More on Freedom (or “how to not run GM”)
One of the ways in which governments start to take power is by taking control of industries or by regulating the industries in such as way as to pick winners and losers within the industry. When the government at least limits itself to creating transparent regulations (I know, what sort of foolish utopia do I think we have!?), then at least everyone has to play by the same rules. Unfortunately, when the government insists upon owning businesses or industries, they can’t resist the need to tamper with them. It’s kind of like buying a car and not being able to drive it. You KNOW you’ve at least got to test drive the thing if you paid for it.
In a recent, egregious case, the government took over the running of General Motors. At the time, was said to be a temporary thing and that, “What we are not doing … is running GM.” However, fast forward a couple of months and this story appears:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/johnstossel/2009/07/department-of-unsurprising-news.html
The car’s been sitting in the driveway for a while. Not just Obama, but congress and the UAW have the keys to the car as well. Someone just had to take it for a drive.. and so it starts:
Got that? Then, GM tries to close hundreds of excess dealerships to cut costs…and now Congress is stepping in to stop them. Reason’s Ron Bailey points to today’s Washington Post: “Under legislation that has rapidly gained support, GM and Chrysler would have to reinstate more than 2,000 dealerships that the companies had slated for closure… Since federal money has been used to sustain the automakers, [the dealerships] say Congress has an obligation to intervene.” Bet this won’t be the last time Congress moves to intervene in GM’s management decisions.
Even without evaluating whether or not this is a good idea, it’s just a symptom of what this system of ownership promotes. Give Congress the keys to the car and they’re going to start screwing around with it (normally, I’d say they take it out and drive drunk with it at high speeds…). What does this mean in terms of freedom? Well, first of all it means that yet again the investors get screwed by not being able to run the company (or take the company into bankruptcy) the way they would like – especially the bondholders who were dismissed while the government was busy giving favors to the UAW.
Anyone who thinks this is shocking is, well… a fool. This is how things work. One of the things the founding fathers gave a lot of thought to is human nature. It is human nature to take advantage of situations like these. It is human nature for politicians to wield power in a way that benefits them and the people who support them.
You cannot change human nature, it’s simply not something that works. You can, however, set up a system and enforce a system that doesn’t put people into a position where we have to rely on the best part of their nature to help them avoid corruption.
A bit on freedom
One of the reasons the founders of our nation were so clear about separation of powers and about the limited scope of federal government power was to prevent unfair intrusions into people’s lives and affairs. Limit the scope and there’s only so much control the government can exert. Separate the powers and you don’t have to rely on the good intentions of one party to limit themselves, you have numerous sometimes antaganistic forces applied to prevent the collection of too much power in one person or one group’s hands.
Unfortunately, many of these checks have been eroded over time in the United States and many citizens are simply unaware of the reasons our founders had when they set up our system of government. In my mind, part of that erosion has be deliberate on the part of individuals and groups who would like to wield that power. Part has also been due to the laziness of others who should be defending that system and educating votors on why it is important.
A story that caught my eye today was the one reported on by Jake Tapper of ABC News.
The gist of the story is that the Obama administration wants to proceed with another stimulus package (without having spent more than a fraction of the first.. nevermind how they have evaluated the effects without having even partially completed the first package.. but anyway…). An Arizona Senator who happens to be a Republican, John Kyl, spoke out against the new stimulus on one of the weekend shows.
A day later, the governor of Arizona was receiving letters from multiple groups pretty much threatening to start withholding funds from the state.
As noted in the article:
“Added the governor’s spokesman, “the governor is hopeful that these federal Cabinet officials are not threatening to deny Arizona citizens the portion of federal stimulus funds to which they are entitled. She believes that would be a tremendous mistake by the administration. And the governor is grateful for the strong leadership and representation that Arizonans enjoy in the United States Senate.”
It is one thing to take people’s money (and future earnings) through taxes and then to spend that arbitrarily. It’s another thing to use the money as a way of enforcing political agreement — In other words, agree with me OR ELSE. But of course, this is a prime example of why our founders sought to limit government in the first place and to provide a competing array of powers that would prevent one group from doing this form of action. In their wisdom, they KNEW that if people were given this kind of power that they would use it in ways detrimental to the country (as we are seeing now).
What lessons are to be drawn?
- Go back to the classical liberalism as described by the founders. People should read and understand their message and the important of that message
- Vote for candidates who believe that message, regardless of party
- When politicians break their word or simply promote policies against that philosophy, vote them out and get them the hell out of office
Do your own analysis!
One of the biggest problems I have with modern society is that most people are simply incapable of doing their own analysis about anything that is reasonably complex. Unfortunately, our schools are much to blame in this regard. One of the reasons kids graduate without analytical skills is that for the most part they don’t read source documents.
Instead, they read the chapter in a book that analyzes and describes the source document to them. For instance, instead of reading Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, most students read some watered down crap written by failed social science teacher who insists on using the passive voice for all of his sentences and has a visceral hatred of anything resembling classical liberalism.
This is an excellent strategy if your goal is to produce graduates who have a particular viewpoint, not such a good strategy if you want people who can look at a situation, break down the pertinant components and then formulate their own analysis about the situation. You see this in far too many fields today. As a consultant, many companies are filled with followers who refuse to analyze the processes, procedures and situation they’ve been given. Journalists play follow-the-leader and naively accept anything that resembles the viewpoint they’ve probably had since their undergrad humanities days (I think we can all guess what world view that is…).
What really infuriates me, though, is when otherwise intelligent people who I would consider to be part of the classic liberalism movement play follow the leader and don’t do their own analysis. A recent example of this was Sarah Palin’s resignation.
A quick history lesson
One key to understanding how the world works is to at least have a minimal grasp of history. One example of how to NOT understand the world was on display during President Obama’s trip to Russia. Not only did he mix up the ending of the Soviet Union , but he did so in a way that had to make people question whether or not he knew the history or just didn’t have the backbone to say the truth while in Russia.
Liz Cheney, showing the same kind of backbone her father has wrote an excellent article on the subject for the WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124744075427029805.html
One key excerpt that emphasizes my point above
” Mr. Obama’s method for pushing reset around the world is becoming clearer with each foreign trip. He proclaims moral equivalence between the U.S. and our adversaries, he readily accepts a false historical narrative, and he refuses to stand up against anti-American lies.”
I think this is a key reason for Americans starting to lose faith in the man (not a problem for me as I never had it, more on that in a separate post someday). While the comparison modus operandi (you know, his method of saying, “on the one hand ..” add a typical conservative position charicatured poorly.. “and on the other hand”.. add in idealized liberal viewpoint.. “blah, blah, blah both sides have validity” and viola! “the liberal side is the right one”) works well for a campaign, they don’t want their country to be the negative comparison when we are abroad.
Sure, we don’t want to go to Russia and rub their noses in the fact that they were an evil empire and that due to our country’s power and steadfastness they are no longer an empire, but neither do we want to acquiesce to a false view just to save their feelings. Either Obama believes the false history OR doesn’t have the courage to defend the truth. Neither option is a particularly positive view of the man.
where to start
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to start. After thinking about multiple different essays, I finally concluded that the easiest way would be to simply describe what I want to do here. As a classically trained philosopher who was interested in areas far beyond philosophy, I love to study history, economics, law and politics. Unlike many of my contemporaries, I strongly believe that the classical analysis of those topics remains relevant and important in today’s world. There are some who may think that classic liberalism is dead, but for me it is the the best way forward in our complex and “interesting” times.
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