Tuesday, December 30, 2008
A Circle of Ideologies
We tend, perhaps incorrectly, to think of ideologies as points on a line. Moderation is a point, or rather a region, near the midpoint of the line. Moving to the left we come to progressivism, liberalism, socialism, communism, anarchism, and so on. Moving to the right we come to conservatism, extreme conservatism, and so on. Someone pointed out to me many years ago that the extremes on this line tend to be very similar. I therefore posit that the line isn't a straight line but rather a circle. Moderation is a point or region on the circle. Diametrically opposite is a region of anarchism.
Both the extreme right and the extreme left in politics abhor large government. The Communists believed that if private property could be eliminated, the state would simply wither away because there would be nothing for it to do. They thought of the state as the protector of property rights, especially those of the rich. Conservatives like Grover Norquist and the late Howard Jarvis also believed in a small state that didn't do much. Ultimately their ideal was anarchy or a stateless society.
Without a state there would be no taxes to vex the rich. Whatever services were available to the public would be paid for by fees charged for service. If you want to borrow a book from the library, or even go to the library to read a book or magazine, you would pay a fee. If your house was on fire, you would pay a fee to a fire brigade to put it out. If you got sick, you would pay a fee to the doctor and to the nurses that took care of you.
I don't know of any region that has functioned as a society without a government. In Somalia there is no central government and things aren't very good there. I do know of a society that existed with a weak government in which taxes were low and one had to pay fees or bribes for such services as obtaining license plates for your car. In the case of that society, inflation had wiped out much of the value of the currency. However, government officials were still paid according to the pre-inflation scale. In order to make ends meet, they had to solicit fees (bribes) from people who needed their services.
Communism was tried in Russia. It became corrupt and finally failed. It seems to me that the same fate will overtake any experiment in conservative "small government." Conservative small government lets enterpreneurs do whatever they want. It encourages originality. We have seen recently some examples of originality and absence of government supervision. It is my opinion that small government will lead to corruption, just as Communism led to corruption.
Both the extreme right and the extreme left in politics abhor large government. The Communists believed that if private property could be eliminated, the state would simply wither away because there would be nothing for it to do. They thought of the state as the protector of property rights, especially those of the rich. Conservatives like Grover Norquist and the late Howard Jarvis also believed in a small state that didn't do much. Ultimately their ideal was anarchy or a stateless society.
Without a state there would be no taxes to vex the rich. Whatever services were available to the public would be paid for by fees charged for service. If you want to borrow a book from the library, or even go to the library to read a book or magazine, you would pay a fee. If your house was on fire, you would pay a fee to a fire brigade to put it out. If you got sick, you would pay a fee to the doctor and to the nurses that took care of you.
I don't know of any region that has functioned as a society without a government. In Somalia there is no central government and things aren't very good there. I do know of a society that existed with a weak government in which taxes were low and one had to pay fees or bribes for such services as obtaining license plates for your car. In the case of that society, inflation had wiped out much of the value of the currency. However, government officials were still paid according to the pre-inflation scale. In order to make ends meet, they had to solicit fees (bribes) from people who needed their services.
Communism was tried in Russia. It became corrupt and finally failed. It seems to me that the same fate will overtake any experiment in conservative "small government." Conservative small government lets enterpreneurs do whatever they want. It encourages originality. We have seen recently some examples of originality and absence of government supervision. It is my opinion that small government will lead to corruption, just as Communism led to corruption.
Labels: communism, Grover Norquist, Howard Jarvis, inflation as a cause of corruption, Russia, small government
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Troubles for Republicans
Following the election of November 4, Republicans have been thinking out loud - well, at least in print - about the future of the Republican Party. Some of the Party theorists, like Richard Viguerie, argue that the Republicans lost the recent election because they didn't live up to their beliefs while in office. These beliefs include small government and low taxes, fiscal discipline, and respect for and encouragement of individual initiative and responsibility. They argue that while George Bush gave lip service to these ideals he contrarily increased the size of government and embraced perpetual borrowing to pay for the bloated government.
Other thinkers, including several Republican governors, realize that the national Republican Party's problem is at least partly due to the incompetence of the Bush administration. Katrina comes to mind. The Party will have to rebuild its reputation as a competent governing group if it is to regain the trust of enough American voters to regain some of the power it had just a few years ago.
