Here’s a letter that I sent today to the Washington Post:
Dana Milbank rightly ridicules “Progressive” Americans who mistook Barack Obama for being a messiah (“Obama the mortal,” Dec. 6). But don’t be too hard on these gullible folk. For years, their intellectual superstars (including some of your own columnists) insisted that reorganizing society for the better is rather easy with the right people in power. But….
The “Progressive” mindset ignores modern-society’s extraordinary complexity. It’s oblivious to the full, vast range of inescapable trade-offs and unintended consequences unleashed by human actions. Convinced that the only forces keeping earth from moving closer to paradise are the mean, stupid, and greedy people who always seem to have disproportionate power, “Progressives” have a fetish for Great Leaders promising dramatically to smite the backward bullies and then lead humankind to salvation.
How disappointed these faithful congregants must be when their messiah is exposed as a mortal, delaying still further the fulfillment of their fantasies.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
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Please forgive the pendantry, but “smote” is the past tense; the infinitive is “to smite.”
Our 'Aristocracy of Talent' seems at a considerable distance yet; does it not, O Bobus?
Expecting Great Leaders to solve the problems of disproportionate power is oxymoronic, but some people do have disproportionate power, and the state is responsible. Classical liberalism opposed disproportionate power before we had a nominally majoritarian, central legislature, executive and courts and in central north America, and they recognized it in many forms outside of these structures.
I certainly recognize disproportionate power within these structures, but I also recognize it outside of the structures, in corporatist organizations like too-big-to-fail banks and too-big-to-fail automobile companies and the military-industrial complex. I don't see many princely plantations in my neck of the woods, but tens of millions of state employees and other corporatist apparatchiks, including trade unionists and corporate executives, with too-rich-to-fail promises of consumption accumulated over decades might choke common people just as surely when push comes to shove, and push does come to shove ultimately. Capitalism as we know it is not comforting in this regard.
Will Don further state that this the type of leader 'progressives' desire are the same ones who rule in Africa and help keep their people in the ranks of the poorest of the poor?
“reorganizing society for the better is rather easy with the right people in power”
Did you say “Hitler”?
Don,
Asd usual you are right on point. Keep up the good work.
Martinbrock makes a comment down the way that clssical liberals oppose disproportionate power. It is a measure of the fog in which they live that their political solution to diproportionate power is… disproportionate power.
Professor Boudreaux makes a great point here. Political liberals are essentially gullible fools, convinced that there is an easily identifiably group of better, more intelligent people to whom we may grant vast political power for the healing of the world. No such group of people exists. In every group of people promising the salvation of the world and the economy through their auspices there are equal populations of avarice and criminality.
I am as much, if not more, of a classical liberal than the vast majority of political liberals but I recognize political liberalism as a sham, a means of getting disproportionate power without even having to prove the posession of any practical skill. I also recognize in mega-corporate capitalism the exact same grasping for a consolidation of disproportionate power. What politcal liberals fail most completely to recognize is that these two strains of power-mongers have far more in common with each other (else no company would be too big to fail, would it, Martin?) than they have with the common population.
The genius of the American political system as it was designed was not that it handed power to the right people. It was that it understood the powerful could be used to counter each other's greed for even more power. Fools now take the fruits of that balance for granted, seeing only flaws, and seek to eliminate the balances that hobble those who flatter us and promise us paradise, if only we will let them lay a few chains on us.
Nothing makes you look irrelevant to the discussion and petty quite like a Nazi analogy – just fyi.
Well, not just “a mortal” – that was obvious from the start – but simply not a progressive. I think Obama has a progressive mindset in a lot of ways. He's on the liberal side of the party in his disposition. But it was always clear he did not want to govern that way. I'm amazed people have been so shocked about this.
Excellent post.
It baffles me why people are so willing to give so much power to positions that may not always be occupied by “their” people. Their response is usually something like, “we'll just have to keep finding the right people.”
Benevolent kings are always in such great supply.
While I share your appreciation for the genius of the American political system, the one disproportionate power it doesn't seem to check and balance very well is special interests. Further, I believe this failure leads to the disportionate power that Martin Brock fears.
You would prefer Lenin?
Seth,
All interests seem “special” to those who disagree with them. Has the recent (seeming) triumph of liberals abated this disproportionate access to power? No. Neither end of socialism's spectrum seems to do so. It didn't do so in the Soviet Uniton and it didn't do so in Nazi Germany. The closest a country came in modern times to eliminating such access I can see was in China under Mao. So how many interests, special and not special went to extinction to prove Mao's fealty to equanimity (and national poverty)? About 30 million, give or take.
I'll take a committment to balancing the influence of various powers within a culture, understanding that some unfairness will happen in human society. What society is really for, though, is NOT a fairness like Mao's. It is for a balance of interests that increases the general well-being of the balance of the people.
America's much-maligned system has done that for people all over the Earth.
“I'm amazed people have been so shocked about this.”
You've got to realize that mere mortals just aren't as insightful as you are. Please be merciful to plain folk who lack your near-omniscience.
If I were to suggest a revision to the Constitution's checks and balances, it would be this: If the Executive branch and one house of Congress are both dominated by one party, then the other house shall be constrained somehow to prevent steamroller activist legislation (perhaps a 4/5 majority required to pass a bill?)
But it was always clear he did not want to govern that way.
