A History Review

It's a dreary Monday here in the heartland. The skies are gray, the internet is funky, and I'm pretty sure there's a fine clinging cold mist out there attached to every surface including anyone foolish enough to go out in it.

With that in mind, I thought it worth curling up with a cup of cocoa, turning up the heat and having a brief discussion on recent history, or better, what is largely responsible for getting us in our current mess. I love history and enjoy discussing it. Of course, because it's so enjoyable, that's why there are so few good paying jobs for it, I'm guessing. Eric (catastrophile), my very worthy liberal contributor and I have started a little discussion on the 20th century and the rise of big government. I thought it worthwhile to bring it out of the comments section and into the mainstream of the blog for all to enjoy. Our last batch of comments can be seen below.

I said:

Libertarianism was quite compatible with our country, right up until the widespread introduction of socialism. The idea of self-reliance, personal responsibility in liberty, and doing for yourself were core beliefs for the earliest Americans and Americans up until the likes of Eugene V Debs. Perhaps even before him.

The problem, really, is power. Government accumulates power at the expense of the governed. The only thing that stops that is an educated, well-informed, and active populace, which is very hard to achieve and maintain. There's also government using force to grow its power, like the Civil War. The problems you speak of, where politicians play to interest groups, have likely been with us since the beginning. They have become a festering cancer, though, since the New Deal and then infiltrated most all of our culture after the "Great Society" programs.

By not only catering to special interests, but paying off the masses with inadequate and woefully inefficient government programs at the expense of individual and business economic activity, government officials and those in the corporate structure who came to depend on government subsidy or "corporate welfare" cemented themselves in positions of power.

The only question we seem to face is, do we want what's left of our freedom eroded quickly, or slowly?Libertarians may not be winning that fight right now, but we are a voice, and we at least fight. Maybe it's the whole "better to die on my feet than serve on my knees" mentality. I don't know. I just know I won't make it easy for them, and I'll let anyone else know who I can. Even a giant can die from a thousand pin pricks.

catastrophile said...

FDR's measures were a response to what had the potential to become very severe uprisings related to the Depression. And the Depression was a product of the collapse of the war economy.

Once we had opened the Pandora's Box of militarism, it was either socialism (to quell the angry mob) or fascism (to brutally enforce order), out of necessity, because the first priority of a government is always to preserve itself. And this is exactly my point. Between those two options, the people will always choose appeasement. Democracies tend toward socialism.

As long as the war machine exists as a massive, market-distorting government program, band-aids will be necessary to alleviate the pain of those market distortions -- to keep the people from becoming too angry and simply withdrawing their consent. But we can't very well dismantle the war machine, can we? Until that becomes possible (never, in all likelihood), we're stuck with this current state of affairs.

In fact, the only sustainable form of libertarian-anarchist state I can think of is the feudal monarchy, where the head of state owns everything, and therefore makes the rules, and has the requisite power to enforce those rules, typically by contracting with others to carry out his will.

With that said, we could certainly move in the right direction by removing authority from the federal government and returning it to the states -- starting with the pursestrings, the federal income tax. But I don't know if that's even possible any more.We're no longer a trade/defense alliance, we're a nation, one people, with one government and a bunch of withering administrative bodies which will be totally irrelevant before too long.

And this is why I remain a liberal, in spite of everything.

and he also said...

To clarify, though I believe in libertarian principles, I think that their "proponents" in what passes for our political mainstream aren't really interested in shrinking government or reducing interference, but in redirecting Leviathan to serve their ends, while the rest of us pay for it. So I can't get on board with what's called conservatism today. The Reeps currently in charge, for example, obviously don't have any problem with wealth-redistribution programs. They just favor a different distribution pattern that the socialists before them.

And now my retort. In regards to FDR's policies, most were ailing, poorly-initiated badly-planned and executed Hoover ideas in Hoover's vain attempt to help control the economy. Calvin Coolidge had not that many years before faced an economic downturn almost identical to the one Hoover faced. His response was to cut taxes, cut the federal budget and do nothing. The economy, not surprisingly, recovered. A combination of devastating tarriffs and higher taxes to run massively inefficient government programs led to the Great Depression and to even intimate FDR's policies did anything more than minor good on a small scale is incorrect.

So Coolidge faced the same situation and solved it in a year, but FDR follows with full-scale socialism and the economy doesn't get fixed (and gets worse) during his entire presidency but the New Deal is seen as successful? Sounds like the same logic used by those who advocate that if the Soviet Union had just had a few more years and less trouble from the US it would have achieved true worker's paradise.

Getting back from my tangent (sorry), to sum up that point, the "War Economy" was long surpassed by that point and several presidents had weathered the post-war period just fine. The post-war period had little do do with the Great Depression and bad economic policies by idealists who thought they could control free markets had almost everything to do with it.

