activism culture was born. And it makes sense. If you are inside the system with a vote then the powers-that-be will pay attention to you, because they need your vote. But folks outside the system need a more direct way of influencing the government.
But there is a problem. Once a group has been franchised with the vote, and admitted into the system, what is left for the activists to do? This was the problem faced by the intellectuals of the Frankfurt School after World War I when the Social Democratic Party of the German workers became the government of Germany. The answer for them was to realize that there were others in the world not yet franchised and admitted into the system: women and racial and sexual minorities. The activists that once championed the workers could now advocate for the victims of the patriarchy and of slavery and of colonialism.
This has been tremendous fun for the activist community, right down to the present moment, giving meaning to the lives of countless well-born scions. But it is based upon a lie.
The lie is the notion that the captains of industry and the middle class is a ruling class intent upon its own power project and determined to keep down the people outside the system. In fact the captains of industry are not that interested in power, and the middle class is not that interested in power. It is a monstrous injustice to act as if men have been keeping women barefoot and pregnant since the dawn of time and enslaving and colonializing brown people since the days of Columbus.
In fact the capitalists and the bourgeoisie got out of slavery in the 19th century and colonialism in the 20th century because, frankly, they did not pay.
Moreover, the record of the last century is that mobilizing whole peoples to fight injustice is counterproductive. The lesson of the Soviet Union and China and other countries that followed the activist agenda is that when you decide to organize a country in a crusade against injustice you create killing fields and miseries and injustice unimaginable under the old regime.
So the position of conservatives in respect of the left and its #Resistance and AntiFa and SJWs and the gender and race studies kiddies at the university is that these are budding totalitarians and must be stopped at all costs. Their ideas are wrong, their methods are wrong, and they must be stopped.
The left's ideas are wrong, because the market system does not require detailed top-down supervision; on the contrary, it stagnates when subordinated under administrative control. Indeed the science shows that socialism cannot work because it cannot compute prices, and the same applies to the administrative state that tries to administer prices: it is called the economic calculation problem. Then the administrative regulators of regulated industry tend to become "captured" by the industry they regulator: regulatory capture. And then legislation on economic matters tends to buy the votes of people indifferent to a project and burden the defeated minority with costs but no benefits. This is the finding of Buchanan and Tullock's The Calculus of Consent. This is why I say that there is no such thing as justice, only injustice. It is one thing to remove an injustice. But once you start to implement a program of justice you will immediately create injustice.
The left's methods are wrong because people inside the system do not need to threaten each other with "peaceful protest." We have had two hundred years of the Great Enrichment since the dawn of the industrial era, and the overwhelming fact is that the market system accommodates and enriches all comers. Force is not needed except to punish people that rob and steal and cheat.
My hope is that the #Resistance will harm the Democrats in the next two election cycles so much that the Democrats will be forced to curb the activists and hide them away. And that will deal with the problem until next time.
The alternative is too horrible to contemplate.
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