"My premise is that the right is very upset about a slip into tyranny and socialism... It's not that they're angrier than they [leftist during Bush administration] were before. It's that their particular complaint seems specious"
I don't know why this is so hard for people to get when we raise concerns about the "rhetoric".
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive - Tim Pawlenty Extended Interview | ||||
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Pawlenty cites the "tension" between libery, equality, and efficiency which has been expressed by a lot of people in a lot of different ways. The mere ability to mention these three things as acceptable goals is in itself fantastic to hear. Unfortunately, I don't think these three things are as distinct as Pawlenty seems to think they are (which is precisely why it's so dangerous to express the liberal tradition as if they are distinct or even opposing).
One of the other things I like that Jon Stewart says (around 14:00) is "It seems like in the conservative movement its all about protecting liberty and freedom, which is I think admirable, but I think what they always seem to say is that more government always means less liberty, and I would just disagree with that. I guess what I'm saying is everything is situational and up for grabs and these sort of more dogmatic ideologies tend to get in the way of solving real problems because they tend to be very rigid."
There is this constant assumption that "government" as a social institution is somehow alien or artificial. That allows for a very convenient rhetorical juxtaposition between "government" and "society". I'm not sure what the origin of this idea is, but I agree with Stewart that it's simply wrong. I once again go back to what my great-grandad said when he presided over the Maryland constitutional convention in 1968:
"The most immediate threat to the welfare of the citizens of Maryland in the present age arises not from excessive power in their state government, but from a lack of power which prevents their state government from acting effectively... it must be recognized that... oppression can result as much from governmentalinaction, as it can from governmental action. "
Anyway - the video is very good. Stewart has a groupie-fan-following that I think makes it easy to dismiss praise of his insights - but he truly is an insightful guy. I can think of very few traditional commenters that contribute anywhere near the value-added that he does.
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Because "the rhetoric" arguments is a piece with all the paranoid non-sense that is spewed whenever something bad happens. I, to be rather frank, am far more afraid of the paranoid center than I am of the paranoid left or right - the paranoid center are the people who have the power after all.
ReplyDelete"There is this constant assumption that "government" as a social institution is somehow alien or artificial."
It is alien and artificial to most people actually. I have far more contact and I am far in tune with Target or Toyota or Ocean Spray than I am the government.
"...but I think what they always seem to say is that more government always means less liberty, and I would just disagree with that."
ReplyDeleteHas more government made us more free? Given the massive numbers we see in America's prisons I think not. What has been a boon to freedom of late? The internets. Where did they come from? Not the government in the main. Stewart is basically blind to the world around him.
Xenophon - what possible value could a specific instance like that have on the more general point. Listen to the whole video. He talks about how government needs to shrink in some areas and expand in others.
ReplyDeleteNobody ever challenges you on the prison point. Have you noticed that? It's because it's quite obvious to liberal, objective people who approach the question. It's also because it has little value as a generalized principle.
Yes - we have a drug war and we have a prison problem. Until someone starts defending the drug war and incarceration practices, these points don't speak at all to the sort of government action that is usually debated on here: macro management, welfare, education, research, exploration, infrastructure, etc.
It is all of a piece. When the government can do one thing, it can do another. Which is the government always expands, but never contracts. Whatever good the government may do is heavily outweighed by the bad.
ReplyDeleteThe basic problem with Stewart's analysis rests in his faith-like insistence on a "pendulum" rather than Pawlenty's "continuum."
ReplyDeleteThere has never been a true pendulum swing toward limited-government; at best, very minor "reforms" have been employed (cf. Robert Higgs' "ratchet effect"). And, no, the Reagan Revolution isn't even credible as a pendulum swing (cf. Schwab's "The Illusion of a Conservative Reagan Revolution").
I respect Stewart, and I dutifully watch every episode. However, "pragmatism" is, in my opinion, always a front for ideology. For Stewart to claim to be devoid of dogma is laughable--I could easily predict his vote on most policy issues.
More government, necessarily, is less liberty. This isn't a radical idea. The government, in its essence, substitutes one preference-ordering for what would have existed in the absence of Statism. Quoting Thomas Jefferson, "Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."
