Author: Redactor

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Cold, Hard Reality

Yesterday President Obama declared that no one is arguing for government default. But isn’t it amazing to see so many politicians work so hard to ensure that un-​argued-​for goal?

There are two parts to a default. The first is running up debt; the second is not paying it back. Like it or not, advocate it or not, sovereign debt repudiation comes closer as American politicians lumber on with the first part.

Of course, there are folks who think the American people should simply repudiate their government’s debt. Over at the Mises Institute, Justin Ptak provides citations from more than one economist advocating just that.

Gary North states that the day is fast approaching when the phrase “full faith and credit of the United States government” will “provoke universal laughter.…” He insists that “the credit rating of the United States government will be marked down from AAA to AA. It will then be marked down to A.” What’s more, he says this is a good thing: “For every notch down that it falls, the national day of deliverance draws closer.”

Paranoid? Fringe? Hopeful? No matter how you categorize such talk, it’s not crazy to think about, since the probability of default grows as the debt increases.

A default could have a beneficial effect on America’s politicians: They would be unable to finance further deficits. Reality’s cold, hard fist — that is, un-​amused investors — would rein them in.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets ideological culture national politics & policies

Desperate Times

“War is the health of the state.”

A generation after Randolph Bourne coined this maxim, followers of John Maynard Keynes — the architect of peacetime over-​spending by governments — pushed their master’s notions to their illogical conclusion, saying that “war gets a country out an economic slump.” Why? How? You see, only in wartime does government spend so much money, command so many resources.

But War Keynesianism makes little sense. Wars are actually quite bad for the economy — if economy is understood as “people in general.” And though we often hear that “World War II got us out of the Great Depression,” it’s worth noting that times were tight during the war, and that after VE and VJ Days, when the U.S. government pulled back on spending, Keynesian economists feared the country would spiral back into depression. To their surprise, after a short period of adjustment, the economy took off.

Indeed, not only does War Keynesianism make no sense “in theory,” the facts disprove it, as economic historian Robert Higgs has ably and repeatedly demonstrated. And yet, he recently lamented that the truth is just not getting out there: Intellectuals keep pushing the silly doctrine. Sad.

It’s easy to see why, though. Big governments are spinning out of control, and the intellectual case for them is as bankrupt as their own financials. Insider intellectuals are desperate.

War is the ultimate desperate measure.

Today the U.S. is at war in five different countries.*

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan (drone attacks), Yemen (drone attacks)

Categories
ideological culture

Continental Divide

Today’s ideological impasse is not well understood.

To be a modern “liberal” or “progressive” means generally to favor governmental ways of accomplishing things over private ways, especially over voluntary economic transactions.

Programs such as Arizona’s “Clean Elections” law, discussed yesterday — like similar ideas elsewhere — are designed to make “things better” by preventing certain types of voluntary behavior and distributing taxpayer money (forcefully extracted money, mind you) to people who play by certain established rules.

This seems like “justice” and “fairness” to progressives. It seems more like tyranny and bullying and grand theft to me.

The biggest division — the ideological analog of a continental divide — may be the very picture we have of government. Whatever good intent there is, I see government as Force Institutionalized. So, of course I want it limited, by constitutions and whatnot, its scope reduced so that voluntary (non-​governmental) interactions can take center stage in our social life. 

I believe that paper constitutions are not enough, though, and that government must be checked by Joe and Jill Citizen, who have to live under it, pay taxes to support it, and in good conscience assent (or at least adapt) to its presence in their lives.

Progressives prefer not to look at the “naked force” aspect of government, and see only what they think it can do “for us.” I worry what it will do “to us.” As Tom Paine once wrote, “It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from his government.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ballot access too much government

Arizona “Clean Elections” Scheme Nixed

The United States Supreme Court decided, 5 – 4, against Arizona’s “clean elections” law. In two challenges to the law, Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett and McComish v. Bennett, the Court ruled for freedom and against a bizarrely unfair form of “fairness.”

The idea behind Arizona’s law was to make money somehow “not count” by “leveling the playing field.” Arizona did this by giving taxpayer money to “clean elections candidates” to equal the voluntary donations obtained by privately funded competitors.

Chief Justice Roberts says the scheme goes “goes too far.” I would say: Way too far.

Roberts nicely argues that though “‘Leveling the playing field’ can sound like a good thing … in a democracy, campaigning for office is not a game.  It is a critically important form of speech.  The First Amendment embodies our choice as a Nation that, when it comes to such speech, the guiding principle is freedom — the ‘unfettered interchange of ideas’ — not whatever the State may view as fair.”

Now, I see why people don’t like the ugliness and “unfairness” inherent in “winner-​takes-​all” zero-​sum contests like political campaigns. But the solution isn’t to hand public money to some favored candidates, effectively putting a finger on the scales. Instead, provide the public with greater choices, and let the people freely decide.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall

What’s Next, Democracy?

Not all votes are democratic, for — as Stalin pointed out — it’s not who votes that counts, but who counts the votes.

Same for “town halls” and public discussions: Politicians regularly hold meetings with constituents the main point of which is to make sure that nothing too challenging gets aired.

This being the case, you might guess my reservations about “deliberative polling” in the “What’s Next California” vein.

This weekend three hundred “randomly selected” Californians gathered in Torrance to undergo what looks to be a three-​part process:

  1. Submit to polling on the major issues facing the crisis-​ridden state.
  2. Gather to discuss the issues, with fact-​sheets in hand, and lecturers to listen to and answer questions.
  3. Submit to polling at the end of the session, to see how many of the participants’ ideas have changed.

Project founder James Fishkin is obviously interested in the initiative process, but just as obviously interested in seeing it lean more towards a “progressive” direction. Of the three opinions on the program featured at Zócalo Public Square, I lean towards Tim Cavanaugh’s: “By combining polling with top-​down instruction from a panel of ‘experts,’ deliberative pollsters hope to determine how voting would change if voters’ opinions could be forced into compliance with establishmentarian thinking.…”

Athenian-​style public deliberation? Not really. The experts aren’t polled, so it’s obvious that they aren’t expected to modify their opinions. 

Besides, in a real democracy, the people would do their own research and bring along their own experts.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Reform Challenge

Taxpayers fund about half of all medical industry transactions, and governments regulate that as well as a huge chunk of the rest. No wonder medicine is in chaos.

Economist Charles Sable asserts that he knows how to make health care better. Arnold Kling, on EconLog, reports Sable as saying that “health care providers need to be able to improve by learning from and correcting mistakes. He then proceeds to offer legislation to force that.”

But Kling offers an interesting challenge: “If you know a better way to run health care organizations, why don’t you start a health care organization?”

As opposed to dictating by law how others should manage theirs.

Kling, an economist who has run a business or two, thinks that when “a liberal/​progressive proposal is supposed to do X,” the liberal “expert” should “start a private entity to do X.” He sees no reason why the medical industry would be immune to such challenge: 

If health care providers are doing a bad job, what stops you from implementing a better model and taking over the market? Are consumers too stupid to know the difference between providers who make lots of unnecessary mistakes and providers who don’t? If they are so stupid as consumers, why do you expect them to be smart as voters?

In the real world, we could use people with ideas who really run with them — not stand back and tell some other folks how to run yet another bunch of folks’ lives and businesses.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.