As a follow-up to the previous article on the subject one of the commentators at Asymmetrical Information gives a very interesting defense of modern liberalism. His comments are interesting enough to warrant further analysis:
As a Democrat I completely disagree. The big idea for the Democrats is that the government should be the arbitor to level the playing field between those who have power due to market forces and those who don’t. Simply, the government should be there to help people and businesses accomplish things that are beneficial to all, when those individuals or businesses are unable to do so themselves. The government is there, because capitalism unchecked doesn’t bring the greatest good to the greatest number of people but it needs to be (dare I say the r word) regulated.
All of the various factions of the Democratic party (and I agree that there are deep divides between them) agree on that point. Labor generally wants laws to support workers’ being able to have power to bargain for a fair wage. The environmentalists want the government to counter standard market forces to include the cost we are incurring by destroying the environment. Inner city communities want the government to empower them to be able to do what they with their own monetary and family backgrounds make difficult to achieve.
Now, I’d imagine many Democrats are nodding their heads to that one. As a political philosophy, it’s rather concise. It sounds perfectly agreeable. Capitalism can be nasty, dirty, and impersonal.
The problem with that ideology is that government is nastier, dirtier, and even more impersonal. Trusting the state to “fix” the problems of capitalism is like hiring a Tyrannosaurus Rex to guard your sheep. Yes, it will probably eat some of the wolves, but also most of the sheep – and if you look at wrong, it would be perfectly content to gobble you up as well.
America was a country that was founded upon a fundamental and abiding cynicism towards governent. Our country exists because we felt we were getting taxed too much. One of the most singularly distressing things about the state of American society today is the way in which government has become excessively bloated and extremely rapacious. As Joel Miller explains in his brilliant little book Size Matters: How Big Government Puts the Squeeze on America’s Families, Finances, and Freedom (a book I can’t recommend highly enough), the Kudzu-like growth of government is one of the single biggest drags on individual freedom we have.
Liberalism takes a look at the state of government and says, “things are broken, so let’s do more.” Lyndon Johnson declared a governmental “war on poverty”. Poverty won. Bill Clinton finally bowed to the fact that welfare reform had a filibuster-proof majority and signed it into law – poverty decreased and has stayed down ever since. That isn’t to say that government is incapable of doing good – it’s just that it eats a lot of money to do a small amount of good. Furthermore, the state is in direct tension with the freedom of the individual – the more power the state has, by nature the less we have. We’ve already gone too far down the path of disempowering individuals, and as Miller documents in lurid detail, we all suffer for it.
If further pushing that balance towards the state and away from the individual is liberalism’s big idea, it’s no wonder that so many Americans view the term “liberal” as a pejorative and only a small minority of Americans self-identify themselves as liberals.
The problem with liberalism is that it has choked on its own success.
The welfare state was, in its first two decades after the war, a phenomenal success- even NRO’s curmudgeonly minarchist, John Derbyshire, admitted such in a recent column. The GI Bill. Land-grant universities. Student Aid. Medicare, Medicaid… the list of programs that educated the middle class, took the burden of caring for the elderly off of their children, provided a safety net to the unemployed and helped make an excellent standard of living available to a majority of the population for the first time… worked!
Then came civil rights, another resounding success. Then came the environmental acts of the 1970’s, which cleaned up our lakes, rivers, and air.
Liberals, left standing in the society they created, were left wondering… what happened?
What happened was they got what they wanted. And they’re afraid to admit it. Look at the state of an average lower-middle class worker these days. Grinding poverty, living in a tenement or a shack? No, living in a modest apartment with clean water and reliable electricity, with a TV, perhaps a slightly out-of-date computer, a used Chevy, access to an education at a cheap state-run university or a cheap private tech school, protected by a functional police system and court system… the list goes on. This is a standard of living that peasants in China and dalits in India would be willing to kill and die for. Or, at least, work their tail off for.
Liberals don’t realize that they won. As long as they keep trying to sell a product that they claim never worked, they’re always going to lose. (David Brin writes a lot on this subject in his blog. I highly recommend reading it.)
Bill Clinton understood this; which is why Bill Clinton, after his wife’s failed healthcare initiative, didn’t try to push through any great visions; Liberalism’s job, as far as he was concerned, was to engage in minor tweaks to make the system function better, more efficiently, and more effectively. The problem is, people don’t want a competent manager, they want a fearless leader. Clinton had enough charisma to make management look at least relatively sexy, but no other Democrat since has, which is why they’ve felt the need to propose either laundry lists of programs, or (futily) attempt to look macho (Kerry combined the worst of both worlds).
