Independence Day 2016: The Way Ahead

Prudence…will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations…reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.… [A]nd such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history…is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

Declaration of Independence
(In Congress. July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration
of the thirteen united States of America)

* * *

It is fitting, in this summer of discontent, to be faced with a choice between the spiritual descendants of P.T. Barnum and Lady Macbeth. Washington, Jefferson, and Madison are spinning in their graves, at high velocity.

The candidacies of Trump and Clinton are symptoms of the looming demise of liberty in the United States. There hasn’t been a candidate since Ronald Reagan who actually understood and believed that Americans would be freer and therefore more prosperous if the central government were contained within the four corners of the Constitution. (And even Reagan had a soft spot in his heart for Social Security.) Nevertheless, it is appalling but unsurprising that liberty’s end is in sight just 27 years after Reagan left office.

What went wrong? And how did it go wrong so quickly? Think back to 1928, when Americans were more prosperous than ever and the GOP had swept to its third consecutive lopsided victory in a presidential race. All it took to snatch disaster from the jaws of delirium was a stock-market crash in 1929 (fueled by the Fed) that turned into a recession that turned into a depression (also because of the Fed). The depression became the Great Depression, and it lasted until the eve of World War II, because of the activist policies of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt, which suppressed recovery instead of encouraging it. There was even a recession (1937-38) within the depression, and the national unemployment rate was still 15 percent in 1940. It took the biggest war effort in the history of the United States to bring the unemployment rate back to its pre-depression level.

From that relatively brief but deeply dismal era sprang a new religion: faith in the central government to bring peace and prosperity to the land. Most Americans of the era — like most human beings of every era — did not and could not see that government is the problem, not the solution. Victory in World War II, which required central planning and a commandeered economy, helped to expunge the bitter taste of the Great Depression. And coming as it did on the heels of the Great Depression, reinforced the desperate belief — shared by too many Americans — that salvation is to be found in big government.

The beneficial workings of the invisible hand of competitive cooperation are just too subtle for most people to grasp. The promise of a quick fix by confident-sounding politicians is too alluring. FDR became a savior-figure because he talked a good game and was an inspiring war leader, though he succumbed to pro-Soviet advice.

With war’s end, the one-worlders and social engineers swooped on a people still jittery about the Great Depression and fearful of foreign totalitarianism. (The native-born variety was widely accepted because of FDR’s mythic status.) Schools and universities became training grounds for the acolytes of socialism and amoral internationalism.

Warren Henry is right when he says that

progressivism is…broadly accepted by the American public, inculcated through generations of progressive dominance of education and the media (whether that media is journalism or entertainment). Certainly Democrats embrace it. Now the political success of Donald J. Trump has opened the eyes of the Right to the fact that Republicans largely accept it….

Republicans have occasionally succeeded in slowing the rate at which America has become more progressive. President Reagan was able to cut income tax rates and increase defense spending, but accepted tax increases to kick the can on entitlements and could not convince a Democratic Congress to reduce spending generally. Subsequent administrations generally have been worse. A Republican Congress pressured Bill Clinton into keeping his promise on welfare reform after two vetoes. He did so during a period when the end of the Cold War and the revenues from the tech bubble allowed Washington to balance budgets on the Pentagon’s back. Unsurprisingly, welfare reform has eroded in the ensuing decades.

Accordingly, the big picture remains largely unchanged. Entitlements are not reformed, let alone privatized. To the contrary, Medicare was expanded during a GOP administration, if less so than it would have been under a Democratic regime…. Programs are almost never eliminated, let alone departments.

The Right also loses most cultural battles, excepting abortion and gun rights. Notably, the inroads on abortion may be due as much to the invention and deployment of the sonogram as the steadfastness of the pro-life movement. Otherwise, political and cultural progressivism has been successful in their march through the institutions, including education, religion, and the family.

Curricula increasingly conform to the progressive fashions of the moment, producing generations of precious snowflakes unequipped even to engage in the critical thinking public schools claim to prioritize over an understanding of the ages of wisdom that made us a free and prosperous people. Church membership and attendance continues their long-term decline. A country that seriously debated school prayer 30 years ago now debates whether Christians must be forced to serve same-sex weddings.

Marriage rates continue their long-term decline. Divorce rates have declined from the highs reached during the generation following the sexual revolution, but has generally increased over the course of the century during which progressivism has taken hold (despite the declining marriage rate). Those advocating reform of the nation’s various no-fault divorce laws are few and generally considered fringe.

There’s more, but disregard Henry’s reification of America when he should write “most Americans”:

Meanwhile, America has voted for decade after decade of tax-and-spend, borrow-and-spend, or some hybrid of the two. If the white working class is now discontented with the government’s failure to redress their grievances, this is in no small part due to the ingrained American expectation that government will do so, based on the observation that government typically hungers to increase government dependency (not that the white working class would use these terms).…

In sum, while it is correct to note that elites are not doing their jobs well, it is more difficult to conclude that elites have not been responding to the political demands of the American public as much as they have driven them.…

The presidential nominees our two major parties have chosen are largely viewed as awful. But Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump offer two slightly different versions of the same delusion: that progressivism works, if only the elites were not so stupid. This delusion is what most Americans currently want to believe.

Sad but disastrously true. Dependency on government has become deeply ingrained in the psyche of most Americans. As Timothy Taylor points out,

[g]overnment in the United States, especially at the federal level, has become more about transfer payments and less about provision of goods and services.…

[There has been an] overall upward rise [of transfer payments] in the last half-century from 5% of GDP back in the 1960s to about 15% of GDP in the last few years….

