Posted on 12/23/2006 12:29:02 PM PST by hubbubhubbub
A reader of this column recently asked what policies I'd recommend for the U.S. government. It is one thing to criticize policymakers. It is another thing to come up with constructive solutions. One of the reasons I don't generally offer solutions is my conviction that Western Civilization is approaching a dead end and must, therefore, turn around and go back to the last crossroad. The problem, however, is that very few people believe we're headed to a dead end. And no going back is possible until the dead end is actually reached, with all its attendant mayhem.
Over the past thousand years the West has "evolved" from the simple Iron Age economy of post-Roman feudalism to the ultra-complex global economy of today. This development occurred because economic freedom and governments with built-in checks and balances gave ordinary people a chance to build something for themselves and their posterity. But that wasn't all. Aristocratic and Christian idealism successfully mitigated the usual course of enslavement and pillaging. The lords and nobles of England, in particular, exercised a noble self-limitation (and constitutional restraint). Quite logically, the fastest development of wealth went to the freest and ablest societies, the ones least encumbered by tyrannical or rapacious overlords. England and its offshoot, the United States, were the leading countries in this process.
So why do I say that this process approaches a dead end?
My analysis has nothing to do with resource depletion, global warming or Marxian pauperization. We can all see that Western ideals of freedom have been eroding away. Welfare entitlements, environmentalism and wealth redistribution have proven irresistible. Liberty is giving way to regulation. The noble creed of aristocratic culture based on a mix of classical and Christian ideas has fallen before a demagogic cycle of political promises, a regime of gross flattery aimed at the common man, increased government bureaucracy, further promises, and further bureaucracy. The education system follows the logic of socialism, with a subtle tendency to indoctrinate the next generation. The economic system is Keynesian, with no long-term future and no guiding principle other than short-term enjoyment. Here the logic of Late Antiquity, with its emphasis on bread and circuses, finds its Electronic Age variant. The resulting culture presents us with a stupefied general public and a debased politics. Where there is a will to confront present dangers there is no wit. And more often than not there is neither the will nor the wit. When we look at immigration policy, trade and national security (particular pertaining to counterintelligence), the government will not admit that dangers threaten because democracy hasn't the stomach for tough decisions.
Obviously, this isn't Francis Fukuyama's "end of history." Modern man isn't so special, or so very clever. Our time is like countless others in which the price of folly is paid in blood and treasure. Under these circumstances we must discount what a patriot would like to do and consider what he can actually get away with. Everything depends on circumstance, and circumstances are going to change. And so it's a matter of the type of change we can expect. Take a look at the world today. The wolves are hungry and ready to pounce. The sheep are numerous and fat. The result of this situation is easy to predict. Furthermore, there is nothing to stop the logic of democracy from weakening civilization (i.e., the sheep); and as civilization weakens, there will be nothing to stop the barbarians (i.e., the wolves) from storming the gates as soon as the outward defenses are compromised.
Should we pray for a man on a white horse?
There are no more white horses, few men and no heroes in late capitalist politics. In the age of specialization the insects are firmly in charge. It is a hopping flea circus - broadcast live, with commentary from Gregor Samsa's kinfolk. Statesmanship has been set aside in favor of Lilliputian demagogues. Such are predicated on the language of ethnic resentment, class envy or environmentalist humbug. If the people know nothing of real dangers, the politicians know less. Jeff Stein recently interviewed the incoming head of the House Intelligence Committee, Sylvestre Reyes, for Congressional Quarterly. He asked Reyes whether al Qaeda was Sunni or Shiite. Reyes answered: "Predominantly - probably Shiite." When Stein asked about Hezbollah Reyes couldn't give an answer.
To be a policymaker today you don't have to know anything. All it takes is a teary eyed concern for a suffering planet and sacrificial victims like rich folk or Jews to placate an angry Gaia. Placebos are preferred to real solutions, since the political climber imagines that an ongoing crisis will clear his way to Olympus. Let's see how high the budget deficits will go. The sky is the limit, until the sky begins to fall. And let's see which political party is eager to commit suicide by taking away all the entitlements and benefits with the suggestion that "the people" take responsibility for themselves. To say there is a solution for a system so predicated would be, in plain truth, to utter an imbecility. We live well today, for the moment, because centuries of freedom are propelling us from behind.
So what is the solution for the young idealist sent to Congress by an electoral fluke? Like any condemned man there is only the option of a blindfold.