Which is why the government owns General Motors.
Excuse me? I don't live in your ideological circus, sorry. And I generally find that good points can be made without referencing Hitler or Lenin.
Ya – because it would be horrific to let the people actually govern themselves.
Look – the standard concerns about mobocracy are fine. I get that. But it's not like they've been able to shove things through. They're having trouble every step of the way. If they were slipping things through easily I might agree with you, but the friction is obviously there. I think you're just thinking short-term because you don't like what your fellow citizens are currently advocating.
All I have to say is look at the Carter administration years and I think that makes true_liberal's point. Of course that's my opinion.
How is the genius of the American political system working out? Has it restricted the greed of the powerful for even more power?
Not only is it not genius, it is mediocre. Mob rule, just like any other.
Is “thinking short term” the new buzzword meaning “not wanting my fellow citizens forcing me to do something I don't want to do”?
No. Thinking short term means he just doesn't like what's getting passed now.
Give him a libertarian president and a libertarian 3/5ths majority in Congress and see how noble and effective and consistent with the principles of self-government he thinks a 4/5ths majority is.
Mob rule like any other… Hmm. It takes a mind well schooled in philosophical blindness, or one with an historical horizon of weeks or months to make a statement like that. In fact ours is a system that took for granted a strident aversion to mob rule. Look for example at Alexis de Toqueville's glowing amazement at the America of the 1830s with a nation that seemed instinctively to form societies for every purpose, from churches to Masons to quilting guilds.
Well he might have been amazed, too. As of that time how many nations had settled into a peaceful civility after winning independence by violence? Not many, and Toqueville's own France was not, in spite of ancient pedigree and self-conscious civility, among them. Even since then only one nation has fought a war of independence and then settled into civility- Texas.
So what, you may ask. So what is the longest period Western Europe has gone without war in the last 500 years? The period since the United States established a peace there after W.W.II, and then established a protective umbrella for the region. The eruptions of brutality in eastern Europe after the fall of communism go even further to prove the point of a pax Americana. People love to suppress the things they personally dislike, as the Russians did, and then claim to have made life better, but the truth is more like such chainings of human nature make people only less able to self-govern.
Curious, you want to stamp out greed? Do as Mao did and just kill. You want to make life better for everyone? Use greed and let people know how to achieve their dreams of grandeur by the accomplishment of services and great deeds. The zeitgeist today is to squelch human nature, punish it, contain it.
That always has, and always will, lead to disaster.
I had to read that post twice, Yabbut. You're so wishy-washy that at first I thought you were implying that Hitler and Lenin had their good points.
You do know (I hope) that St Franklin of Roosevelt thought that Uncle Joe Stalin had his good points. Vice President Wallace was especially impressed with Uncle Joe's show trials.
RE: “You're so wishy-washy that at first I thought you were implying that Hitler and Lenin had their good points.”
Do people speak a different version of English on this blog? How in God's name did you come up with that?
All I want is to be left alone, to live my life as I please.
Your “genius political system” won't let me do that.
If your argument is that US democracy prevents war, I wonder what the Iraqis, or the Afghanis or the Vietnamese or… think of that?
Curious,
There is not a whit more dying or violence going on in either place than was going on before. It is simply happening out in the open where it can make people too timid to defend liberty uncomfortable.
As for being left alone, it is an effete fantasy that there has ever been a time anywhere in which people could live their lived undisturbed by some set of forces, robbers, marauding bands, wild animals, lawyers, or bureaucrats.
Sorry, I didn't realize you were a member of the church of democracy.
It is not possible to rationally argue with religious fanatics.
Sadly, that sounds like a vote for tyrrany's capacity to cover the mold of the keep with tapestries of invented reality.
How in God's name did you come up with that?
Because, 90% of your writing is a yabbut.
So, when I glanced at your post and saw you had referenced Hitler and Lenin, I had to look twice to make sure that this was a rare non-yabbut post. Congratulations for taking a stand on something.
I see! You came up with that simply because you saw that I mentioned Hitler and Lenin. Ya, that sounds about right. Par for the course at Cafe Hayek.
Bingo!
You brag about being a moderate, middle-of-the-road kinda guy. I was pleasantly surprised to see that you made an exception for those two, especially Lenin. I know how hard it is for Democrats to criticize socialists of the Communist Faith.
I'll let ya in on a little secret, Yabbut. I usually don't read your posts unless I see that someone I respect has replied to one of your yabbuts. If their reply is interesting, or just funny, then I'll scroll up and read the comment that got the fire started
How in God's name did you come up with that?
Because, 90% of your writing is a yabbut.
So, when I glanced at your post and saw you had referenced Hitler and Lenin, I had to look twice to make sure that this was a rare non-yabbut post. Congratulations for taking a stand on something.
I see! You came up with that simply because you saw that I mentioned Hitler and Lenin. Ya, that sounds about right. Par for the course at Cafe Hayek.
Bingo!
You brag about being a moderate, middle-of-the-road kinda guy. I was pleasantly surprised to see that you made an exception for those two, especially Lenin. I know how hard it is for Democrats to criticize socialists of the Communist Faith.
I'll let ya in on a little secret, Yabbut. I usually don't read your posts unless I see that someone I respect has replied to one of your yabbuts. If their reply is interesting, or just funny, then I'll scroll up and read the comment that got the fire started
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