The political economy of such a shift is simple enough: programs that send money to lots of people tend to be popular. But I would hypothesize that this ongoing shift not only reflects voter preferences, but also affect how Americans tend to perceive the main purposes of the federal government. Many Americans have become more inclined to think of federal budget policy not in terms of goods or services or investments that it might perform, but in terms of programs that send out checks.

What lies ahead? Not everyone is addicted to government. There are millions of Americans who want less of it — a lot less — rather than more of it. Here, with some revisions and an addition, are options I spelled out three years ago:

1. Business as usual — This will lead to more and more government control of our lives and livelihoods, that is, to less and less freedom and prosperity (except for our technocratic masters, of course).

2. Rear-guard action — This option is exemplified by the refusal of some States to expand Medicaid and to establish insurance exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. This bit of foot-dragging doesn’t cure the underlying problem, which is accretion of illegitimate power by the central government. Further, it can be undone by fickle voters and fickle legislatures, as they succumb to the siren-call of “free” federal funds.

3. Geographic sorting — The tendency of “Blue” States to become “bluer” and “Red” States to become “redder” suggests that Americans are sorting themselves along ideological lines. As with rear-guard action, however, this tendency — natural and laudable as it is — doesn’t cure the underlying problem: the accretion of illegitimate power by the central government. Lives and livelihoods in every State, “Red” as well as “Blue,” are controlled by the edicts of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the central government. There is little room for State and local discretion. Moreover, much of the population shift toward “Red” must be understood as opportunistic (e.g., warmer climates, right-to-work laws) and not as an endorsement of “Red” politics.

4. Civil disobedience — Certainly called for, but see options 5, 6, and 7.

5. Underground society and economy — Think EPA-DOL-FBI-IRS-NSA, etc., etc., and then dismiss this as a serious option for most Americans.

6. The Benedict Option, about which Bruce Frohnen writes:

[Rod] Dreher has been writing a good deal, of late, about what he calls the Benedict Option, by which he means a tactical withdrawal by people of faith from the mainstream culture into religious communities where they will seek to nurture and strengthen the faithful for reemergence and reengagement at a later date….

The problem with this view is that it underestimates the hostility of the new, non-Christian society [e.g., this and this]….

Leaders of this [new, non-Christian] society will not leave Christians alone if we simply surrender the public square to them. And they will deny they are persecuting anyone for simply applying the law to revoke tax exemptions, force the hiring of nonbelievers, and even jail those who fail to abide by laws they consider eminently reasonable, fair, and just.

7. A negotiated partition of the country — An unlikely option (discussed in this post and in some of the posted linked to therein) because, as discussed in option 6, “Blue” will not countenance the loss of control over millions of lives and livelihoods.

8. Secession — This is legal and desirable — as long as the New Republic of free states is truly free — but (a) it is likely to be met with force and therefore (b) unlikely to attract a critical mass of States.

9. Coup — Suggested several years ago by Thomas Sowell:

When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.

Glenn Reynolds, who is decidedly anti-coup, writes

that the American Constitution, along with traditional American political culture in general, tends to operate against those characteristics, and to make the American polity more resistant to a coup than most. It is also notable, however, that some changes in the Constitution and in political culture may tend to reduce that resistance….

The civics-book statement of American government is that Congress passes laws that must be signed by the president (or passed over a veto), and that those laws must be upheld by thejudiciary to have effect. In practice, today’s government operates on a much more fluid basis, with administrative agencies issuing regulations that have the force of law – or, all too often, “guidance” that nominally lacks the force of law but that in practice constitutes a command – which are then enforced via agency proceedings.…

[I]t seems likely that to the extent that civilians, law enforcement, and others become used to obeying bureaucratic diktats that lack a clear basis in civics-book-style democratic process, the more likely they are to go along with other diktats emanating from related sources. This tendency to go along with instructions without challenging their pedigree would seem to make a coup more likely to succeed, just as a tendency to question possibly unlawful or unconstitutional requirements would tend to make one less likely to do so. A culture whose basis is “the law is what the bureaucrats say it is, at least unless a court says different,” is in a different place than one whose starting impulse is “it’s a free country.”…

[P]ersistent calls for a government-controlled “Internet kill switch”49 – justified, ostensibly, by the needs of cyberdefense or anti-terrorism – could undercut that advantage [of a decentralized Internet]. If whoever controlled the government could shut down the Internet, or, more insidiously, filter its content to favor the plotters’ message and squelch opposition while presenting at least a superficial appearance of normality, then things might actually be worse than they were in [Fletcher Knebel and Charles Bailey’s Seven Days in May, which imagined an attempted coup by a Curtis LeMay-like general].…

[T]he most significant barrier to a coup d’etat over American history has probably stemmed simply from the fact that such behavior is regarded as un-American. Coups are for banana republics; in America we don’t do that sort of thing. This is an enormously valuable sentiment, so long as the gap between “in America” and “banana republics” is kept sufficiently broad. But it is in this area, alas, that I fear we are in the worst shape. When it comes to ideological resistance to coups d’etat, there are two distinct groups whose opinions matter: The military, and civilians. Both are problematic….

[T]here are some troubling trends in civilian/military relations that suggest that we should be more worried about this subject in the future than we have been in the past…

Among these concerns are:

A “societal malaise,” with most Americans thinking that the country was on “the wrong track.”