The trouble of our time can be spelled out in many ways. Simply put, socialism isn't dead, neither is the parasitism of its economics nor the tyrannical end point of its politics. The individual is weakened, the state is strengthened. The producer is punished, the parasite is fattened. Stupidity is flattered, intelligence is feared. From the supposed collapse of communism in Eastern Europe to the welfare sepulcher of Western Europe - the underlying theme is the same. And that theme is decline, senility and death.
To say the truth in these things is not defeatism. Who said the battle for liberty would be easy? Who misled us into thinking that history would consist of an uninterrupted string of glorious victories? Every struggle entails losses, and men must be strong enough to accept the worst as they struggle toward the best. If you cannot run, you walk. If you cannot walk, you crawl. If you cannot crawl, you wriggle. You fight on even if all around you have given up. Things are going to get very nasty before they get better. And don't expect a political leader to say anything truthful about the situation until our illusions are thoroughly extinguished.
Or, if you are talking about the more traditional sort of "aristocracy",in which wealth and social position are passed down through generations, we are increasingly headed in that directions as well, with the richest one percent - and especially the richest one-tenth of one-percent - of the population owning an increasing share of the nations productive assets.Cough cough - HOW many people now own STOCK (and vote that stock) as compared to 30 or 40 years ago (as part of 401K programs and outright ownership through direct on-line purchase)?
I'm offered the private stock of the company I work for even ...
And, how do you account for the ascendency of the Ross Perots, Michael Dells and Bill Gates of the world?
Do I have something figured wrong?
History does not follow straight lines. It ebbs and flows. A libertine period such as this will bring the Puritans back. Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas
Steve Forbes made a great comment about socialism and the idea of "global warming" this morning on Fox-he said "they tried socialism as red, now they are trying it as green".
Dead on with that one.
History does not follow straight lines. It ebbs and flows. A libertine period such as this will bring the Puritans back.This does not, however, address the economic issues I raised!
Merry Christmas!
I always heard them as "watermelons" - green on the outside, red on the inside. It's an apt description.
Wow. BUMP
(( ping ))
Take your blinders off. The same principal applies in economics.
Who won the ideological cold war?... We didn't...
The U.S. is becomeing more socialist every day...
Who's in charge?..... Republicans?...
(SSA) Social Security is PURE socialism its not like socialism it is PURE socialism.. Most all Republicans and Democrats would gouge out their eyes BEFORE eliminating SSA...
Could be YOU ARE A SOCIALIST.... YES You..
You don't need to look to Western Europe for a "welfare sepulcher" - - just keep an eye on California.
I shall now also take back the 'Merry' and simply wish you a 'Christmas'.
Try again. Socialism would not condone social security paying more to high earners than low earners. Remember the basic formula is from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.
"Every struggle entails losses, and men must be strong enough to accept the worst as they struggle toward the best. If you cannot run, you walk. If you cannot walk, you crawl. If you cannot crawl, you wriggle. You fight on even if all around you have given up. Things are going to get very nasty before they get better."
Good piece, when I was younger I believed in the up and down of America's path, that cycles were inevitable and that our national internal battles, were to lengthen or shorten those cycles depending on which political side of the fence we were on.
Now I realize that some legislation by the left becomes irreversible. The best example of that is the immigration law of 1965, since then to try to fight and to win America's future is impossible.
Because of foreign colonization, we are on a foundation of loose sand, we can never regain our footing, because the newcomers can vote, we will never be able to turn off the spout of exotic strangers arriving anew.
All the solutions that we could suggest, that would work if we had a static population, are useless against a constant, incoming ocean of indifferent strangers.
We don't know what the future of America will be, because it will be voted on, and legislated by, people that at this second are living in villages around the globe.
Root causes no longer matter, and any solutions are out of our hands . All we can do now is to try to manage and slow the chaos as long as we can.
Well! I'm cheered up now.
.
A common (small "r") republican assertion. It's based upon a subtle confusion between wealth and aristocracy/nobility. The ideals of "liberty" are historically found only among the aristocracy. whereas those of "equality," teleologically incompatible with liberty, are found among the lower bourgeois and proletariat classes. The problem with western democracy is that it is invoked by the former in the name of liberty, but is handed, because of its vary dialectics, to the bourgeois and the proletariats who confuse liberty and equality. Capitalism is the father of Socialism.
The problem is not that we have too many wealthy one-percent-ers of the population. It's that we have no natural socially organic means of containing the forces of greed because we have nixed the idea of a nobility, thus the aristocracy has no motivation to be "noble". Indeed, because of the formulation of our republic it is in fact more likely that the wealthy gained their position through less than noble activities. This has in recent times been fully supported by the so-called "conservative" elements of our society; remember the oft quoted, soul-destroying phrase "Greed is Good."
