Increasing Oligarchy?

(Click pic for pic. File is .pdf.)

One of the confusing labels in talking about politics is Liberal.

Since I've always considered myself a Liberal, I have come to the point where those on the Left should, in my humble opinion, be referred to as Leftists, rather than Liberals. Most of my values--Liberal values--are encapsulated in our nation's founding documents; the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.

Speech should be free. Property rights and contracts must be enforced. The choice of what religion I should choose to adhere to is mine, and mine alone.

It is one of the fundamental concepts of our titular form of government that the coercive powers of the state must be limited.

What has resulted is a society where the ownership of certain types of assets is extremely diffuse.

Home ownership nationally is about 67 percent. Two-thirds of us own our own homes. In 2004, there were 29.3-million nonfarm business tax returns filed with the IRS. Small firms with fewer than 500 employees represent 99.9 percent of the Department of Labor's employer figures.

This is an amazing testament to a market-based economic model that relies upon diffusion and self-interest to drive an economy.

One of the defining differences between the United States and all other countries has been the sheer wealth of this country, as opposed to every other country. Walking though the streets of Frankfurt, Vienna, Milan, Moscow, an American is struck by just how quaint it all is. Quaint being a nice word for a 1950's feel that everything is stuck in a time warp. How poor everything is. You see it in the people and how they dress. Everything seems to be a knock-off of American fashion, made in backwater countries with cheaper grades of material. The age and wear on their tram systems. And the biggest difference between all these European and Asian markets has been the difference between where they were and where they are. That is, all of these markets have suffered from greater degrees of central control and authority, from socialism, than has the United States.

Fifteen miles in any direction from the ring-road in Moscow one meets incomprehensible poverty. The Socialist Paradise's mask is ripped away. Within the city limits one need only visit the new middle-class in their homes to get a sense of what is real poverty. The dourness of the monochrome exteriors of their housing is better than what passes for "home" within those façades. If you can remember the cheap, fleabag hotels of the 1960's on Burnside, you can capture the flavour of living the dolce vita in the former Soviet Union. Threadbare or non-existent carpets in entryways. Threadbare or non-existent carpets in their living space. Space for a bed, a chair, maybe two beds. And a cooking ring.

But there is, for all that, a certain forced social egalitarianism.

When you live in a poor country, most people share in that poverty.

It's easy for me to see the point of divergence between Liberal and Leftist. It occurred in the 1960's in this country. It happened when our Congress adopted President Johnson's plan to create a Great Society. Narrow-minded parochial thinkers adopted a view (Vision!™) that our country was too great, too rich and too powerful. What they proposed was a safety-net, that no one in this country would have to live in the kind and type of poverty that afflicted the poorest of our people. And, it was a truly horrid poverty.

If you never visited an Indian reservation in the 1960's, you can't appreciate the poverty that these people lived in. If you never visited a migrant workers' camp in the 1960's, you can't imagine the poverty that these people lived in. If you've never seen the poverty of the field workers' camps of the Deep South in the 1960's, you can't imagine the poverty of those places. So our government policy became one of lifting these people from their poverty. By giving them cash.

At the same time, some truly important legislation was being passed. A public campaign was being waged against those who refused to adhere to what I believe are my Liberal beliefs. Led by Dr. Martin Luther King and great Republican senators and congressmen--following the extremely important Brown v. Board of Education--Republicans worked to make sure that the promises of the 14th, 15th and 16th Amendments were effected through enabling legislation, most notably, the Civil Rights Act. More important than cash, more important than "lifting up", was the levelling of the playing field.

What occurred was a bifurcation: the Left went toward re-distributionism; the Right went to equity before the law. The Leftist impulse was to take from the Man. The Right worked to ensure that political and economic opportunities were guaranteed to all, regardless of colour, race or creed.

I'm afraid that what we're seeing today--vis a vis our country's increasing cant toward socialism--is a result of this political bifurcation between the Left and the Right. Leftists wish to paint those of us on the Right as Nazi's, anti-science bigots, in-bred mouthbreathers.

In juxtaposition, they paint themselves as social-justice activists, smart and chic.

How do we describe ourselves? Interesting question. I know I'm not a Nazi. I know I have a deep appreciation for science and the scientific method. I know that I only mouthbreath at night. I think some nights I saw many logs.

Being a Liberal, rather than a Leftist, I believe in things like the meaning of words. I believe that "due process" is important. I believe that limiting entry into markets is a bad thing. I believe in an even playing field. I believe that government has a role to play in regulation of our behaviour, but that that role is limited. And if you want to reduce those limitations, the due process for those reductions is incorporated into the Constitution through the Amendment Process.

We, as a nation, are going to be tested on the fundamental beliefs of the Left and the Right. I would admonish those who seek to effect social justice to remember the writing of Edmund Burke. Or, more importantly for those of us who went to Beaverton High, the philosophy of Coach McGee: before you tear a system down, explain how the system you're going to replace the old system with is better. How it works. How it gets a can of peas to market more cheaply. How you can work more competetively. How you can work to give your family a better life. How it will increase our liberty and our freedom.