A “deep pessimism about politicians and government after years of broken promises,” leading to an “environment of apathy” among voters that scholars regard as a precursor to a coup.

A strong belief in the effectiveness and honor of the military, as contrasted to civilian government.

The employment of military forces in non-military missions, from humanitarian aid to drug interdiction to teaching in schools and operating crucial infrastructure.

The consolidation of power within the military – with Congressional approval – into a small number of hands….

A reduction in the percentage of the officer corps from places outside the major service academies.…

A general insulation of the military from civilian life…. “Military bases, complete with schools, churches, stores, child care centers, and recreational areas, became never-to-be-left islands of tranquility removed from the chaotic crime-ridden environment outside the gates…. Thus, a physically isolated and intellectually alienated officer corps was paired with an enlisted force likewise distanced from the society it was supposed to serve [quoting from an essay by Charles J. Dunlap, “The Origins Of The American Military Coup of 2012,” Parameters, Winter, 1992-93, at 2]….

[D]istrust in the civilian government and bureaucracy is very high. A 2016 Associated Press/National Opinion Research Center poll found that more than 6 in 10 Americans have “only slight confidence – or none at all” that the federal government can successfully address the problems facing the nation. And, as the AP noted, this lack of confidence transcends partisan politics: “Perhaps most vexing for the dozen or so candidates vying to succeed President Barack Obama, the poll indicates widespread skepticism about the government’s ability to solve problems, with no significant difference in the outlook between Republicans and Democrats.”

As a troubling companion to this finding, the YouGov poll on military coups…also found a troubling disconnect between confidence in civilian government and confidence in the military: “Some 71% said military officers put the interests of the country ahead of their own interests, while just 12% thought the same about members of Congress.” While such a sharp contrast in views about civilian government and the military is not itself an indicator of a forthcoming coup, it is certainly bad news. Also troubling are polls finding that a minority of voters believes that the United States government enjoys the consent of the governed.63 This degree of disconnection and disaffection, coupled with much higher prestige on the part of the military, bodes ill.

Or well, if you believe that a coup is the only possible salvation from despotism.

Military personnel (careerists, in particular) are disciplined, have direct access to the tools of power, and many of them are trained in clandestine operations. Therefore, a cadre of properly motivated careerists might possess the wherewithal necessary to seize power. But a plot to undertake a coup is easily betrayed. (Among other things, significant numbers of high-ranking officers are shills for the regulatory-welfare state.) And a coup, if successful, might deliver us from a relatively benign despotism into a decidedly malign despotism.

But unless there is a negotiated partition of the country — perhaps in response to a serious secession movement — a coup is probably the only hope for the restoration of liberty under a government that is true to the Constitution.

The alternative is a continuation of America’s descent into despotism, which — as many Americans already know — is no longer the “soft” despotism foreseen by Tocqueville.

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Related posts (in addition to those linked to throughout this one):
The Real Constitution and Civil Disobedience
A Declaration of Independence
A Declaration of Civil Disobedience
The States and the Constitution
And many more here

Winners and Losers

Steven Landsburg has a provocative post. His point seems to be that those who focus on the “losers” from free trade “want us to conclude either that free trade is not a good thing, or that at the very least, the winners should compensate the losers.”

Landsburg continues:

This strikes me as an extraordinarily dishonest way of arguing, because pretty much nobody ever argues this way about anything else, even though every policy change in history has created both winners and losers. In fact, every human action has both winners and losers. When Archie takes Betty instead of Veronica to the ice cream shoppe instead of the movies, both Veronica and the theater owner lose out. It does not follow that all human actions are wrong, or immoral, or should be discouraged by law, and it does not follow that all human actions should be followed by compensation to the losers.

What I object to — aside from Landsburg’s habitual use of “us,” which suggests some kind of collective consciousness at work — is his unfortunate, if inadvertent, endorsement of the idea that every human action has both winners and losers. “Winner” and “loser” are terms that properly apply to persons who are engaged in some kind of contest or bet. The rest — which includes just about everything — is just life. Stuff happens: Veronica doesn’t go the movies with Archie; American steelworkers lose jobs; dinosaurs become extinct.

Except when government is involved. Government action changes the natural course of human events, the course that they would take in a society that is bound by shared beliefs, language, and customs (or norms). A government of a relatively small or close-knit geopolitcal entity may act in accordance with and reinforce societal norms, but the governance of the United States has long since become something else: a set of interlocking dictatorial regimes (federal, State, and local) bent on enforcing rules designed on high, sometimes with the intention of favoring specific groups. Those specific groups have something that the ruling caste wants: money, influence, and votes.

Government acts legitimately only when it does things that would be done by a cohesive social group. Self-defense is one of those things. When government wages war in defense of its citizens, it has a claim to legitimacy — though the soundness of the claim depends on the necessity of the war and the skill and efficiency with which it is waged. When government executes murderers it legitimately exacts justice and deters more murders — though the soundness of the claim depends on the swiftness and fairness with which executions occur. A foreign enemy isn’t a loser, he’s an enemy. An executed murderer isn’t a loser, he’s a recipient of justice.

