Progressive -- not!
By Donald J. Boudreaux
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Progressive -- not!
By Donald J. Boudreaux
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
My son, Thomas, 10, sometimes amuses himself with a game he calls "Opposite." Whenever he is struck by the fancy to play this game, he announces to my wife and me that all that he says during the next several minutes will be the opposite of what he really means.
"Mommy is ugly" really means "Mommy is beautiful." "I'm stuffed!" means "I'm hungry." To indicate that he'd prefer to play rather than do his homework, Thomas declares that, by all means, he wants to do his homework immediately.
Too often when I read newspapers or encounter government in action I feel as though pundits and politicians are playing "Opposite" with me. Except, unlike with my son, these people genuinely hope to dupe me with their verbal stratagems.
An especially galling "Opposite" in the political sphere is the use of the term "Progressive." Enemies of individual freedom and responsibility, and of the economic dynamism characteristic only of capitalism, routinely call themselves "Progressives."
These "Progressives" want America to "progress" back to a state of mind that holds that we ordinary men and women are so naturally weak in mind, body and willpower that we must be protected by heroic white knights from nefarious forces intent on destroying us.
Just as feudal lords protected their serfs from being raped and pillaged by invading hordes, so, too, will the modern state protect us helpless and ignorant ordinary folk from unsafe foods, immoral drugs, blackhearted corporations, naughty words and inexpensive foreign products.
Of course, would-be protectors demand the unquestioned cooperation of the protected. Serfs of old who insisted on freedom to make their own choices -- ordinary persons who struggled to break free of the thicket of superstitions and dictates that bound them to the land and to obedience to their lords -- could not be easily protected. Not only did such uppity peasants fail to contribute their "fair share" to the maintenance of the lords and knights who so selflessly protected them but serfs who disobeyed their lords and masters arrogantly behaved as if they could run their own lives without the benevolent oversight of their betters.
And if the peasants succeeded in breaking the bonds of their servitude, society would disintegrate into a terrible free-for-all in which no one knew his place and every man and woman would run about making individual choices based on nothing more than their own petty, narrow and base preferences. Orderly society would be replaced by unpredictable, disorderly chaos.
"Progressives" today believe the same.
"Let me decide for myself if the promise of a particular medication is worth its risk," asks the uppity modern citizen. "How foolish!" scolds the modern lord and his courtiers. "You are but a weak and uninformed individual who is too prone to rash judgments. We will protect your health with the Food and Drug Administration."
Another peasant, feeling full of himself, asserts his right to provide for his own retirement. "Thank you, m'lord," says this humble commoner, "but I'd prefer that you stop taking a sizeable chunk of my annual income and (allegedly) setting it aside for my retirement. I am sufficiently responsible and intelligent to determine for myself how much I should save for my retirement and how those savings should be invested."
"You haughty, misguided child-peasant you!" intones the lord surrounded by his armored legions. "Only I am trustworthy enough to provide for your retirement. My foresight and self-control are necessary to protect you from your own likely myopia and weakness of will. Of course, the only way for me to have sufficient funds on hand to provide for your retirement is if you give me today, for my safe-keeping, some of your earnings. But precisely because you, serf, cannot be trusted to care for yourself, I must forcibly confiscate from you today the funds that I determine are necessary to provide for your retirement tomorrow."
Of course, when medieval superstitions, stasis and status eventually gave way to individualism, society did not collapse. It thrived as never before. Great cities were built. The profit motive led entrepreneurs to invent lifesaving medicines, more abundant food supplies, vibrant cultural products available to anyone who wished to partake in them and creature comforts undreamed of by even the wealthiest medieval monarchs.
In short, individualism -- and the freedom and free markets that it entails -- sparked and sustained progress as never before.
Today's "Progressives" seek a return to the status and static society in which the few direct and "protect" the many. That, of course, is the opposite of genuine progress.
Donald J. Boudreaux is chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. His column runs twice monthly. E-mail him at: dboudrea@gmu.edu
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Muirgeo,
I will answer you because you singled me out.
I hope you are kidding with your talk of FDR.
If you are not kidding you obviously have no clue about how the depression got started or continued. To summarize, what became the depression started like many other recessions that occur on a regular basis. The difference with that one was that a few very bad economic decisions by government leaders - not by the free market - that lead to a severe credit and monetary crunch. What was passed off as regulatory oversite (your favorite topic) actually lengthened the depression by years. This is commonly known.
Although many like to say the depression began with the stock market crash, it is very much untrue. A Time article that was published in early 1931 asked people what their concerns were for the upcoming year. Something less than 20% feared economic trouble. The depression that we remember from cartoons, movies, and stories mostly took place between 1932 until 1940.
The "great Crash" of 1929 simply sent stocks back to where they were in 1928. The subsequent continued decline of the stock market due to bad economic policies drove the market further down. The cause and effect of the depression has been colored many ways by anti-market folks who consistently get it wrong.
Note that by 1936, the Dow Jones rebounded up to 184 (it's 1927 level), but stayed under 200 until 1950. And actually dipped all the way back down 92 (half of where it was in 1936) in 1942 - the 6 years from 1936 to 1942 are in the middle of FDR's wonderful time. Imagine what would be said about Bush if the Dow Jones went from 14000 to 7000 during his time in office.
FDR was in charge for 7 of the main 8 depression years. Unemployment in 1928 was 4%. In the first 7 years of FDR's administration it was never below 15%.
Again, it is clear that you need to read a little history before you start typing away on your computer.
Posted by: python | Aug 8, 2007 5:34:12 PM
muirgeo: you keep claiming that no libertarian societies has ever existed. And yet a more truthful and honest perspective is that libertarian ideas and socialist ideas are living together in the same society. Interestingly, the libertarian parts seem to do "better" (which is obviously the point in debate, but by "better" I mean more contentment can be observed) than the progressive, socialist, leftist parts. For example, compare the market for food with the market for education. Or the market for exercise with the market for health care.
Posted by: Russell Nelson | Aug 9, 2007 2:21:22 AM |