One of the dilemmas of the modern economist is how to transform nations which suffer high rates of oligarchy. In this country it has been our economic mobility that has created new wealth and new wealth holders without regard to ancestry. Oligarchy lends itself to certain forms of corruption. In this country, it is our common belief that no man is above the law and that all men are equal before the law that has held creation of oligarchy at bay. It has been our system of limited government that has held at bay the pre-emption or dominance of markets by our government. And more importantly, held the allies of the Left at bay.

How do oligarchies develop? History is replete with examples, but all of the examples that I can think of come with a single requisite: partnership with those who hold political power. (Sure, you can nitpick and say it was religious power that created these oligarchies. Perhaps that was true through the 17th century, but the rise of liberalism meant a diminution of religious power in favour of political power. States and Kings ruled in the temporal sphere. Prior to the rise of nationalism, religious power was the political power.)

In many parts of the world, aggregation is the problem. Mexico comes to mind. So too much of Latin America. Which has led to us singing songs of the poor campisonos. After a great aggregation, supported by an oligarchy tied to political power, how do you attempt to disaggregate? Where Leftists fail is in their identification of the enemy. It is the government partnership with the private sphere where the concept of market economics is most distressed. It is not teh "Globalization" thingy. Huge disallocations of capital have, and will, occur. Visit the light-rail Vision!™ of Portland. Billions to build. Billions to maintain. And still people prefer private autos. One can only sadly note that most of the transportation problems of the state could have--should have--been solved if those dollars weren't so wasted. And lastly, it is not the Military-Industrial Complex that we must avoid. That threat, like the threat of polio, has disappeared.

Today we need fear the Environmental-Leftist Complex. A rising oligarchy of private/public partnerships that are taking billions of private dollars and directing the use of those dollars to projects supported by the Environmental-Lefitst Complex.

I attempted to point out the rise of the Left--and their compulsion to centralized authority--with my post "A Foot in the Door or a Seat at the Table?" back in 2008.

The text includes an article by Arrigo Levi. Written in 1976, after the election of President Carter, but before his accession to office, Levi writes the following words:

"An “institutional” approach to the problem of organizing a better management of world problems has not received much attention (especially, but not only, by America) during the last few years. A lot of time has been wasted, and in the atomic age, the supply of time is not unlimited."

What to do, what to do?

I haven't talked or written much about groups like the Bilderberg or the Trilateral Commission. Folks who write about these groups are treated by the Left like conspiracy theorists. That Levi was involved in these groups is mentioned, but no imputed conspiracy is intended. But a brief internet search of these groups, and their attendees, is recommended. I will leave it to you, the reader, to ask yourself if there is a shred, a scintilla of evidence that would link groups like these to the push by other non-governmental agencies to adopt policies and practises that would likely give greater power and authority to central planning agencies and authorities, rather than less.

America has been a bastion of freedom and economic liberty throughout its history. There are those who would assert that this "exceptionalism" is the cause for the angst, the stǚrm und drang of our modern world. It is Levi's prescription that we should "the democratic West ought to concentrate its attention on the hasty construction and completion of Western and worldwide institutions, in order to strengthen our economies and our societies and to contain within a more stable framework the great risks of Euro-communism."

I would proffer that there is greater risk to our institutions in America from these hastily constructed Western and worldwide institutions than from an obeissance to our own particular rule of law and national self-interest. In Oregon, we have first-hand experience of the cronyism of our state's elected officials. Of course, this cronyism is couched within the Vision!™ of our dear leaders. So we must accept that friends and families of the politically connected will receive largesse from their political partners.

We will see increasing central control and planning nationally, just as we have been on the wrong end of the stick here in Oregon for more than 30 years. And the businesses and unions who sign on for their piece of the public/private partnership will, in the short-run, prosper. (Which is totally Keynesian, no? "In the long-run, we're all dead"?) What results is an increasing oligarchy, the private/public partnerships of those companies that adopt the central impulses of the Left for short-term advantage. Increasing centralization, rather than increasing decentralization. More barriers to entry, not fewer. Greater public planning and government "investment."

Where, in the constitutions of either the state or the national government does it read "government shall mandate private investment"? I assert it does not. We have never supported oligarchy, or the creation of oligarchy, at any moment of our previous history. That was a European disease. Or a Latin disease. Or an Asian disease.

No one reads "Wealth of Nations" anymore. No one cares about dead guys who wrote about the mistakes and failures of the past. The Left is comprised of the social-justice activists, the smart and the chic. Just don't try to pin them down on how and where wealth is created. Wealth is simply unimportant. I guess that's because it's "unsustainable."

The miracle of the self-fulfilling prophecy.