But beyond defense, justice, and the even-handed representation of Americans’ interests in foreign capitals, there is nothing that government can claim as a legitimate function. Government’s forays into welfare, for example, are destructive of private charity and go far beyond what a well-functioning social group would allow, in that they discourage work and saving. Social Security and Medicare, for example, don’t just mimic private charity toward the poorest and sickest of the elderly population, they benefit even the the wealthiest and healthiest of Americans. Social Security benefits and the market value of Medicare (as insurance) can easily raise a retired couple’s effective income from, say, $250,000 to $300,000 or $325,000. That’s not charity, it’s middle-class and upper-middle-class welfare. (I don’t mean to suggest that the wealthiest should be forced to subsidize everyone else; that’s a socially and economically destructive idea that I’ll not bother to discuss here.)

There’s much more to government than spending, of course, There’s also the vast web of regulations that has been spun by government at all levels. Regulations alter the course of social and economic intercourse, as they are meant to do. The justification is usually either “for your own good” or “for the good of group X.” In any event, social norms and incentives to work and save are subverted by those who believe, wrongly, that they can subvert those norms and incentives without inviting unintended consequences. The Great Recession, for example, was caused by regulation, not deregulation.

It has come to pass that many of government’s fiscal and regulatory interventions are rationalized as efforts to “level the playing” field and compensate “losers” for the “unfair” advantages enjoyed by “winners.” But such language masks a presumption that there are better social and economic arrangements and better outcomes — which, of course, are known to those who use such language. This is called the nirvana fallacy, the invalid comparison of imperfect reality to imagined perfection.

It therefore surprises me that Steven Landsburg, who is super-rational and a stickler for accuracy, would invoke “winners” and “losers.” To do so lends aid and comfort to the proponents of social and economic engineering.

It might be said, with some justice, that government interventions create winners and losers. But what those interventions really create are dependents and victims. The dependents are the tens of millions of Americans who rely on government welfare and government grants of privilege (e.g., affirmative action, regulatory protection from competition, subsidized loans). The victims are the tens of millions of Americans who pay directly for such privileges (e.g., high marginal tax rates, regulatory infringements on liberty, suppression of free speech and association, theft of property rights), and the 300-million-plus whose income is far less than it would be in the absence of fiscal and regulatory interventions, which are damaging to economic growth.

A person who earns an honest living as an investment banker, baseball player, or movie star and makes millions of dollars a year isn’t a winner, in the proper sense of the word, he’s just being rewarded according to the value placed on his efforts by those who pay for them. A person who earns a pittance because he’s an illegal immigrant who can’t speak English and has no particular skills isn’t a loser, he’s just being rewarded according to the value placed on his efforts by those who pay for them. Veronica isn’t a loser because Archie prefers Betty, she’s just another beautiful girl who can probably land someone better looking and richer than Archie. The theater owner isn’t a loser because Archie doesn’t take Veronica to the movies, he’s just another businessman who’s in the wrong business if the loss of two customers for one night is a big deal.

Let’s get real and quit calling people winners and losers when they’re not playing games or making bets. Let’s get real and start talking about those who are dependent on government and those who are its victims, which is just about everyone but the politicians and bureaucrats who feast at the public trough.

And, yes, I do mean to say that most of the dependents and enablers of big government are its victims. Such are the wages of social dissolution and economic ignorance.

Now for Texit, and More

Unless the parliament of the so-called United Kingdom double-crosses the majority of English, Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish voters who approved Brexit, the UK will officially withdraw from the European Union. That’s good news for those of us who oppose dictatorship by distant bureaucrats.

There’s a parallel movement known as Texit, which is dedicated to the secession of Texas from the union known as the United States. Some backers of Texit believe wrongly that the Treaty of Annexation which made Texas a State has an escape clause. It doesn’t, but secession is nevertheless legal, not only for Texas but for all States.

It is telling — and encouraging — that even Donald Trump, the non-conservative and weak prospective GOP nominee, seems likely (at this date) to win the electoral votes of 20 States. In numbers there is strength. A secession movement would have a greater chance of success if it encompassed several States.

Sign me up.

The Basic Income Guarantee (BIG): Or, How to Make Government Bigger

The Basic Income Guarantee (BIG), also known as Universal Basic Income (UBI), is the latest fool’s gold of “libertarian” thought. John Cochrane devotes too much time and blog space to the criticism and tweaking of the idea. David Henderson cuts to the chase by pointing out that even a “modest” BIG — $10,000 per adult American per year — would result in “a huge increase in federal spending, a huge increase in tax rates, and a huge increase in the deadweight loss from taxes.”

Aside from the fact that BIG would be a taxpayer-funded welfare program — to which I generally object — it would necessarily add to the already heavy burden on taxpayers, even though it is touted as a substitute for many (all?) extant welfare programs. The problem is that the various programs are aimed at specific recipients (e.g., women with dependent children, families with earned incomes below a certain level). As soon as a specific but “modest” proposal is seriously floated in Congress, various welfare constituencies will find that proposal wanting because their “entitlements” would shrink. A BIG bill would pass muster only if it allowed certain welfare programs to continue, in addition to BIG, or if the value of BIG were raised to a level that such that no welfare constituency would be a “loser.”

In sum, regardless of the aims of its proponents — who, ironically, tend to call themselves libertarians — BIG would lead to higher welfare spending and more enrollees in the welfare state.

The Obama Effect: Disguised Unemployment, Revised and Updated

Here.

Economic Growth since World War II, Revised and Updated

Here.

The Twilight’s Last Gleaming?

