Government is Not The Solution to Our Problems.
The Washington Monthly of Charles Peters rejected the premise of that title, and yet, eleven out of twelve months they'd publish articles, many of them useful and instructive, seeking to make government less of a problem than it was. Reason had company, for instance, objecting to occupational licensing for African hair braiders and similar specialists who might cater to a niche population.
Unfortunately, in his valedictory We Do Our Part: Toward a Fairer and More Equal America, he simply wrote another of the depressingly predictable laments common among the pundit class after Donald Trump's surprise presidential win. Such books are always full of foreboding, retrograde attitudes are loose in the land, and Somebody Has to Do Something. But Something almost never means acknowledging that maybe the people who preferred Mr Trump to Mrs Clinton might have been sending the pundit class a message. You won't get that in We Do Our Part: the foreword is by the smarmy Jon Meacham and that, dear reader, is a tell, even though he advises the Professional Managerial Class types to be more respectful of the voters away from the coasts and the tony coffee houses.
In Book Review No. 4, I will use Mr Peters's words to refute his argument. We might want to cut him some slack; he is of that cohort of Silent Generation relics for whom "New Deal" is to the conservative as the Rosary is to the Devil, and for whom "We Had to Do Something" is a rhetorical argument-ender. Yes, he recognizes the snobbery, when it is convenient to do so, that emerged in Official Washington and among the Coastal Elites as an ongoing affront to Normal Americans. But he continues to reveal that unthinking faith in Big Government, slagging at page 99 on Ronald Reagan for grousing, "Since the beginning of this country the gross national product has increased by 33 time. In the same period the cost of government has increased 234 times." He continues with classic question begging. "Of course, what Reagan failed to discuss was what the federal government was doing that needed doing to justify its growth." We Had to Do Something, didn't We?
What was the Something, though? During the American High, it was squandering the Victory Dividend, as detailed on page 85. "The average citizen of the 1950s not only continued to serve in the military but continued to believe in what government can do, supporting ambitious programs like the Marshall Plan to aid Western Europe and the construction of the interstate highway system." There was a military draft during the American High, Elvis Presley was called up and served. Come the later set of ambitious programs, Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) opted to go to prison rather than be called up, the Great Society and Model Cities came to naught, and now the states continue to hope for federal grants to resurface the interstates.
Then came the rent-seeking. He devotes a chapter, "From Doing Good to Doing Well," to the decline and fall of Bobby Baker, Clark Clifford, Tommy Corcoran, and Abe Fortas. He writes more in sorrow than in anger, failing to draw the lesson that a more active national government that spends a bigger chunk of the national income is of necessity a honey pot for boodlers. Later, he simultaneously laments Citizens United (corporate campaign contributions are protected political speech) and the proliferation of high-end clothiers, restaurants, and hotels in Washington Itself. A government that confines itself to a few functions, and carries those functions out well, is less of a honey pot. Meanwhile, the voters tune out, and the worst get on top. See page 178.
One result of this cynicism has been a decline in voting. Another has been a declining interest in serving in the government, which means that the ablest people in the country are not flocking to Washington the way they did during the New Deal, World War II, the New Frontier, and the Great Society. Increasingly, civil service positions go to people who are simply looking for a nice secure job or a way to turn their government experience into more profitable pursuits, a path that is also taken by many who go into politics. Such people are entering government for reasons of self-interest, not the public interest.
Well, no, given the records of the New Deal and the Great Society, what Mr Peters calls "cynicism" is people recognizing reality. And where would Washington be without the ablest people tinkering with microprocessors or 3-D printing or noodling on their guitars? That expansion of the national government cannot be possible without productive people, and maybe slagging on productive people for not paying their "fair share of taxes" only heightens the cynicism and makes more Trump a possibility. That he sees the allegedly landmark legislation of the early Clinton and Obama presidencies as adding more good things suggests the reality checks have not yet come in.
Mr Peters wrote We Do Our Part before the corona tyranny, and his closing chapter, full of advice for future Democrats, includes, at page 229, the Importance of Process.
If you want the Food and Drug Administration to protect you from contaminated food and drugs that do more harm than good, or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to protect you from dangerous diseases, or the Federal Aviation Administration to keep your plane from crashing, remember that the people who elect appoint the leaders of these agencies, write the laws that determine what they can and cannot do, and oversee their operations. Those operations depend for their effectiveness on capable people being willing to serve in those agencies.
So it is time to stop being disillusioned with government and start doing something to make it better.