That, and while I disagree with your T-Rex analogy, government is a very inelegant tool; it’s often the equivalent of using a ball-peen hammer for brain surgery. But it’s also often all that’s available, and what works in some cases won’t work for others. I wouldn’t want to nationalize the software industry, but I don’t mind the government controlling the interstate network or the water and sewer system. Government programs also work better in different places- Sioux Falls has a better public school system than Washington, DC. Minnesota has a more flexible and responsive government than California. Why? Culture, organization, various subtle tweaks in the system, etc. And many conservatives who attack the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of various programs and bureaucracies are the first to applaud the phenomenal effectiveness of our entirely public military, the largest government agency of all. So milage may vary.
“government is nastier, dirtier, and even more impersonal.”
It certainly has the potential to if unchecked. Luckily, we have elections in America to keep government in line as best as possible. Without government as a check on market forces, the latter has the potential (indeed the inevitably) of being just as destructive as unchecked government. Free elections negate your false premise that it’s an either/or choice.
“Lyndon Johnson declared a governmental “war on povertyâ€. Poverty won”
A mind-blowingly stupid thing to say seeing as how poverty rates have fallen by half since LBJ’s declared war…..despite decades of GOP efforts to push every well-paying manufacturing job (the kind that lifted formerly poor people, especially African-Americans, out of poverty) to the Third World. Just another case of conservatives hyperempowering the private sector to do as it pleases and blaming government for the consequences…..kinda like blaming the bandage for a knife wound.
“Bill Clinton finally bowed to the fact that welfare reform had a filibuster-proof majority and signed it into law – poverty decreased and has stayed down ever since.”
Another idiotic rewrite of history. Poverty didn’t just start tracking downward in 1997. It plunged during the 30 years previous, thanks at least in part to LBJ’s reforms…..and the success of the Clinton-era economy naturally suppressed it further in the late 1990’s before most of the “welfare reform” agenda officially even kicked in. Meanwhile, in the Bush years, poverty has been ticking upward each successive year (and will continue to do so in a nation whose biggest employer is Wal-Mart), with conservatives simultaneously applauding and blaming government every step of the way.
Except we don’t elect the federal bureaucracy, almost all of whom are protected by byzantine civil service rules that drain all accountability from the system.
Poverty rates have increased/decreased based on economic growth cycles. Some of the highest poverty rates this century were during the early Clinton years, and they did recede post-1996 when welfare reform was enacted. LBJ’s “war on poverty” didn’t do anything to poverty rates, which had been trending downwards until the recessions of the mid-1970s. Here’s the graph as a PDF which shows the poverty level as well as periods of recession.
Wal-Mart is not the largest employer in the country. It is the largest private employer, but the federal government is by far the largest single employer. Wal-Mart has a total of 1.3 million employees, which is still less than 1% of the total US workforce.
Again, perhaps you should consider doing a modicum of research before spouting off a bunch of arguments that are so easily refuted?
“Except we don’t elect the federal bureaucracy, almost all of whom are protected by byzantine civil service rules that drain all accountability from the system.”
So basically all the world’s problems boil down to civil servants with collective bargaining protections? That’s your justification for why unbridled free enterprise should be permanently unchecked.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/histpov/hstpov2.html
The US Census Bureau’s statistics indicate overall poverty rates fell by less than I originally inferred since the dawn of the War on Poverty, but they nonetheless fell from near 20% to the approximate 12% range for most of the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s. Obviously there are upticks during recessions and downturns during economic growth spurts, such as the late 1990’s (again, before any time limits on welfare recipients even kicked in). The Clinton-era economy diminished poverty rates as they produced jobs in areas where jobs were previously lacking. The Federal government’s welfare reform laws had nothing to do with it. And if you’re seriously suggesting that they did, do you also conceed that they must now be classified as a failure seeing as how poverty rates have ticked upward through every year of the Bush administration?
“LBJ’s “war on poverty†didn’t do anything to poverty rates, which had been trending downwards until the recessions of the mid-1970s.”
You’re delusional. Medicare and Medicaid alone has played a huge role in diminishing poverty in America. Between 1964 and 1973, poverty rates fell from 19% to 11%, even in the midst of recessions. Basically, your premise is that when poverty rates fall after the enactment of Republican legislation, it’s the product of government policy….but when poverty rates fall after the enactment of Democratic legislation, it’s all the result of the marketplace. You can’t have it both ways.