Arnold Kling reviews Yuval Levin’s The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in the Age of Individualism:

Levin rejects the binary choice between strong central government and pure individualism. Instead, he extols what he calls the mediating institutions of families, local government, religious institutions, and charity. His idea of paradise would be a nation in which these institutions are allowed to experiment with a variety of ways of trying to help nurture and educate citizens who are capable of exercising freedom.

If Levin is right, then it would help to have the federal government back away from many of the responsibilities it has taken on over the past fifty years. Instead, more authority and responsibility should be left to these mediating institutions.

For me, Levin offers an appealing vision. However, I wonder if it can ever attract broad public support. In 2016, it appears to me that Americans do not value freedom as much as they used to. If President Obama represented the nostalgia for the era of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, then currently his party seems to be moving even further to the left, with many believing that some form of socialism is the answer. On the Republican side, it seems ironic that the candidate who gained ascendancy by promising to wall off our southern neighbors would appear to wish to run the United States like a Latin American strongman. And on college campuses, many students and administrators prefer “safe spaces” to free speech.

I worry that mediating institutions have lost their effectiveness. The broad middle class has given way to a bifurcated society, with the highly-educated and the less-educated no longer attending the same churches or sharing similar life experiences. The close-knit neighborhood has given way to the anonymous city, where local government is mostly responsive to powerful public sector unions and favor-seeking businesses. Perhaps this means that Levin’s vision is nearly as unrealistic as those that he criticizes. Restoring our mediating institutions might be yet another exercise in trying to squeeze the toothpaste back into the tube.

I share Kling’s pessimism. Not only will the left not allow government to back off, but even if government were to back off, it would be too late to rescue liberty in much of the country. In my commentary about David D. Friedman’s pro-anarchy tract, The Machinery of Freedom, I observed that the America of two or three generations ago

would have done quite will without government because its inhabitants — even the rich and powerful and best and brightest — were largely bound by common customs and common sense. [The America of today] — riddled as it is with dependency on the state and the divisions arising from the politics of “social justice” — has neither the collective will nor the wherewithal to resist the dictatorship or warlordism that surely would follow in the wake of the (extremely unlikely) replacement of government by anarchy.

Dictatorship or warlordism wouldn’t follow the restoration of constitutional governance in the United States, but neither would liberty blossom. For the reasons adduced by Kling and me, the partial vacuum left by the shrinkage of the central government would be filled by many a State and local government — at the behest of majorities of their government-addicted constituencies.

To find liberty, a person would probably have to move to a village, town, or small city in one of the States that has been solidly “Red” for a decade or more. But many such locales would eventually succumb to the influx of refugees from big-government, high-tax jurisdictions. Those refugees usually are fleeing the tax and regulatory consequences of the very programs that they support — and will continue to support because they don’t seem to understand that it is the programs they support which yield the high taxes and draconian regulations that they detest.

Liberty in the United States has been the victim of economic illiteracy and cupidity. Liberty might be rescued — temporarily — by the (unlikely) shrinkage of the central government. The permanent salvation of liberty would require eternal vigilance, accompanied by a strictly enforced ban on the promulgation of anti-libertarian ideas and anti-social practices. License granted in the name of liberty subverts liberty.

It is no coincidence that economic progress, which depends greatly on mutual trust and respect, has faltered badly since the arrival of the Great Society and the rise of the counter-culture. It is bread and circuses all over again.

The barbarians are within and at the gates.

* * *

Related posts:

On Liberty

The Interest-Group Paradox

Rethinking the Constitution: “Freedom of Speech, and of the Press”

Well-Founded Pessimism

America: Past, Present, and Future

IQ, Political Correctness, and America’s Present Condition

The Barbarians Within and the State of the Union

“We the People” and Big Government

The Culture War

The Fall and Rise of American Empire

O Tempora O Mores!

Democracy, Human Nature, and the Future of America

How Government Subverts Social Norms

Turning Points

Quick Hits

There’s work underway to

find any of the genetic variants associated with intelligence, however weak and inconsistent they may be, and then look up the published literature to see how frequent those variants are in any racial group.

I’m fairly certain how it will turn out, if the work isn’t sabotaged by those who fear the truth.

Academe’s war on conservatism continues. What else is new?

There’s also a (not new) internet-based war on conservatism (e.g., here and here). Cass Sunstein, a leading light of the anti-free speech forces, was Obama’s regulatory czar. Connect the dots.

Robert Higgs hates the use of “we,” “us,” and “our” in policy discourse. So do I.

Steven Horwitz offers a concise and elegant gloss of Hayek’s “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” I’ve addressed Hayek’s essay here, and a related one (“The Pretence of Knowledge“) here.

God-Like Minds

I write today about the mindset of so-called liberals and many of their emotional brethren of the bleeding-heart-libertarian-left (a compound oxymoron of the first order). They view the world from a lofty perch, in judgment of all and sundry; for example:

The redistribution of income and wealth increases global (or national) well-being.

Free migration of people across borders increases global well-being.

War is a bad thing because so many people are killed.

What’s missing from such statements? The particular instances of bad or good that cut in the opposite direction: the harm to those whose income and wealth are redistributed; the harm to those whose jobs are lost, and whose taxes rise to support indigent immigrants; the lives and livelihoods of family, friends, and countrymen that are saved by defeating foreign enemies.

The same mindset also operates on a smaller scale. Consider this, from reason.com:

Wages too low? Force employers to pay more.

Too many uninsured? Force Americans to buy coverage.

Not enough parental leave? Force companies to provide it.

Rich people speaking too freely about politics? Rewrite the First Amendment so you can stop them.