I submit, dear reader, that you address the disillusion by doing things to reduce the scope and scale of the national government.
Cross-posted to Cold Spring Shops.
Unfortunately, in his valedictory We Do Our Part: Toward a Fairer and More Equal America, he simply wrote another of the depressingly predictable laments common among the pundit class after Donald Trump's surprise presidential win. Such books are always full of foreboding, retrograde attitudes are loose in the land, and Somebody Has to Do Something. But Something almost never means acknowledging that maybe the people who preferred Mr Trump to Mrs Clinton might have been sending the pundit class a message. You won't get that in We Do Our Part: the foreword is by the smarmy Jon Meacham and that, dear reader, is a tell, even though he advises the Professional Managerial Class types to be more respectful of the voters away from the coasts and the tony coffee houses.
In Book Review No. 4, I will use Mr Peters's words to refute his argument. We might want to cut him some slack; he is of that cohort of Silent Generation relics for whom "New Deal" is to the conservative as the Rosary is to the Devil, and for whom "We Had to Do Something" is a rhetorical argument-ender. Yes, he recognizes the snobbery, when it is convenient to do so, that emerged in Official Washington and among the Coastal Elites as an ongoing affront to Normal Americans. But he continues to reveal that unthinking faith in Big Government, slagging at page 99 on Ronald Reagan for grousing, "Since the beginning of this country the gross national product has increased by 33 time. In the same period the cost of government has increased 234 times." He continues with classic question begging. "Of course, what Reagan failed to discuss was what the federal government was doing that needed doing to justify its growth." We Had to Do Something, didn't We?
What was the Something, though? During the American High, it was squandering the Victory Dividend, as detailed on page 85. "The average citizen of the 1950s not only continued to serve in the military but continued to believe in what government can do, supporting ambitious programs like the Marshall Plan to aid Western Europe and the construction of the interstate highway system." There was a military draft during the American High, Elvis Presley was called up and served. Come the later set of ambitious programs, Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) opted to go to prison rather than be called up, the Great Society and Model Cities came to naught, and now the states continue to hope for federal grants to resurface the interstates.
Then came the rent-seeking. He devotes a chapter, "From Doing Good to Doing Well," to the decline and fall of Bobby Baker, Clark Clifford, Tommy Corcoran, and Abe Fortas. He writes more in sorrow than in anger, failing to draw the lesson that a more active national government that spends a bigger chunk of the national income is of necessity a honey pot for boodlers. Later, he simultaneously laments Citizens United (corporate campaign contributions are protected political speech) and the proliferation of high-end clothiers, restaurants, and hotels in Washington Itself. A government that confines itself to a few functions, and carries those functions out well, is less of a honey pot. Meanwhile, the voters tune out, and the worst get on top. See page 178.
One result of this cynicism has been a decline in voting. Another has been a declining interest in serving in the government, which means that the ablest people in the country are not flocking to Washington the way they did during the New Deal, World War II, the New Frontier, and the Great Society. Increasingly, civil service positions go to people who are simply looking for a nice secure job or a way to turn their government experience into more profitable pursuits, a path that is also taken by many who go into politics. Such people are entering government for reasons of self-interest, not the public interest.
Well, no, given the records of the New Deal and the Great Society, what Mr Peters calls "cynicism" is people recognizing reality. And where would Washington be without the ablest people tinkering with microprocessors or 3-D printing or noodling on their guitars? That expansion of the national government cannot be possible without productive people, and maybe slagging on productive people for not paying their "fair share of taxes" only heightens the cynicism and makes more Trump a possibility. That he sees the allegedly landmark legislation of the early Clinton and Obama presidencies as adding more good things suggests the reality checks have not yet come in.
Mr Peters wrote We Do Our Part before the corona tyranny, and his closing chapter, full of advice for future Democrats, includes, at page 229, the Importance of Process.
If you want the Food and Drug Administration to protect you from contaminated food and drugs that do more harm than good, or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to protect you from dangerous diseases, or the Federal Aviation Administration to keep your plane from crashing, remember that the people who elect appoint the leaders of these agencies, write the laws that determine what they can and cannot do, and oversee their operations. Those operations depend for their effectiveness on capable people being willing to serve in those agencies.
So it is time to stop being disillusioned with government and start doing something to make it better.
I submit, dear reader, that you address the disillusion by doing things to reduce the scope and scale of the national government.
Cross-posted to Cold Spring Shops.