My diagnosis, that of a life-long Democrat, is that the basic message of the Republican Party is out of date. I remember hearing a local Republican business man in my home town tell me about 75 years ago that "government should leave business alone." Other Republicans have said quite often that "government spends too much money." That was one of President Gerald Ford's favorite sayings.
One serious problem for the Republicans is that many middle-class professional and retired persons, like myself, who used to be loyal members of the Party have left it. Many well-to-do persons see the Republican policy of reducing taxes on the rich as simply a hypocritical gimmick to reward some of their election campaign funders. Almost nobody takes seriously the argument that rich folk must be allowed to keep a lot of their money so that they will have money to invest in new enterprises to provide employment, etc., etc., etc., and that taxing them will discourage them from such investment.
As a counter example, consider Microsoft. This was a firm started with a very small investment. All Bill Gates needed was a personal computer with enough capacity to write and store code. His most important investment was to buy an operating system from another engineer who had named it "Quick and Dirty Operating System" or QDOS. Gates changed the name to "Disk Operating System" or DOS. He then had a product that manufacturers of personal computers needed to help sell their machines to a public that knew nothing about machine language programming.
A better counter example is the state of the economy during the Clinton administration. Clinton increased taxes to put the federal government on a pay as you go basis. These "high" tax rates certainly did not stifle the growth in business during the Clinton years. The "low" tax rates of the Bush years don't seem to have had the effect of stimulating the economy. Recent experience does not provide an proof of the Republican theory that letting the Rich keep more of their money will stimulate the economy. The short word is "trickle-down economics." The Republicans promoted it when I was a child and they still promote it today. It's an idea that they should discard.
A huge problem for the Republican Party is that it has allowed a rather small but very dedicated group of Conservative Fundamentalist Christians to dictate many of the policies of the Party and of any Republican administration. Party leaders, such as Nixon and Reagan, cultivated this particular bloc and made them the core constituency of the Party. The class of professional people has tended to leave the Party as a result. The Party is coming apart. What it needs is a new leader who can put together another coalition that will hold together.
Other thinkers, including several Republican governors, realize that the national Republican Party's problem is at least partly due to the incompetence of the Bush administration. Katrina comes to mind. The Party will have to rebuild its reputation as a competent governing group if it is to regain the trust of enough American voters to regain some of the power it had just a few years ago.
My diagnosis, that of a life-long Democrat, is that the basic message of the Republican Party is out of date. I remember hearing a local Republican business man in my home town tell me about 75 years ago that "government should leave business alone." Other Republicans have said quite often that "government spends too much money." That was one of President Gerald Ford's favorite sayings.
One serious problem for the Republicans is that many middle-class professional and retired persons, like myself, who used to be loyal members of the Party have left it. Many well-to-do persons see the Republican policy of reducing taxes on the rich as simply a hypocritical gimmick to reward some of their election campaign funders. Almost nobody takes seriously the argument that rich folk must be allowed to keep a lot of their money so that they will have money to invest in new enterprises to provide employment, etc., etc., etc., and that taxing them will discourage them from such investment.
As a counter example, consider Microsoft. This was a firm started with a very small investment. All Bill Gates needed was a personal computer with enough capacity to write and store code. His most important investment was to buy an operating system from another engineer who had named it "Quick and Dirty Operating System" or QDOS. Gates changed the name to "Disk Operating System" or DOS. He then had a product that manufacturers of personal computers needed to help sell their machines to a public that knew nothing about machine language programming.
A better counter example is the state of the economy during the Clinton administration. Clinton increased taxes to put the federal government on a pay as you go basis. These "high" tax rates certainly did not stifle the growth in business during the Clinton years. The "low" tax rates of the Bush years don't seem to have had the effect of stimulating the economy. Recent experience does not provide an proof of the Republican theory that letting the Rich keep more of their money will stimulate the economy. The short word is "trickle-down economics." The Republicans promoted it when I was a child and they still promote it today. It's an idea that they should discard.
A huge problem for the Republican Party is that it has allowed a rather small but very dedicated group of Conservative Fundamentalist Christians to dictate many of the policies of the Party and of any Republican administration. Party leaders, such as Nixon and Reagan, cultivated this particular bloc and made them the core constituency of the Party. The class of professional people has tended to leave the Party as a result. The Party is coming apart. What it needs is a new leader who can put together another coalition that will hold together.
Labels: Bill Gates, low taxes, Microsoft, QDOS, Richard Nixon, Richard Viguerie, Ronald Reagan, small government, Trickle-down economics