A horrific school shooting? Take guns away from people who didn’t do it.

People drinking too much soda? Ban big servings or tax the stuff.

Fantasy sports gambling getting too popular? Shut it down.

I would add: Some people not saving enough for retirement? Force others to subsidize them. That’s just a start; the list could go on and on.

All of this omniscience gives me a headache. It is my devout wish that liberals and liberaltarians would SHUT UP! No one died and made you God.

* * *

Related posts:

Liberalism and Sovereignty

Positive Rights and Cosmic Justice

Cato’s Usual Casuistry on Matters of War and Peace

Lay My (Regulatory) Burden Down

The Pseudo-Libertarian Temperament

Romanticizing the State

Libertarianism and the State

The Rahn Curve Revisited

My Defense of the A-Bomb

There’s More to It Than Religious Liberty

Many opponents of ordinances and statutes that mandate things like gay-wedding cake-baking cast their opposition as a matter of religious liberty. But such opposition isn’t just about religious liberty, it’s about liberty — period. The liberty of free people to choose with whom they will associate and do business.

What about ordinances and statutes that grant restroom choice to gender-confused persons, voyeurs, and predators. Isn’t that a matter of freedom of association? Only for the gender-confused, the voyeurs, and the predators. Most people don’t relish the invasion of a very private space by those who wish to “make a statement,” or worse.

Law-makers of various stripes — from the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court to the city council of Charlotte — seem to have lost sight of the deep wisdom that’s embedded in long-standing social norms. Whether the norm is the definition of marriage as a union of one man and one woman or the segregation of restrooms by (visible) gender, it serves a socially valuable function by encouraging constructive behavior (e.g., the rearing of children in a stable home environment with role models of both sexes) and discouraging destructive behavior (e.g., uninvited intimacy).

As I say, there’s more to it than religious liberty.

* * *

Related posts:

Two-Percent Tyranny

How to Protect Property Rights and Freedom of Association and Expression

How Government Subverts Social Norms

Identity and Crime

Turning Points

American Revolution — 1775-1783. The Colonies became sovereign States, bound by a compact (the Articles of Confederation) in which each State clearly retained its sovereignty. And yet, those sovereign States, bound by a common language and culture, successfully banded together to defeat a stronger enemy.

Drafting and ratification of the U.S. Constitution — 1787-1790. The States, relying on the hopes of the Framers, entered into a compact which created a national government that, inevitably, would subsume the power and authority of the States.

Nullification Crisis — 1832-1833. An attempt by South Carolina to reject an unconstitutional act of Congress was stifled by a threat of military intervention by the national government. This set the stage for…

Civil War and Texas v. White — 1861-1865 and 1869. Regardless of the motivation for secession, the Southern States acted legally in seceding. Mr. Lincoln’s romantic (if not power-hungry) quest for perpetual union led not only to the bloodiest conflict ever likely to be fought on American soil, but also undoubtedly deterred any future attempt to secede. The majority opinion in Texas v. White essentially ruled that might makes right when it converted a military victory into an (invalid) holding against the constitutionality of secession.

The assassination of William McKinley — 1901. This elevated Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency. Roosevelt’s extra-constitutional activism became the exemplar for most of the presidents who followed him — especially (though not exclusively) the Democrats.

Ratification of the 16th and 17th Amendments to the Constitution, and creation of the Federal Reserve system — 1913. The amendments enabled the national income tax and wrested control of U.S. Senate seats from State legislatures, thus ensuring the aggrandizement of the national government and the subjugation of the States. The creation of the Fed gave the national government yet another tool for exercising central control of the economy — a tool that has often been used with disastrous results for Americans.

The stock-market crash of 1929. The Fed’s policies contributed to the crash and helped turn what would have been a transitory financial crisis into the Great Depression. This one-off series of events set the stage for an unprecedented power grab by the national government — the New Deal — which was aided by several spineless Supreme Court rulings. Thus empowered, the national government has spent most of the past 80 years enlarging on the New Deal, with additional help from the Supreme Court along the way.

The assassination of John F. Kennedy — 1963. This assassination, like that of McKinley, led to the elevation of a hyper-active politician whose twin legacies were the expansion of the New Deal and the eventual demise of the ultimate guarantee of America’s security: military supremacy and the will to use it. Kennedy’s assassination also marked a cultural turning point that I have addressed elsewhere.

The Vietnam War — 1965-1973. The Korean War was a warmup for this one. The losing strategy of gradualism, and a (predictable) loss dictated by the media and academe was followed, as day follows night, by a wave of unilateral disarmament. Reagan’s rearmament and a quick (but incomplete) victory in the Gulf War merely set the stage for the next wave of unilateral disarmament, which was reversed, briefly, by the shock of 9/11. The wars that followed in Iraq and Afghanistan were fought with the same vacillation and vituperation (from media and academe) as the Vietnam War. Unilateral disarmament continues, even as Russia and China become militarily stronger and bolder in their international gestures.

The demise of economic and social liberty in the United States, which is the predictable result of the growth of the national government’s power, will matter not one whit when the U.S. is surrounded by and effectively dictated to by the great powers to its east and west.

As the world turns: from Colonies to colonies.

How Government Subverts Social Norms

Arnold Kling observes that

humans have a fundamental rule of social morality, which is: Reward cooperators; punish defectors. The use of this rule is what enables humans to work effectively with strangers, making possible sophisticated economies and civilizations….