From a purely utilitarian point of view that might be true. If we are to take Carnegie at his word that his purpose in gaining wealth was to intelligently distribute it into good and socially beneficial areas we might agree that his methods were statistically beneficial. But the truth is Carnegie and the other princes of capitalism of his day were still looking back on the old society in which one simply wasn't an aristocrat unless he built churches, donated to religious institutions, and commissioned great works of art.
These days, because of the formation of our society along purely material and utilitarian grounds, (those being the only rational means of organizing sociaty that can occur to the unimaginative ant-romantic philistines who live in democratic ages), our wealthy aristocrats don't even have that as model.
No surprise... A system invented by a socialist any socialist will not work..
Socialism is and always was Slavery by Givernment..
"How do you tell a Socialist:- It's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an Anti-Socialist someone who understands Marx and Lenin" -Ronald Reagan
And to differentiate from times past, when Christianity united the culture, today's fat cats feel no compunction about sending jobs offshore or taking companies and funds to offshore tax havens. The ACLU is in the process of destroying all decency in the name of minting new rights without any attendant responsibilities. And the press is making sure no totally sane nor decent person will ever run for public office.
There’s no question that stock ownership is more widespread that a generation ago, but for most of the holders it’s also spread pretty thin; in 2004 the median value of stock holdings for the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans was $110,000 per household, for the other 90 percent it was $8,350.
This reflects large disparities in “financial wealth” - net-worth less equity in personal residences. And financial wealth (that is, liquid assets) in turn is largely what determines the ability to weather financial reverses such as job loss, illness and divorce. In the late 1990s (the latest such study I’ve seen) the bottom 40 percent of middle-aged householders had virtually no financial wealth, the 20 percent had assets which would typically carry them for two to four months depending on expenses, the next 20 percent eight to 18 months, and the top 20% for two to seven years.
Nor have average Americans done well at managing their equity and fixed-income investments.
Every year since 1986 Dalbar Inc. has released an update to the Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior (QAIB), it’s their study of the returns achieved by individual US investors.
Currently the average equity (stock) investor has archived a return of 2.57% annually; compared to inflation of 3.14% and the 12.22% the S & P 500 index.
The average fixed income investor earned 4.24% annually; compared to the long-term government bond index of 11.70%.
This does not bode well for the “financial wealth” of typical Americans, especially as many of these households will soon be facing the costs of ageing at a time when the their inflation-adjusted incomes are declining.
I’m not attempting to make arguments about the justice of this situation, but it’s clearly one reason for the insecurity which many voters feel, a discomfort which will be an increasing electoral problem for conservatives unless they can suggest either convincing reasons to accept it as inevitable or practical suggestions to reduce it.
And, how do you account for the ascendancy of the Ross Perots, Michael Dells and Bill Gates of the world?
As I noted in the original post, the US is a much more "meritocratic" place than 30 or 40 years ago.
If you are in the 5% or so of the population which possesses a highly valued talent, there are fewer obstacles on the average to your obtaining the opportunity to succeed (and certainly so if you are female, or non-white) than a generation ago. And the pay-off, relative to the position of average citizens, is also greater.
It's pretty hard to argue against an assertion that many of the newly-minted lower-rich (10M or less) - especially from the financial sector - are pretty rootless for a lack of either historical or economic referents.
I occasional drive through a stretch of some of the most affluent suburbs of Chicago, were smaller, older “teardowns” built by a previous wave of affluence are being replaced with “McMansions”.
Remarkably, I’ve yet to see ONE of either outstanding architectural distinction or originality. Long gone (apparently) are the days when this sort of new money occasionally aspired to commission talent to build a “residence” reflecting at least hired creativity, these days as often as not we get a 8.400 sq/ft Chateaux-to-go composed of disparate architectural elements in much the same way that a child slaps together chunks of play-dough.
OTOH in my experience new money minted on the tech side has a much more interesting if often eccentric outlook – though much of it seems to be liberal or libertarian as opposed to anything resembling traditional American conservativism.
These are the people who often (for example) tended to engage in quite varied reading as children and young adults, and are now engaged in the sort of philanthropy they expect will change the world in a direct, “hand-on” sort of way.
And in a room full of such people you will encounter about 10 times the optimism and hear (for better or worse) around 10 times the creative proposals to solve problems as you will from a similar gathering of either “liberals” or “conservatives”.
I have to think about your question for a bit.
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