And I believe government and civil society should be differentiated. To quote Rothbard at length:
With the rise of democracy, the identification of the State with society has been redoubled, until it is common to hear sentiments expressed which violate virtually every tenet of reason and common sense such as, "we are the government." The useful collective term "we" has enabled an ideological camouflage to be thrown over the reality of political life. If "we are the government," then anything a government does to an individual is not only just and untyrannical but also "voluntary" on the part of the individual concerned. If the government has incurred a huge public debt which must be paid by taxing one group for the benefit of another, this reality of burden is obscured by saying that "we owe it to ourselves"; if the government conscripts a man, or throws him into jail for dissident opinion, then he is "doing it to himself" and, therefore, nothing untoward has occurred. Under this reasoning, any Jews murdered by the Nazi government were not murdered; instead, they must have "committed suicide," since they were the government (which was democratically chosen), and, therefore, anything the government did to them was voluntary on their part. One would not think it necessary to belabor this point, and yet the overwhelming bulk of the people hold this fallacy to a greater or lesser degree.
We must, therefore, emphasize that "we" are not the government; the government is not "us." The government does not in any accurate sense "represent" the majority of the people.
I'm grating my teeth over that appropriation and misconstrual of Jefferson, FYI. There are other, more cliched selections from Jefferson that would say what you're saying, of course.
ReplyDeleteYou should be grating your teeth at the more vicious attack laid by Murray Rothbard.
ReplyDeleteAh, but I would be down to my gums if I grated my teeth every time Rothbard said something aggravating :)
ReplyDeleteStewart was really trying to push the idea that the "Tea Party" is contradictory in the sense that Obama is really no different than Bush. A few points.
ReplyDeleteFirst, if Stewart really thinks this, why such different and kinder treatment for Obama? If Bush was nearly as liberal in his policies as Obama (which he was), then consistent liberals should either hate Obama, as they hated Bush, or retrospectively love Bush, as they love Obama - including Stewart.
Second, while I partially agree that many of the "Tea Party" followers, especially the most recent ones, dislike the Democratic Party more than they dislike specific ideas (i.e. they lack consistency), it should have been at least acknowledged that the real seed of the movement goes back to the 2006 general elections. Republicans lost tremendous support then, largely as a result of persistent government expansion. From then on, a more consistent, pro-small government core developed that would eventually evolve into the "Tea Party". Thus, it was not as though there was complete ignorance and complacency during the Bush era.
Thrid, "insightful" is about the last word I'd use to describe Stewart. He's certainly a skilled talker - he comes of as witty, yet informed and sincere. But the actual content of his arguments is so old, basic, and superficial - there's just no analytical depth.
How many times have I heard the same old plea - "the right amount of government depends on the situation". We shouldn't be dogmatic and uncompromising! It's sounds sophisticated and prudent. Yet it's completely empty as far as any deep analytical argument goes. What's important is whether there are consistent arguments for each case - not whether one sounds "dogmatic" or not - that's just silly. I think it reveals that Stewart is more rhetoric than substance. Moreover, the whole prudent, some government is good ideology that seems to pervade a large number of people, has itself become a dogmatic way of thinking.
Fourth, more government means, by definition, less individual freedom - if our definition of freedom is properly defined (that is, if it does not mean something strange like "freedom from want"). How is this hard to comprehend? Where does it go wrong?
And a few comments on your list:
infrastructure - this is quite funny because high-speed public transportation seems to be the dream of liberals yet they simultaneously want to subsidize highways - the primary substitute for high-speed rail. One policy frustrates the other.
research - one of the worst ideas is government research. Ethanol, other worthless energy alternatives, and climate change receive countless amounts of money, and for what? I like to think of technological innovation from the perspective of evolution (of which you seem to be a fan). The system will develop new technologies and methods at a much greater rate the more experimentation there is - and you get more experimentation with more variation. Government research, and expansion in general, always involves greater uniformity (less variation and experimentation) for the benefit of various entrenched interests. More money in the hands of individuals means a greater amount of variation and hence experimentation, both contemporaneously and through time.
education - our system is worthless - kids scoring at levels that would make them permanent kindergartners in China. And the more money we throw at it the worse it gets. Again, from an evolutionary perspective, you want experimentation and variation. Public schooling is necessarily uniform and entrenched. The college industry has also become completely worthless. Honestly, what human capital is developed in a standard 4 year education? As someone who has been in the education system for a long time - my whole life - I can say with complete conviction that it's all dead-weight loss.
Government is not considered alien to society by all. It is only considered alien to society by those who recognize that your great grandfather is wrong, and that the government is not efficient, nor can it make anything better for society as a whole, and that if it then serves no purpose it is a hegemonic bond which can be discarded.
ReplyDeleteDaniel
ReplyDeleteI have noticed some comments now and then from radically progressive commentators that the size of the American government does need to shrink.