Generally, a cooperator is someone who obeys social norms without requiring coercion. A defector is someone who takes advantage of others by disobeying social norms.

Along come “activists”: persons who seek to advance a particular cause or group of persons, usually without regard for the effects on social comity and often for the sheer pleasure of “sticking it to the man,” Obama-like. Through the use of courts and legislatures, these “activists” reshape legal norms — welfare as a right, capital punishment (for murder) as a wrong, abortion (murder) as a right, wealth accumulation as (somehow) anti-social, homosexual “marriage” as just another form of marriage, and on and on.

The vast, wishy-washy middle is easily influenced. Ensconced in the relative comfort of the nanny-welfare state, the middle too often acquiesces in the edicts of the state to which it (falsely) attributes its relative comfort. When the minions of the state speak, the wishy-washy middle listens.

The sole exception of which I am aware has been widespread resistance to legalized abortion, a movement that has found backing in the GOP-controlled legislatures of several States. Dislike of Obamacare, on the other hand, has resulted in only some minor victories for religious freedom, while public opinion slowly warms to the prospect of “free” medical care and more generous drug benefits.

The general wishy-washiness that greets governmental subversion of long-standing, civilizing norms is a symptom of the capitalist paradox: The successes of capitalism separate people from the lessons that served them well when life was more fraught and survival depended more heavily on social comity. (The idea that “social media” bonds mere acquaintances and total strangers is laughable.)

Britain is the model for social disintegration and the economic stagnation that accompanies it. A polite, hardworking, law-abiding “nation of shopkeepers” has been transformed into a nation of loud, dole-demanding, beer-swilling, rib-kicking yobs — male and female.

On the evidence of news reports and what passes for entertainment these days, the U.S. is following in Britain’s footsteps. And most of the blame belongs to the “activists” and elites who have worked so hard to subvert long-standing social norms.

“Cheerful” Thoughts

Fred Reed ends a recent column with this:

America is no longer “one nation under God” (who is, I suppose, an undocumented alien). It is an unhappy land of warring tribes, of peoples who have nothing in common and do not like each other. Blacks, whites, browns, Syrians, Somalis, Southerners, Yankees, Christians, mostly detesting each other. The battle lines are drawn. The question is what kind of battle it will be.

I agree with Reed’s “warring tribes” characterization. But mutual detestation will not lead to combat. It will lead to an increasing fragmentation of America into mutually loathing identity groups.

And, as Trumpania makes clear, one result will be more government, not less. Whichever coalition of warring groups is in power, government will expand to fulfill the wishes of that coalition. And the ascension to power of different coalitions will simply lead to the further expansion of government, without any shrinkage of the functions added under previous coalitions.

As I have written elsewhere, the aggrandizement of government in the United States can be characterized by three metaphors: the slippery slope, the ratchet effect, and the death-spiral (of liberty). The Tea Party movement is effectively dead; the true lovers of liberty are a minuscule fraction of the electorate; the thought police are at the door; and with diminished defenses and expanded welfare programs, America is a hair’s-breadth from an economically stagnant, morally bankrupt European-style “social democracy.”

The next administration — or the next one, at most — will finish the job of fundamentally transforming America. Barack Obama certainly did his part, but the transformation has been a long time in the making. And it seems irreversible.

Kasich, the Man in the Middle

Trump’s closing in on the nomination, but Rubio’s out, which is probably better for Cruz than for Trump. (If all of Rubio’s votes had gone to Cruz in today’s primaries, Cruz would have won North Carolina and Missouri, and tied Illinois.)

What happens if Rubio’s departure prevents Trump from amassing a majority of delegates before the GOP convention? A movement toward Kasich as a compromise between Trump and Cruz? I wouldn’t rule it out. In fact, it’s probably what Kasich has been hoping for all along.

For a lot of people, a Kasich-Clinton election would be much more palatable than a Trump-Clinton election. I would even vote for Kasich, RINO that he is on many issues — just to vote against Clinton. But I could never bring myself to vote for Trump if he were running against the Devil.

Food for thought.

P.S. Another scenario that I’ve entertained — and should have mentioned — is that a deadlocked convention turns to Paul Ryan. Much more to my liking.

A Colloquy on the Constitution

Q: What is the provenance of the Constitution of the United States of America?

A. In its original form, it was an agreement among the States (i.e., governing bodies of certain geographical areas formerly known as colonies). Each State that ratified (agreed to) the Constitution did so because a majority (however slight) of a small fraction of the State’s residents voted to approve the Constitution.

Q. So the Constitution is binding on all Americans because of the actions of a small fraction of the residents of America in 1787-1790?

A. Approximately. It’s really binding on all Americans because the governments of the States and the central government have the power to make it binding. More importantly those governments have the power enforce statutes, regulations, and judicial decrees, whether or not they actually conform to the Constitutions of the United States or any State. However, there was a time when certain groups of people, known as Indians, were treated as if their tribes and nations weren’t subject to the jurisdiction of American governments, Rather, they were treated as if they were foreign nations, even though their territories were within the boundaries of the United States. Accordingly, they weren’t even taxed by American governments.

