Mencken on Merchants of Idiotic Ideas

by Don Boudreaux on March 3, 2010

in Health,Hubris and humility,Man of System

Last night, driving back from teaching my wonderful Principles of Microeconomics students, I heard on a DC radio station an interview with an aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi approvingly repeat Pres. Obama’s insistence that, once those Americans who now oppose Obamacare actually get that care, they’ll grow to love it.

This outcome is unlikely – or, rather, it would be unlikely if all the problems with collective decision-making (as identified by public-choice economics) didn’t distort political perceptions.

As H.L. Mencken observed

The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.*

Being sensible, sensible ideas seldom must be imposed by force.  Sometimes sensible ideas are adopted gradually, as practices with widespread advantages displace less-advantageous practices and become part of customary behavior.  Sometimes sensible ideas are adopted consciously and quickly, through the art of persuasion or the rigors of scientific demonstration.

In contrast, idiotic ideas have nothing going for them.  Most people who voluntarily adopt idiotic ideas in their private lives soon abandon them if these ideas hamper their ability to thrive in the real world.  The only way to implement an idiotic idea widely and surely is through force – which is the root of Obamacare.

….

*p. 622 of A Mencken Chrestomathy

View Comments    Share Share    Print Print    Email Email

  • Floccina
    Obama’s insistence that, once those Americans who now oppose Obamacare actually get that care, they’ll grow to love it.

    I think that the above statement is true but would add the well informed will hate it.
  • vikingvista
    Where piracy flourishes, the pirates, and the merchants they buy from, are usually quite happy.
  • GBYehuda
    OK. The problem here is that the central thesis is false on its face. "Being sensible, sensible ideas seldom must be imposed by force," Don writes. This is simply not so.

    Take seatbelts. It took a law to get most people to wear them. Repbulicans, btw, fought that law tooth and nail as an unwarranted invasion of our privacy.

    At its most extreme, how about the abolition of slavery? Was that not imposed by force? Is that not a sensible idea? (and to the poster who said that Jim Crow laws were legislated into existence, that was done to codify extant behavior, just as laws permitting slavery were done to exempt that behavior from prosecution.)

    In the middle, look at clean air and water regulations. I think it's pretty sensible not to dump carcinogenic pollutants into towns' drinking water. So sensible that you'd think laws banning the dumping of carcinogenic pollutants into towns' drinking water would be laughably unnecessary. And yet. . .
  • Being sensible, sensible ideas seldom must be imposed by force.

    Seldom is not the same as never.
  • CRC
    "Take seatbelts. It took a law to get most people to wear them. Repbulicans, btw, fought that law tooth and nail as an unwarranted invasion of our privacy."

    And rightly I would say.

    MY problem here is the nanny-esque idea that sensible idea MUST be imposed on others for their own good. Yuck.

    As to the specific example you provided, seatbelts:

    In my state they've made seatbelt wearing a PRIMARY offense which means the police can pull you over for not wearing one. No word on how exactly a police officer would actually be able to SEE whether you are or not in most normal driving situations, which leads me to suspect this has become an opening to pull someone over "because I SUSPECTED he wasn't wearing his seatbelt" and once you're pulled over we now have an opening for further police investigation into you, your car, etc.
  • CRC
    Don, I wish I could agree with you on this. Unfortunately my experience and observations lead me to believe that idiotic ideas are very often, at least at the governmental level, accepted and even cheered by the populous. Similarly, sensible ideas (especially those which at first seem counter-intuitive or otherwise non-obvious) are very often dismissed or actively opposed by the populous.

    Personally I attribute this dysfunction to a population that is largely ignorant (and I use that in the proper meaning of the word...not "stupid" as some people think), irrational/illogical (lacking the ability or failing to use logical reasoning) and emotional.
  • vikingvista
    I think his point is not that idiotic ideas aren't popular. It is that it takes the gun of state to make people continue to follow them long after they've been exposed.
  • Randy
    Certainly much of the population is ignorant, but I do not see that this ignorance can translate directly into social dysfunction without the activity of politicians - i.e., without those who possess the desire and the ability to translate ignorance into exploitation. The ignorant individual is only an accident waiting to happen. It is only when organized that these become a catastrophe waiting to happen.
  • Randy
    As long as the political class relies (almost exclusively) on the use of force, there is no way for them to prove that what they do has value (to anyone but themselves). Yes, they can claim it (many of the longest, dullest, books in all of history consist of nothing but such claims), but they can't prove it.
  • vikingvista
    That is precisely why militant statists get out in front advocating vociferously for democracy. They can achieve their ends if they can impose them on a succession of carefully carved out one-time minority stepping stones, but not if they cannot impose them on anyone.
  • Prince Aple
    Sensible ideas like ending slavery or ending Jim Crow were imposed by force. Some disagree that this was the proper way of doing it but it did happen. By saying "sensible ideas seldom must be imposed by force" you give yourself some wiggle room to possibly side with such an occurence. But you also give the aide to Pelosi wiggle room for their statist agenda as well.
  • vikingvista
    Jim Crow laws. Laws. As in legislation. As in rules forced upon a population by a government. Apparently because the sensible ideas of people left to themselves were not resulting in sufficient segregation to suit the government-backed merchants of idiotic ideas of the time.
  • Don Boudreaux
    Jim Crow was imposed by force -- it was legislated into existence.
  • txslr
    As was slavery.
  • Manfred
    I (partially) agree with Justin Kraus. If Obamacare passes (as it seems that it will), Americans will come to live with it, they may not love it, but they will live with it and tolerate it. That is what Nancy Pelosi is [very rightly so] counting on. It will never be reversed; no politician will ever, ever, risk his or her own future in proposing a reversal. Just like with Social Security and Medicare. It is not clear that Americans "love" Social Security. But they certainly are willing to live with it, have its alleged "security" and whoever proposes to change it or [God forbid!] eliminate it, commits political suicide.
    Same story with Obamacare, same movie, with the same ending. Americans will not vote to change or eliminate it.
  • vikingvista
    They're willing tolerate it as long as it isn't funded. Don't be so sure when the bill comes due. Tomorrow's MC/SS will not resemble today's.
  • Manfred
    The problem is that I am not sure that the bill will come due.
    They [economists, like Kotlikoff etc] say yes, it will, but I dunno.
    Politicians will always find a trick from their hat to roll it over to "tomorrow". That's what they always do, and, sad to say, the American electorate gets along with it, seemingly very happily.
  • vikingvista
    If that were possible, then it would be hard to argue against it. I never turn down a free lunch. But I think it is fair to say that MC will never be more than 100% of GDP, so the cost curve will bend, and the piper will be paid. And people will not be happy about it.
  • I wouldn't be too optimistic. My bet is that if healthcare passes the American people will (sadly) come to love it.
  • become dependent on it.