This view has been voiced by Robert Scheer, sometimes by Alexander Cockburn and others. Interestingly, Scheer once wrote, "Just what is it about our bloated federal government that everytime a conservative advocates shrinking it, otherwise well educated TV pundits start frothing at the mouth."
It would seem that all people dedicated to sincerity and principle would reduce the size of governments. It all depends on where. But scoring partisan points involves condemning people on issues where they otherwise would have agreed with the position. Very typical.
Here is an example of American contrarianism at work. Earlier, their progressives would have wanted a separate public sector enterprise for offering free medical services. Instead, they started supporting this crude and inefficient indirect control of the entire medical insurance industry and compensated the businesses with more coverage. So what was purely business and government joining together to protect their own narrow interests was defended by progressives as a good welfare goal, even as they abandoned their single-payer dreams forever.
Worse happens here, where any deregulation or privatization of the cronyist telecom industry here is suddenly attacked by sincere communist magazines as an affront to the common man. And thus Indian communists defend the very cronyism they claim to hate.
EdP -
ReplyDeleteFirst, Stewart makes fun of Obama all the time.
Second, when Stewart made fun of Bush it was often because he was (1.) a goofy guy, and (2.) a bellicose guy. Obama is neither. I think that explains a huge portion of the difference in treatment. Perhaps the rest is accounted for by Stewart's own biases.
I think you largely miss the point though. He didn't say Obama was as liberal as Bush, or even as good as Bush. He said he was about as excessive and deserving of being called a socialist or a fascist. And if my memory of the last decade serves me well enough, Stewart never accused Bush of being a socialist or a fascist.
His question is why the Tea Partiers make those accusations of Obama.
This is a much more basic point of fact that he argues that they get wrong than any question of how acceptable a given administration is. Forget whether he likes the administration or not. Let's first get out of the way the question of whether they were fascist and socialist. Stewart answers - and has always answered - "no" on both. And he's right.
Daniel,
ReplyDeleteThis is completely off topic but I thought you might know better than others. If I want an accurate and, in your opinion, authentic exposition of Keynesian business cycle theory, what's the best place to look? Is Keynes himself the best place to go? Or are there other better written, yet accurate interpretations? Moreover, do you know of where I can find a relatively concise explanation of the current crisis from a Keynesian perspective (again, an authentic explanation)?
Do you have any evidence for what you say about 2006? That is not how I remember things at all. Things started to change in 2006 almost exclusively as a result of war fatigue. The Tea Party jumpstarted with the nomination of Obama. It was a 2008 phenomenon. You cannot understand the Tea Party as anything other than a phenomenon that emerges with Obama.
ReplyDeleteA nice anarcho-capitalist streak out of you Jonathan! Usually we don't hear those points from you much.
ReplyDeleteEdP -
On Keynes, I've always said that Lawrence Klein's The Keynesian Revolution is good. I think you appreciate Keynes as a thinker by reading Keynes, but it can be tough to get Keynesian economics from reading the GT. The economics is just too archaic to pick up easily for people I think. A good intermediate textbook is fine too, to be honest - also, Krugman's posts in early to mid 2009 are excellent.
I don't suggest reading Garrison - since Garrison has come up recently on Jonathan's blog I might as well mention that. Hicks added the loanable funds market (which was not a determinant of the interest rate in Keynes) to Keynes in 1937. Keynes strenuously objected to this himself. Most economists have sided with Hicks, rather than Keynes. Garrison only keeps the loanable funds market and completely drops the money market. In other words, Hicks brings Wicksell back into Keynes, and then Garrison takes Keynes out of Hicks (essentially leaving only Wicksell!). The result is a mess. Garrison has some good points to make, but don't try to learn Keynes from him.
There's also Skidelsky's new book which gives a pretty accessible version of a post-Keynesian take on Keynes. It's good, but it's somewhat different from how most Keynesians would present it.
ReplyDeleteThe Tea Party jumpstarted with the nomination of Obama.
ReplyDeleteNope. Congressman Ron Paul raised an eyepopping 6 million dollars on the anniversary of Tea Party, Dec 2007. That was the jumpstart. Of course, a lot of others joined the bandwagon after Obama continued to take the country down the same path as Bush.
sandre -
ReplyDeleteI think it's a huge mistake to conflate libertarianism with the Tea Party. Indeed, I think the failure of libertarians to realize this is going to hurt them tremendously.
The Tea Party started in late 2008, I would argue. Ron Paul jumped on the bandwagon because he found it politically convenient.
I think it's a huge mistake to conflate libertarianism with the Tea Party.
ReplyDeleteI agree. However, it is a big mistake to think that I'm conflating the two.