Q. So allegiance to the Constitution, etc., is discretionary?

A. Yes, but it’s governmental discretion, not the choice of individuals or groups.

Q. Yet the preamble to the Constitution says that it was established by “the People.”

A. Yes, a few of them.

Q. If that’s the case, why do so many people seem to respect the Constitution and invoke it?

A. Most people who claim to respect the Constitution do so because (a) it’s a symbol of Americanism (whatever that is, these days), or (b) it can be read in a way that supports their political views and preferences. The reading can be literal, which is the way written constitutions are meant to be read, or strained, in which case it involves a “living Constitution” (i.e, make it up as you go along) with “emanations” and “penumbras” (i.e., inferences piled on unsubstantiated interpretations). The Constitution, in brief, is a kind of club to be carried into political battles.

Q. To sum it up: The Constitution is binding because of the power of government to make it binding. But government uses it mainly as an excuse to enforce the wishes of those who control government, regardless of what the Constitution actually says.

A. That’s about it.

Q. Well, then, truth in packaging demands a more accurate preamble. Here it is:

We the minuscule minority who lived a long time ago hereby ratify this document so that a bunch of politicians, bureaucrats, and judges can mention it when they jerk you around and pick your pockets — Indians excluded.

A. Almost. But Indians are no longer excluded, in reality, regardless of the treaties they co-signed with the big chiefs in Washington, D.C.

Q. Spreading the misery is the American way.

A Phrase for Our Time

Near the end of the presidential election campaign of 1884, the Rev. Samuel D. Burchard, a supporter of Republican candidate James G. Blaine, proclaimed the Democrat Party the party of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.” It is believed that Burchard’s statement inflamed enough drinkers, Catholics, and Southerners to swing the election to the Democrat candidate, (Stephen) Grover Cleveland.

Regardless of the truth or falsity of the belief that the election of 1884 turned on an inflammatory phrase, there was a lot of truth in that phrase. How would a contemporary phrase-maker characterize today’s Democrat Party? Here’s my offering:

Repression, Handouts, and Appeasement

P.S. Examples of repression abound — from taxing success to regulatory micro-management to siccing the IRS on conservative groups to the denial of property rights and freedom of association — but this takes the proverbial cake.

From Each According to His Ability…

…to each according to his need. So goes Marx’s vision of pure communism — when capitalism is no more. Unfettered labor will then produce economic goods in such great abundance that there is no question of some taking from others. All will feed at an ever-filling and overflowing public trough.

There are many holes in the Marxian argument. Here’s the bottom line: It’s an impossible dream that flouts human nature.

Capital accrues and markets arise spontaneously (where not distorted and suppressed by lawlessness, government, and lawless government) because they foster mutually beneficial exchanges of economic goods (e.g., labor for manufactured items)

Communism has failed to catch on, as a sustained and widespread phenomenon, because it rejects capitalism and assumes the inexorability of economic progress in the absence of incentives (e.g., the possibility of great rewards for taking great risks and the investment of time and resources). It is telling that “to each his own need” (or an approximation of it) has been achieved on a broad scale only by force, and only by penalizing success and slowing economic progress.

If the state were to wither to nightwatchman status, the result would be the greatest outpouring of economic goods in human history. Everyone would be better off — rich and (relatively) poor alike. Only the envious and economic ignoramuses would be miserable, and then only in their own minds.

If Marx and his intellectual predecessors and successors were capable of thinking straight, they would have come up with the winning formula:

From each according to his ability and effort,
to each according to the market value of his output,
plus whatever voluntary contributions may come his way.

Whither Francis Underwood?

If you’re addicted to the Netflix version of the House of Cards, you’re probably wondering whether and how President Francis Underwood will get his comeuppance. I have long guessed that he will meet a fate similar to that of his British counterpart, Prime Minister Francis Urquhart (pronounced urk-ert), of the BBC’s House of Cards trilogy. (SPOILER WARNING: Don’t follow the links in the preceding sentence if you haven’t seen the BBC series and don’t want to know how it ended.)

I base my guess on the many parallels between the main characters of the BBC and Netflix series; for example, their initials are FU, both have a right-hand man named Stamper, both are murderers, both have Lady Macbeth-like wives, and both rose to power by arranging the disgrace and resignation of their predecessors.

There’s another crucial similarity: Francis Urquhart is staunchly conservative in his rhetoric, and his evil ways are obviously meant to discredit conservatism and the British Conservative Party. Francis Underwood is a Democrat, but a nowadays rare Southern Democrat who sometimes deploys conservative rhetoric. Many viewers and most Democrats will be happy if FU II shares the fate of FU I.

By the way, I’m not binge-watching HOC IV. It may be a few weeks before I finish the series. So if HOC IV turns out to be the final series and you already know the fate of FU II, please don’t reveal it in a comment.

Whiners

Warning: This is a whine about whining.

Whiners like to gripe about faux injustices. A faux injustice often occurs when the whiner believes that he — or someone with whom he’s in sympathy — deserves something that others aren’t obliged to give.

Here’s an example:

Enterprising men like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford established businesses that prospered.
They hired people who were (obviously) willing to forgo other opportunities (or none) to work for the wages that were on offer.
Professional whiners — labor-union organizers and political “activists” (a.k.a. busybodies) — declared that it was only just to raise workers’ wages above what they had been willing to accept.
Government got in the act on the side of unions and decreed that employers must recognize and bargain with unions.
That which was sought (and applauded by many) — higher wages for unionized workers — was paid for by that which was not publicized — less employment for workers and higher prices for those who bought the products of unionized businesses. And because unionization was pervasive in certain lines of business (e.g., steel and auto-making), there was insufficient (or no competition) to force prices down.

Whiners are more than a pain in the butt. Often, they’re also a pain in the pocketbook.

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