“Wal-Mart is not the largest employer in the country. It is the largest private employer, but the federal government is by far the largest single employer. Wal-Mart has a total of 1.3 million employees, which is still less than 1% of the total US workforce.”
And virtually nobody employed by the federal government lives in poverty so you’ve inadvertantly tanked your argument. Furthermore, Wal-Mart itself is merely a spoke in the wheel of the Wal-Mart economy, forcing a race to the bottom in the entire retail sector and pressuring manufacterers to export good jobs overseas…..with the Jay Redings of the world cheering every step of the way and blaming whatever crumbs remain of the War on Poverty for the regression. Again, when you get a paper cut, do you curse out the bandage that you wrap it up with as the cause of your problems?
Nice straw man. I bet it keeps the crows away.
Read Miller’s book which goes into some detail as to why the growth of the federal bureaucracy has had a chilling effect on individual freedoms.
And they’d been falling since 1959 at an even more rapid clip. By the mid-1970s when LBJ’s “Great Society” programs were fully implemented, the poverty rate actually inched up. By late 1970s recession dramatically increased poverty, and it was only after welfare reform became law in the mid 1990s that poverty dropped significantly again.
Given that Bush inherited a nasty recession that didn’t end until 2003, no, I wouldn’t.
Clinton signed welfare reform into law, and it was spearheaded by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Last I checked, both were Democrats.
The point is that government anti-poverty programs don’t reduce poverty nearly as much as job-creation does. Poverty and economic growth are linked. Democratic policies deemphasize job creation and economic growth in favor of throwing money into programs that don’t work to reduce poverty in any significant way.
The evidence would suggest otherwise.
Except that isn’t true. Unemployment is down to 4.7% – as low as it was during the Clinton “boom” years. Economic growth remains strong.
The policies that liberals would enact are the same policies that have given European nations double-digit unemployment, anemic economic growth, abysmal productivity, and a labor system that ensures that none of those trends will reverse themselves any time soon.
And you’d respond to a paper cut by sawing off your hand, which hardly seems like a reasonable course of action.
“And they’d been falling since 1959 at an even more rapid clip.”
A direct result of union strength and a solid manufacturing economy, both of which are being undermined through your ideology.
“By late 1970s recession dramatically increased poverty, and it was only after welfare reform became law in the mid 1990s that poverty dropped significantly again.”
But wait a minute….I thought the Reagan years were productive for everybody. Your new talking points are undermining your old ones….a recurring problem with conservatives.
“Given that Bush inherited a nasty recession that didn’t end until 2003, no, I wouldn’t.”
Nice try. The “nasty recession” wasn’t even officially a recession. There were only two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth in 2001 (it takes three consecutive quarters of decline to qualify as a recession). There were blips of limited growth in 2002 and 2003, but we were not in a recession until 2003, and certainly not a “nasty” one by historical standards. If you’re gonna spread lies as easy to debunk as this one, try them on a less educated audience.
“Clinton signed welfare reform into law, and it was spearheaded by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Last I checked, both were Democrats.”
And the last I checked, Moynihan was one of 12 Democrats to vote against the welfare reform bill you claim he spearheaded. How does that work?! And yes, Clinton signed the flawed bill after multiple revisions, but ultimately it was a priority of the Republican Congress that, I repeat, had zero impact on declining poverty rates in the late 1990’s. If the same law had been tried 20 years earlier during the late 70’s recession, it would have merely resulted in higher unemployment and higher poverty. Clinton and the GOP were simply lucky enough to pass the bill at a time when there were enough jobs being created to serve those getting the boot from welfare (even though, again, that didn’t officially start happening until 2001 so your entire argument has more holes than Swiss cheese).
“Except that isn’t true. Unemployment is down to 4.7% – as low as it was during the Clinton “boom†years. Economic growth remains strong.”
Yes, there are plenty of jobs….and working people across the country have three of them….still falling short of what one manufacturing job would provide. And by the way, one out of six manufacturing jobs has been vaporized since 2000. Your inability to discern good jobs with shit jobs every time you boast about job growth statistics will be part of your party’s undoing this election cycle. People losing Delphi jobs going to work at Wal-Mart don’t care how low the unemployment rate is….they’re still seeing their quality-of-life decline.