Ron Paul jumped on the bandwagon because he found it politically convenient.
Nope. It was the other way around. Ron Paul had a reenactment at his home on that day in 2007. It was Ron Paul's strong online army and campaign for liberty that helped organize people across the country, early on. In fact the rant by Santelli also went viral through the ronpaulforums.
http://mysite.verizon.net/nathanielyao/index.html
much of the early funding also came from campaign for liberty.
OK - lots of groups reenact and commemorate revolutionary era events. He has always liked Guy Fawkes day too - does that mean he anticipated all the V for Vendetta fans?
ReplyDeleteI'd trace the Tea Party back to Palin rallies in the '08 campaign. The composition of the Palin rallies are what has carried over and characterized the Tea Parties. Ron Paul is a master at ginning up excited supporters - and he rightly figured that he could continue to do that by tying his largely libertarian following to the Tea Party.
Next you're going to tell me that people started caring about the Constitution when Ron Paul said we should follow it during his presidential campaign.
ReplyDeleteNext you're going to tell me that people started caring about the Constitution when Ron Paul said we should follow it during his presidential campaign.
ReplyDeleteWow! you can read minds!
Looking up the Tea Party on Wikipedia, they cite Tax Day rallies with a tea party theme back to the '90s. So surely there's a lot of relevant pre-history, Ron Paul included. But Daniel's point remains that the "Tea Party" as the current movement that everyone is interested in wasn't in any way established or started outside of the context of Obama and his opponents as led by various personalities like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, etc.
ReplyDeleteAnd let's be clear - I'm trying to cut Ron Paul a break by stressing the distinction. A lot of people look at "the right" in a completely undifferentiated way.
ReplyDeleteA lot of libertarians have secretly wanted a vanguard of the revolution. Well you got it - the problem is it's reactionary as much as it is radical. This is how revolutions always end up materializing. The sooner the true believers realize this and reposition themselves accordingly, the more of their reputation they'll end up salvaging.
Unless, of course, you'd rather pragmatically embrace the more reactionary movement at hand. Different people are going to have different preferences on this question.
The debate about when the Tea Party started misses the point I think. Ideologies do not work that way; they grow and prosper (or not) and then become apparent in context.
ReplyDeleteStewart basically tries to ignore the power of ideology; what, is he a Beardian or something? As such, he fundamentally misunderstands those he is criticizing. Then again, he is also heavily insulated in his own ideology, so that doesn't help much either in his analysis.
Daniel,
Some elements of the TP are reactionary, some are not - that isn't what unites the TP folks though. Just like "free labor" meant different things to different people in the 1850s, yet a political party coalesced around the idea (namely the Republican party), so the TP is coalescing around a shared if controverted idea regarding the size of the state and the nature of the individual vis a vis the state.
Xenophon - I'm not sure how our discussion of the Tea Party violates any of your concerns about ideology, and I'm also not sure why you say what you do about Stewart. What do you mean he ignores ideology? He seems to highlight it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you're exactly right that some elements of the Tea Party are reactionary and some are not, and that this is not what unites them. I think you overstate the amount of shared ideas, though. I think these ideas are much more diverse and variable than libertarians especially like to admit. Virtually the only shared idea of the Tea Party is an anger over Obama. This anger ranges broadly from libertarianism to populism to more traditional conservatism, to outright racism in a minority. It's a very mixed bag.
No, Stewart is talking about dogmatism, not ideology. And to be blunt, anyone who doesn't think like Stewart is a dogmatist in his eyes. Ever since Stewart's rather tiresome tirade against Tucker Carlson a few years ago I realized that Stewart was a class A idiot.
ReplyDelete"Virtually the only shared idea of the Tea Party is an anger over Obama."
This gets it wrong. It isn't anger over Obama, it is anger of what Obama represents rather broadly - amongst other things, a snooty east coast liberal, with all that entails.
And to be blunt, anyone who doesn't think like Stewart is a dogmatist in his eyes.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure this is entirely true, but I'd certainly agree with the spirit of your concern here. I've always been pretty disappointed with Stewart's coverage of same-sex marriage, and I think he doesn't give a moment's honest consideration to this who differ with him on it.
At the same time though, it's important to remember that those who think Stewart's stuff is good... or even great... don't need to be in agreement with him on everything or assume that he is some titan of wisdom and right-decision. That is, I may find his thoughts on x,y, or z tiresome or one-sided without thinking that he's a class A idiot. Really, all it means is that he's like most of the rest of us... he falls short on standards that he applies to others. So what? So critique him and move on.