I wouldn't say either that the two options were either facism or socialism either. One is more enforced than the other, but both basically exist on planned-economies and are almost "Communist lite" in their philosophy. History has shown that if you put men in bondage and put a select few in power, economies sink. If you allow men to thrive and be free, economically, morally and physically, economies in general thrive. Please point me to where a socialist economy is thriving and a more-capitalist style economy is sinking given those conditions.

No small cabal can ever hope to wield power over a global or even national market system and not make huge mistakes. It is inevitable. Market forces require small-scale leadership in order to meet challenges and thrive. If you have to wait months or years for a directive (5-year plan anyone?), your economy will falter and eventually die, leading to that anarchy and "only the strong survive" mentality. I want neither.

Yes, one could argue that the priority of government is to preserve itself and its power and that modern governments learned quickly that if they wanted to increase their power base they would have to provide their own opiate to the masses. They managed this in part by a huge entitlement scam that robs from those who work and gives to those who don't. This is fundamental Marxism and also fundamental bs. Those who object are demonized for being uncaring to the poor and the rest are kept so busy working that there is little incentive to object. "You can't fight City Hall" is practically taught in elementary and high schools. The choices to this are to roll over and take it up the tail pipe or call the government on their schemes and attempt to right them. If one were to assume such an effort was futile even though they disliked it, then I'd have to ask what was keeping that person from eating a bullet. We struggle or die, whether it's versus the state or each other and in struggle we can mostly prosper or all perish.

Our "military-industrial complex" is a stickler in that equation no matter what you do. It's an industry that has built up for the purpose of making wars and one could argue it's good for their business for there to be war. The argument was made with vietnam, although a failed President who had no idea how to win a war was largely to blame for creating a seller's market for limited global warfare. The argument was made for the Cold War, but mostly by anti-war left and almost exclusively Marxist groups like ANSWER. In those cases, the arguments faltered because of their bias in favor of the military war machine of the Soviets.

I can't say I've been fond of the fact that we have such a huge defense budget, but one of the primary purposes, one of the few purposes of our Constitutionally mandated federal government is to defend and protect the states and the people. Part of the existence of such a budget in our current world exists because the United States is arguably the most successful economic power on the planet. Sitting on that stool leaves a lot of nations, most much less free economically and politically who would seek to profit from a slip or knock the US off. Taken in a real-world setting and not in a vaccuum, the military power is sadly needed. Should we force project as we do? That's an argument for another time. Should we have the force that we have? Possibly. Do I think the military is doing the job that it should be doing? Not entirely.

Again, bearing all that in mind and returning from yet another tangent, I'm not crazy about the size of the military industrial complex, but it's gone hand in hand with the size of our economy. I want better accountability. I want greater efficiency and I will fight against the wind if necessary to make those in power bend their ear this way, but I don't believe it in itself is evil. I've listened to 15 years of conspiracy theories and Marxist dogma and haven't come up with a favorable argument to the contrary regarding the existence or growth MI complex. Nothing in our current world position is gonna put that dog on a leash.

Feudal monarchies were not about contracting with the people. Feudal monarchies offered the notion that the individual had no rights in that society and that they owed everything to the sovereign and survived by his leave. In many cases, the individual did not have the choice to pick up and go if he didn't like his liege's rules. His choice was serve or die. I would argue that the tree of Marxism found its root in individuals who wanted the power of the monarchs for themselves or felt they knew how to best apply it. Feudal governments have nothing to do with libertarianism and everything to do with poor communications and weak economic structure in a dangerous environment. We still see this a lot in Africa and Asia.

We definitely agree on the elimination of the federal income tax as a key turning point in the power of the individuals and the states in restoring themselves and in restoring the power of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. Government's bloated trough has to be emptied if we plan on any legitimate attempt to curb federal power. That states have been withered by this and other usurpations by the federal government, but I would hardly call them obsolete. Local control is the best control and the most efficient, and if this argument can be successfully made, there's still hope.

Also, we haven't been a trade alliance since the Constitution was written, and barely before then. The idea of local power over regional power meant greater accountability as the ruling class is that much closer and that much more accountable. This is not so much the case anymore, as you note, but it still could be. Again, if we simply say it cannot, then what's the point of any of this on the left or the right? It's just a matter of fighting red in tooth and claw for your little bit of the wealth redistribution. Currently, and likely for the forseeable future, that's not for me. I'll take the fight, thanks. And that's why I remain a libertarian with strong conservative leanings.

The final thought you had, about the current dominant parties doing what they do... I don't consider either "conservative". They're not operating in the philosophies of Goldwater or Reagan. It's all about power with them, power flowing from a major money well. Neither side is innocent, although I would note the Republicans are only now, as they've had a few years of full power, fully realizing their potential for this corruption. The Democrats not only mastered it during their reign in Congress and the White House, but they want it back so badly they're willing to make no secret of their naked desire in front of anyone who will listen.

Perhaps that's why I'm still a Libertarian, big "L" as well...