    That's the goal, progressives want people to be dependent upon government because the people can steer it collectively right off the fiscal cliff.
  • vikingvista
    Coming to love it, and deathly fearing its loss, are not the same thing.
  • Randy
    Exactly. Social Security was designed with the idea of making it unendable in mind. But while they made it politically unendable, they failed to realize that it could be easily ended by bankruptcy on the one hand, or inflated away to the point of meaninglessness on the other.
  • JohnK
    People shouting "Get your government hands off my Medicare" come to mind.
    Social Security and Medicare are very popular, as I'm sure Obamacare should it pass will also be quite popular. Why shouldn't a program where you get more than you pay in not be popular?
    If programs are to be measured by popularity alone, then Medicare is the best thing our government ever did.

    Madoff was quite popular as well.
    We all know how that story ended, and our government Ponzi schemes will have a similar ending.
  • vidyohs
    I admire Mencken's wit, the man had a talent for speaking profound truths in short simple sentences.

    However, idiotic ideas do not always have to be imposed, nor are they necessarily abandoned once they have been shown not to work.

    The idiotic ideas of socialism have to be imposed as policy for intelligent and ambitious people to conform to their dictates; but, they don't have to be imposed for weak, insecure, lazy, ignorant, and intellectually deficient people to believe them and yearn for their imposition as policy.

    As proof of that we have our own sterling example here, muirduck. Not the only example available to us by any means, but one that intrudes his nonsense here regularly.
  • baltimorepete
    Dude. He's not even here. What's wrong with you?

    Anyway, the point is the idiotic ideas are the only ones that require the use of force to enact. Mostly because they are the only ones that aren't a product of spontaneous order. They don't appeal to people on a lower level before taking the grand stage.
  • vidyohs
    What's wrong with me? What is right with me is that I used a reference point that the vast majority of the Cafe patrons will recognize and relate to. What's wrong with you that you didn't understand that intuitively?

    And, I think that if you read Don's post again you'll see that he did make the point that idiotic ideas are most likely to be abandoned when they run up against reality. That was the part of the post that you must have missed.

    And, yes, socialism does seem to appeal on a lower level (how could it not? Something for nothing, sounds pretty good when you're going to be on the receiving end.) and seeks to gain a place on that grand stage.
  • baltimorepete
    I understand your arguments against socialism. I, in fact, agree with them. I don't understand why you feel the need to take a shot at muirgeo in every other post, regardless of whether or not he's commented on the blog that day. Really, it just looks silly and desperate.
  • vidyohs
    Did you not understand this?

    "What is right with me is that I used a reference point that the vast majority of the Cafe patrons will recognize and relate to. What's wrong with you that you didn't understand that intuitively?"

    Pretty damn plain language and explanation.

    Socialist idiots like muirduck are dangerous. Perhaps not to Don, Russ, myself, Brotio, Sam, Methinks, Mesa E.G., JohnK, Randy, Indiana Jim, and others too numerous to list; but those socialist idiots are dangerous to the young, ignorant, and uneducated.

    I sat in a meeting of 50 plus young students at St. Thomas U. here in Houston responding to men like muirduck, with chants of "We must kill capitalism".

    Now do you want more of an explanation than that for why I pass no opportunity to hammer socialism as represented here most prominently and consistently by muirduck, and muirduck for representing socialism.

    A thing so blatantly obvious should not have to be explained to an intelligent man.

    To drive the point home even farther, taking your wimpy complaint to its logical conclusion would mean that I couldn't criticize Obama, Nancy, or harry unless they too were present in the conversation.

    I hope you do see how ridiculous that is.
  • baltimorepete
    "I hope you do see how ridiculous that is."

    Ridiculous? What's ridiculous?

    "Socialist idiots like muirduck are dangerous. Perhaps not to Don, Russ, myself, Brotio, Sam, Methinks, Mesa E.G., JohnK, Randy, Indiana Jim, and others too numerous to list; but those socialist idiots are dangerous to the young, ignorant, and uneducated."

    Ah, now I get it. Ridiculous IS the apt word.
  • vidyohs
    Yeah "dude",yawn:
    this is ridiculous:

    "To drive the point home even farther, taking your wimpy complaint to its logical conclusion would mean that I couldn't criticize Obama, Nancy, or harry unless they too were present in the conversation."

    But, you knew that.

    Kumbaya "dude", Kumbaya.
  • JohnK
    I wouldn't limit that to Obamacare.
    I think of most politicians as that annoying neighbor who is always giving unwanted advice.
    Miffed that you don't voluntarily adopt their idiotic ideas, they seek public office.
    Then you have no choice, because what was once a suggestion is now law.
blog comments powered by Disqus

Previous post:

Next post: