The End of the Social-Democratic Model: Will the Left Respond by Accepting Reality?
Levin continues to throw out his bold challenge to those who still believe in the social-democratic ideal, people such as the late Tony Judt, whose last book before his death was an impassioned defense of that very ideal. That ideal has had great staying power. Yuval Levin writes:
That vision was an answer to a question America must still confront: How shall we balance the competing aspirations of our society — aspirations to both wealth and virtue, dynamism and compassion? How can we fulfill our simultaneous desires to race ahead yet leave no one behind? The answer offered by the social-democratic ideal was a technocratic welfare state that would balance these aspirations through all-encompassing programs of social insurance. We would retain a private economy, but it would be carefully managed in order to curb its ill effects, and a large portion of its output would be used by the government to address large social problems, lessen inequality, and thus also build greater social solidarity.
Of course, this vision has never been implemented in full. But it has offered a model, for good and for ill. For the left, it provided long-term goals, criteria for distinguishing progress from retreat in making short-term compromises, and a kind of definition of the just society. For the right, it was a foil to be combated and averted — an archetype of soulless, stifling bureaucratic hubris — and it helped put objections to seemingly modest individual leftward steps into a broader, more coherent context. But both ends of our politics seemed implicitly to agree that, left to its own momentum, this is where our country was headed — where history would take us if no one stood athwart it yelling stop.
Levin’s article is of importance because we need more than the kind of proposal that Rep. Ryan is putting forth. We need, in addition, a head-on challenge to the ideological hegemony of social-democratic, socialist, and Marxist views that so many of our intellectual class stand by. Those who will read Levin’s article knows that he does just that, and indeed acknowledges that in past years that vision had legs because it took root, not during an age of decline for America, but during the years of the economy’s expansion and a rise in the standard of living. Social-democratic activism coincided with the years of the New Deal, Fair Deal, and early Great Society. The problem is that as reality flew in the face of the assumptions behind the policies of those years, few were ready to dispense with the ideology. The result is the current entitlement system, in which, as Levin writes, “age-based wealth transfers in an aging society are obviously problematic.”
So it is up to us to change course. To do that, we must have the kind of intellectual ammunition given to us by writers such as Yuval Levin. He understands that means developing serious answers to the questions that made the social-democratic ideal seem a good one. Levin knows that to develop that, conservatives cannot be made to appear to be enemies of those who need a social safety net, and who believe in making America’s wealth accessible to all in our society. He writes that it is not enough to yell “stop!” What has to be done is focus on the purposes of government itself, helping to show where it must go.
In our current age, Levin stresses as well that we need a change in nomenclature, as Roger L. Simon has argued in these very PJM pages. We must point out that liberals and most Democrats are “the reactionary party” that has its “head in the sand and its mind adrift in false nostalgia,” and is content with minor tinkering at the edges of our welfare state. Conservatives must do more than fight old enemies; they must do more than simply repeat that we have too much government. What they must do is develop real alternatives that the public can grasp and adopt, and to work so that others, not just the wealthy, gain access to capitalism’s benefits. To me, he makes the point well in this key sentence: “It would seek to help the poor not with an empty promise of material equality but with a fervent commitment to upward mobility.”
Most social-democratic programs and arguments, as we know, seek mechanisms they believe will promote material equality, such as a continuing increase of the minimum wage. They do not realize that such policies make things worse for the poor, force businesses to higher fewer people, and in states which had followed suit, force them to shut down or leave for other states that have not mandated such foolish social policies. So, I heartily endorse Levin’s call for a new “policy-oriented conservatism,” whose proponents will work to achieve its ends gradually, through both persuasion and proof, and in accord with the ways in which conservatives know that change can take place.
America, Yuval Levin warns, cannot be allowed to fail along with the social-democratic model. So read his article and pass it on. What he offers is precisely the kind of medicine we have long been in need of. We ignore his arguments at our own peril.
Dear Mr. Radosh:
Many thanks for this excellent article! It is truly amazing that today, after the financial disasters in Europe, that the Left still retains faith in the social-democratic “ideal.” I suppose that the attachment liberals have for this concept has less to do with economic fact than it does with romantic illusion. To give up on the social-democratic dream means giving up on all of the romance of being a leftist. It means that all of the demonstrations, the protests, the fiery speechifying, the barricades-building, the curled fists shaken under the noses of the bourgeoisie and the relentless sloganeering that has taken place since the end of World War I has been for nothing.
The Left has not only been wrong but they have been wrong on a titanic scale.
Good luck with this daydream, Ron.
With the appointment of the Nazi, Wasserman-Shultz, to the top DNC post, you can throw any civility and rational dialog in the garbage. Talking trash is her forte.
Only by appointing Ahmadinejad could they trump this move.
“the nation’s long-term fiscal imbalance, which is driven by the projected growth in entitlement spending.”
Indeed. You cannot have one age group hogging up most of the budget.
Medicare helps all of us – all that is who don’t intend to throw the elders in their families to the wolves.
It doesn’t help me and I don’t want it. Not for my parents. I’ll take care of them as best I can if they fail to manage their affairs responsibly. And not for me. I’ll take care of myself as best I can, and take the consequences of my choices in life whether good or bad.
You should do the same. But, of course, you’d rather have me there at the point of the IRS’ guns rather than carry your own weight in society.
The wingnut ethos at its best: Screw the poor who depend on Medicaid, the senior citizens who depend on Medicare, and the millions of seniors who have only Social Security to live on.
PS – But I do have to applaud you, TL, for declining Medicare benefits and agreeing to pay for your parents’ health insurance out of your own pocket. I hope more on the right follow your example.
The Social Democrats implemented SS as a safety net, not a retirement income program. And in those days people were living shorter lives. Medicare was implemented at a time when cost of medicine was under control. The Democrats can brag all they want for implementing and expanding these programs but they are at fault for getting us into the mess we are in, for never having the political fortitude to maintain or pay for the programs. Democratic control of Congress has been more often than the Republican, about 60-40, if not better. When they had control of Congress 2007-2011, did they even address the situation with SS or Medicare as a function of national debt or budget? You got that right – they passed another giveaway to the “poor and needy” – Obamacare, that can’t pay for itself. The Democrats were always afraid of the political fallout of raising taxes to support SS and Medicare. When Bush tried something new with SS, suggesting a form of personal control, it was as if he tried a Halocaust against the seniors. He was demonized. The Democrats are good at devising programs they have no intention of either maintaining or funding. Then they blame the Republicans.
The answer to your headline is NO. Emphatically NO. The lefty/democrats are interested in one thing and one thing only, Power.
They chip away at the fabric of our society over time, decades, slowly but surly twisting and distorting facts and the truth to suit their agenda. Regan’s evil empire lives and has not been beaten or disappeared simply transformed, it now lives, within.
The notion that social democrats are chiefly motivated by a will to power doesn’t hold water. They have always been conservative reformers whose legislation is meant to stop a revolution. I did a glossary of competing ideologies here: http://clarespark.com/2009/12/16/perceptions-of-the-enemy-the-left-looks-at-the-right-and-vice-versa/. It has been much visited on my website, and I solicit comments from Pajamas readers who find any errors.
If Glass was to say that they want power over “laissez-faire Republicans” on the Right and revolutionary socialists on the Left, that would be accurate.
Thank you for the civil reply.
I understand where you are coming from on an academic level but after putting up with the creeping socialism here in Canada for the last 40 years practically that is not the case. What happens in a very short period of time any moderate social democrats, and I am not sure what that really means, become nothing more than figureheads for the hardcore socialists whilst maintaining the façade of moderation. By your last comment you seem to be trying to marginalize the insidious nature of “garden variety” socialism by passing off the problem to the extreme or as you put it the revolutionary socialists.
I would also like to say once again that I think the left is all about power as how many socialists actually create anything except under the control of the free trader or in Marxist terms, the capitalists? I am also not sure what you mean by laissez-faire Republicans as most I know are very hard working focused wealth creators generating tax revenue for the Country.
I will click your link. Thanks.
Aside from making the intellectual argument for conservative policies more readily grasped, what do you think are the most significant barriers to persuading liberal-leaners ?
1. Personal pride ? How does it feel to realize what you so long believed is flawed and is this unacceptably humiliating
2. Peer pressure ? How disrupted will your life and relationships be if you dare change your stance publicly
3. Intellectual pride ? What if you really think that people need to be led to do what’s “best” for them
4. Material insecurity ? Add up the number of those jobs that are dependent directly and nearly directly on government programs and policies — a personal stake in the status quo
5. Depending on others for their views ? How many people go out of their way to find a PJM, NRO, Townhall, etc. versus watching random TV news
5. Other ?
6. Power. Pure and simple.
As one said in “Atlas Shrugged”, “We’re after power and we mean to get it.” And the fact that they will simply cause a lot of people a lot of misery doesn’t matter to them, except insofar as people in such a state are more easily controlled.
The destruction of the middle class, which has been the slow, creeping effect of “progressivism”, isn’t an “unintended side-effect” of the dogma; it’s part and parcel of it. The same thing was done, openly and with brute force, by Stalin in the USSR in the 1930s, only there it was called “de-kulakization”. (“Kulak” is a Russian word meaning roughly “rich peasant”, i.e. somebody who has more than the leaders think they should.)
The Stalinist policy was intended to both collectivize agriculture (Russia was still mainly an agrarian economy then) and ensure that all industries were totally under State control. The fact that it turned into a humanitarian catastrophe (conservative estimates of deaths due to the famines that resulted are in the 25 million range) was somewhere between irrelevant and “Less kulaks? Good!”
Anyone who thinks our domestic “enlightened elite’” on the left are any more concerned with the welfare of the average person is living in a fool’s paradise. All that matters to “progressives” is the mass- and their control of same.
Which means that when you tell them their “social engineering” model will collapse the economy, and quite possibly wreck society, they will nod and commiserate. But privately, they are counting on it. Like Napoleon, they want to make an omelet, and they genuinely enjoy breaking eggs.
Because to them, the fewer eggs in their Brave New World, the better.
(Source; Conquest, Robert. The Harvest of Sorrow; Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine. New York; Oxford University Press, 1986. ISBN 0-19-504054-6.)
clear ether
eon
“The destruction of the middle class”
I would add the wholesale destruction of the African-American community and the creation of a culture within that commuity completely alien to the values of the founders. I work in that culture every day.
I also work with the poor daily white and black and rainbow. It is always amazing to me that a simple fact remains. In spite of the spending of tens of billions of dollars on the poor since the ‘Great Society’ there has been no appreciable decline in the percentage of poor in the U.S. Poverty wanders between 11% and 13%. We seem to have pushed it close to it’s losest allowable limit. Same generally true in the welfare states of EUtopia (Scandinavia is an exception, but then the tax rate there is 60%, whatever or so and it is full of Scandinavians, because they don’t allow just any one to cross their borders)
I cringe when I hear progessives say ‘We’ve got to save the poor’. Yes indeed we do, but we don’t seem to be doing it very well with the progressives policies. We have created an incentive to suck to on the teat of government and attitude that gaming the system is a righteous way to live.
I believe that Robert Conquest,in the reference above, estimated a ceiling of 14.5 million in the terror-famine. Where did the extra 10.5 million come from?
Soviet records post-1991, that Conquest didn’t have access to in the early 1980s. The 25 million figure comes from an article in the Wall Street Journal a few years back. (Sorry, don’t have the reference at hand.)
cheers
eon
7. Greed. The notion that conservatives are the greedy ones is, like most marxist propaganda, exactly the opposite of the truth. The greedy ones are the liberals, but its a more pernicious kind of greed than the greed falsely attributed to conservatives (who seek mainly to be left alone). Liberal greed seeks to annex the wealth of others rather than earning one’s own wealth.
And btw, 1 to 5 are so minor that they are insignificant.
The entire libwit mindset is driven by 6 (power, as eon says) and 7, greed. Everything else fades to insignificance. 1 to 5 are window dressing for power and greed.
“How many people go out of their way to find a PJM , NRO. Townhall?” Not many , that might take some effort!
Very good, thoughtful list! One thing I’ve noted in my journey from left to right is that many older, successful people stubbornly cling to their old habits of political thinking for fear of “selling out.” (Another aspect of personal pride.) A long time ago, believing that material conditions generally determine political consciousness, they pledged, often aloud, to defy this common phenomenon by remaining faithful no matter how successful or wealthy they became. And of course they believe that middle/working class Americans who support Republicans are victims of a false consciousness; their fears and prejudices are manipulated by the rich.
Good news! Social-democracy is dead! Can we have the word “liberal” back now?
Signed – People who actually believe in individual liberty
The great problem is Mr. Radosh that the Left has only two answers right now to your question.
The first is the one being foisted on the country by the Labor Cabal as most notably displayed in Wisconsin: the rapid descent into a clone of the former Soviet Union replete with a perpetual illegally re-elected terror state that not only readily pounces on anyone who goes off the accepted intellectual reservation, but, even offers up gangster threats against the general populace to preempt any sort of public uprising or even the hint of objection (you will publicly support the unions or we will destroy you – there is no neutral here, you are either with us or a target).
The second is offered up by such leading Malthusian lights as Bill Gates, Cass Sunstein, and Ted Turner: the world has about 20 or 30 years to dramatically reduce the human population in order to save itself (they never mention the “save it for whom” part – one can assume it is for “the enlightened one who are saving it” – but i digress) as the threat is so dire, there can be no consideration of such “luxuries” as civil rights, disagreement with the ideology, or even human suffering. People have to not only stop breeding right now, they must die off in enormous numbers very quickly so “Utopia” can be achieved and sustained.
In either case, it would seem that very soon the only option that the Left is willing to entertain for the rest of us is either interrogation, torture, and the gulag followed by a lingering death or being rounded up into processing camps and being slaughtered like a heard of pestilential livestock.
Our only real hope is that enough states will decide to secede from paying Obama’s Federal debt insanity to be able to fight off the Communists and Malthusians.
#3 The left believes there’s an unending supply of money just waiting to be taxed – they could solve all the problems of the world if they could just distribute ALL the money.
The Leftist community instinctively gravitates toward ideas that can justify its power grabbing. More libertarian type doctrines are unrewarding to the pseudo-intellectual class. People who are actually accomplishing something tend to marginalize these bitter and envious people. Economies grow only as personal economic freedom increases. Spontaneous decisions are required. Command economies get in the way of entrepreneur risk taking—if not even making them illegal. The creation of companies like Microsoft or Apple are virtually impossible in top/down economies.
HOW LONG DO ”WE THE PEOPLE” HAVE TO WAIT FOR IMPEACHMENT? EVERYONE OF THE CITIZENS OF THE U.S.A. KNOW OBAMA IS OUT TO DESDTROY OUR WAY OF LIFE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTIC…..I JUST WANT TO LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO SEE THIS HAPPEN……GOD BLESS THE U.S.A. & GOD BLESS ALL
Good work Ron. The Levin insight about the evident failure of the Liberal Democratic world view seems as important as the recent Ruling Class vs Country Class insight.
The problem, of course, is the problem all of the microscopic number of well-meaning liberals have; unbounded dreams always flounder in the real world of bounded costs.
But I have a devil of a time understanding why it is such a dilemna, except for people as stupid as Nancy Pelosi.
I mean, really, you can have your cake and eat it too; as long as you don’t try to eat the whole cake every time.
For example, Levin talks about the difficult demographics of SS. Well I get that, I just don’t get why people think it is such a huge problem. Sure, it’s a huge problem if you insist that people living to 90 get benefits starting at 65, just as the people who used to live to 72. But that’s just plain stupid. Adjust the retirement age. Problem solved. People will still get the same average number of years of benefits, just later in life. The more difficult problem is the fewer number of workers per retiree. That is partially addressed by raising the retirement age, but not completely. Well, duh, money out better equal money in, at least over a decade or so. Actuaries can solve the problem. Frankly, the payouts will almost certainly have to drop to solve that one, at least until the Baby Boomer’s die out. It doesn’t take Einstein to figure it out.
And Medicare is even more obvious. You can’t give unlimitted benefits with limited income. What if doctors invent something that adds a year to evrybody’s life but costs a billion dollars apiece. Obviously, even the worst whiners couldn’t have that. The payout must be limited. A child can understand it. With Ryan’s plan, at least the markets will allocate the resources, rather than some criminal political hack handing out favors in return for bribes of one sort or anther.
The basic point is that the country can have anything, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, more…just not everything, all the time. Outgo better = income, and taxes are already squelchingly high. Raising them will make things worse, not better.
A child can understand it.
“….taxes are already squelchingly high. Raising them will make things worse, not better.”
I disagree. If you convince the populace that SS and Medicare taxes are like a savings account for retirement, many will support the concept, especially younger voters. After all, how many contribute willingly to a 401 plan, whether or not there are matching funds by the employer. Existing taxes on SS and medicare are very low compared to what you get in return. That’s why many seniors are for the status quo regarding benefits.
You’re kidding, I hope.
The ROI on FICA taxes is abysmal, by any standard short of Mafia interest rates. You probably aren’t counting the empoloyer match, which isn’t a gift, it’s YOUR money.
There is one demographic, however, that gets a decent deal. Up to an average lifetime monthly earning rate of about $900 per month, the ROI is good. After that, it goes in the toilet. I’m not even complaining about it, just pointing out that only extremely low earners have anything that even approaches a decent return on what was confiscated from them. (I’m also excluding the SSI scammers, who basically game the system for free money. In other words, stuff yourself with enough cookies to be diagnosed as diabetic, file for disabiliy, and collect $1K per month, inflation adjusted, for life.)
And nobody with a brain is ever again going to be fooled by any government claims about SS…not after the 70 year “lock box” scam has been exposed.
“And nobody with a brain is ever again going to be fooled by any government claims about SS…not after the 70 year “lock box” scam has been exposed.”
Like everything else in economics, brains are in short supply.
The truth is on the side of conservatives. It is the framing of the truth that seems to be the problem. David Horowitz has great guides for those who seek to get involved in defeating the Marxist agenda. Sometimes, just the simple truth speaks volumes, since the MSM rarely print such stats, and if they do, they don’t simplify by simple math. For example, the US Treasury’s final report for March states total net revenue was $128.2 billion; total SS, Medicare and Medicaid expenditures were $119.8 billion, 93.5% of the total revenues. The spending for March was 8.2 times the revenue. No one can spin the truth when it is as dramatic as this.
We are the types who like to visualize such schemes, how they rise and fall, who are the winners and losers, etc. I agree with most of the comments made.
It doesn’t help me talk to liberals, though. They don’t seem to think that way, and seem more concerned with ‘living green’, ‘compassion’, and other indefinable constructs. Also with how big their SS check will be next month, and who will help them _____ (fill in the blank).
Funny, I never seem to make much headway with them… So it is nice to hear that somewhere some liberals exist who actually think about these things.
It’s virtually a cliche, but there is a lot of truth in it: for the tiny number of libwits who aren’t in it strictly for the power or redistribution, they aren’t into “thinking”, they’re into “feeling”.
That thinking stuff quickly bumps into limits, reality, budgets and all that icky stuff that adults do. Much better to imagine a kumbaya future, feel good about yourself, and leave all the pain to somebody else to “think” about.
(and btw, don’t be fooled because the libwits you talk seem to be green, peace-loving idealists. It’s a facade. The vast majority want to get into your pocket, not “ideals”. Just ask them how much of THEIR income they think they should be paying in taxes. The answer, as you know is very predictable. All of the “ideals” should be paid for, of course, by somebody else. That’s the only fair way to do it.)
On thinking liberals, they really don’t exist.
Several decades agostudies were conducted where very young children were taught chess and other games that require thought. School drop out rates fell to 5% but the studies were buried with stakes through their hearts because the number of liberals amoung the students dropped to less than 5% too. Not good for public school administrators, teacher unions or liberal politicians.
Ultimately, even if we spent 100% of GDP on health care, we would still get sick and die – today; maybe not in 10,000 years time. So, we have toration health care. We do that either through queue-theory or price.
Queue -theory is a political solution. It assumes that everyone will await the same amount of time, and everyone will die at the same rate. Price theory says that some people will get better treatment than is available un queue-theory.
Fact is, with queue-theory, government rationing, the treatments given become poltiical decisions, rather than economic and medical, as under th eprice system.
So, I favour the price system.
Well, I think repeating, over and over, that when you firebomb a field, you can’t then harvest wheat…….1/3 of all pregnancies in the seventies ended in abortion. plus, the lowest birthrate in American history, in general. You can’t kill infants, and then tax their ghosts. Talking about dead babies and ghosts tends to bother the sort of people who both have dead babies, and believe in ghosts.
We can’t pretend we are as rich as all get out, like with the baby boom at work. We don’t have the people base. just plain don’t have it. Europe was poor for half a millenia after the Black Plague. Why should we think we are different?
With minds so open that bats nest there how can we hope the liberals will retain a thought in their heads? Limbaugh has suggested that liberalism is the most gutless amd toughtless philosoph there is. I have to agree that it is a long way from Social-Democracy to Adam Smith.
Without a return to the Lord, do not count on prosperity. Because in spite of the false belief that it is man-made, it is not.
The lefty agenda has persued a moral vacumn for decades and constant attack on building principals. So now they think they can make bricks without straw.
Regarding the shutdown:
The GOP ought to press for as many cuts as they can and pass a budget
with the Communists. They should complain that they wanted to cut more
but didn’t want to shut the government down.
The GOP should then push Paul Ryan’s proposed budget plan as their main
plank in their ’12 platform. They should also replace Boehner as
speaker with someone more in line with TEA Party views. He would be the
“fall guy”. He needs to go anyhow.
This falls into line with what I think the GOP ought to do until
election day ’12 — deny Team al-Bama any issue from which they can get
the usual traction. Make al-Bama run on his “achievements” and
proposals.
There, I said it. You can kill me now.
Its not the end for the left. Its the end for all you bad tea party people. The left will succeed because smart people like Gore Vidal Harlan Ellison, Bill Maher and Noam Chomsky are on the left. My teacher is smart and he is a liberal. He says Noam Chomsky is smart and you should always agree with smart people! The reality is you people are bad!
Chomsky & Maher- Now there is a pretty picture! Your teacher is smart because he told you he is smart. Be careful what you believe. Test your teachers intelligence. Review conservative arguments from PJM readers. Present these arguments to your teacher, and ask him to make cohesive arguments against. His anked ingnorance will quickly become apparent. Of course, then you will get a lousy grade.
Mr. Radosh:
“Most social-democratic programs and arguments, as we know, seek mechanisms they believe will promote material equality, such as a continuing increase of the minimum wage.”
Equality? Hardly.
What the Left seeks is more aptly called the “Maintenance Wage”…just enough capital to keep one who is at that station locked in there for the rest of their life.
A very great many middle-class jobs are dependent upon a good supply of fresh poor people.
“Face reality”? Good idea, Ron:
http://www.slate.com/id/2290593/
The problem with both sides of the ideological spectrum can be well identified with a study of B.F. Skinner. Both sides are conditioned for response by the intellectual manipulators of their respective idedological pastures.
While both sides proclaim superiority positions….both are stimulated by CANDYMEN.
One side gives their candy directly to the people [through] the government while the other side gives their candy to the people [through] the capitalist system. One candymans strategy is is rather simple and the other candymans strategy is quite complex….but the same none the less.
There’s a few remaining from a generation who can remember when neither was the case and would consider the thought of what has become today….well, socialist and communist…anything but the traditional American way!
So its interesting to watch and listen to todays generations of both pastures, define the problems while sitting back all comfortable partaking of the candy from their candymen. Both have their own justifications of denial that they are recipient pawns of candymen. Both will define their [success] by the amount of ‘candy’ they receive….thus, who can honestly proclaim they have not a fiber of greed within them and could care less which candyman their candy comes from?
Wake up Americans! You’ve ALL become conditioned to be socialists, some think they get their candy from the government socialists but in reality, they ALL get their candy from the capitalist socialist side….thus, you see so much of our nations business and industrial base transplanting to foreign shores. They’re choosing not to be the candymen of the nation and go bankrupt…leaving the government with no place to go…to go bankrupt! This is where we as a nation stand today…360 million Americans ALL with their demanding hands out, seeking their candy from less and less candymen to give the people and the government. The real capitalist have, and are waking up while the people and the government…..not so much! They’re all in denial that they are one in the same because, they don’t all get their candy in the same ways from the same direct sources.
IF enough people wake up and are willing to make the necessary scarifices, they will demand a constitutional amendment removing the federal government from legislating private sector capitalism and the national economy bring it back into the intent of the founding fathers. The socialist can only succeed through establishing a centralized government legislating the nations private sector capitalism and economy….PERIOD!
But we are now a nation of 300 million plus and there are huge global corporations.
The loss of the American middle class has as much to go with globalism and all the things which are now made by cheaper labor elsewhere. Yes, the libs have to face the fact that we cannot sustain our current social programs, but the middle class will always want decent wages and if they think unions will bring them, they will go with unions. I still don’t see an answer for (except for the workers who will work for $20? an hour or less, the owners simply deciding to move their factories overseas.
You look at the revision of the commerce clause as a magic bullet, but I just don’t see it.
On the other hand, if Ryan can get us to really cut 2%, and he or someone else will support a 2% tax increase, then you at least have something for BOTH sides to get on board with. Both get a little of their candy, have o eat some broccoli too, and just maybe, the country as a whole gets healthier. I say that you need INSIST on both things, because either side will take all that they can get, whenever they can get it. Doing both is the definition of discipline here.
Dwight….until you and the masses come to understand that we got to where we are today, socially and economically, nearly exclusively, through the federal governments interpretive abuses of the commerce clause, then their is no real hope for reversal and resolve for the nations problems. Likewise, until the masses learn the strategies used over many decades, by the socialists to evolve their ideology to where is is today in America, they will not have a clue of what needs to be reversed in the federal government and returned to its constitutional intent.
Some folks keep decrying the [need] for middle class protection mechanisms from the likes of labor unions and the government. How silly! Just another indicator of how conditioned by the socialist candyman many have become. If folks cannot see the [arbitrary] and circular inflation they and their labor unions create upon the national economy and the households of America then they deserve a bankrupt, non competitive nation. Every wonder why this socialist president never utters the term ‘poverty class’ in any of his rhetoric? The socialist labor unions and their government protectionism creates the huge divide and ever increasing poverty level in this nation. The socialist labor unions and their government protectionists have [corrupted] every facet of capitalism and society in America today….greed for companaies to survive and greed of labor…that circular thing again!
As a little experiment, adjust for inflation your current or last salary and benefits say, back to 1956 and tell me what you’re making. Now if you have the ability adjust the financial statement of your employer back to the same year and tell me what that is….in comparison. Trust me! You will have a very clear and new definition of greed! Ignorance is NEVER as bliss as the old saying goes! Maybe, using there most familiar industry to folks, you will see why cars and trucks look basically the same every as opposed to significant changes every year back in the day when they could afford to retool every year and be so competitive…..or why a loaf of bread that still has basically only three cents worth of wheat or other grains in it, costs over $2 today as opposed to $.25 cents a few decades ago.
Again, the nation and the government is broken ONLY because the ‘people’ are broken! Now excuse me, while I go catch up on what the government is going to do for me today.
“The loss of the American middle class has as much to go with globalism…”
As if human thought and action does not exist. ” Gobalism” arrives, brought by a stork that dumps it on a door step and then quacks, “Guess what?”
If the Picket Fence But would broaden its need to justify beyond the Ping Pong Tongue induced narrow Tweedism, he might actually, really, really see that many, dating back to “the good times” spoke to this very situation.
Then again, the realization that justifying one’s existence and actions on the premise that the D-Whites Know Best, that is, what is yours is mine, is not best, and with some common sense understanding of human nature tossed in, well gee, guess what, “the goods times” would be present.
2 – 2s are for wannabe ballerinas.
And you says, “What’s mine ?”
And somebody else says, “Where what is?”
I have read Mr. Levin’s essay. Wonderful. I don’t know why, but it puts me in mind of the tactical debates among various social democrats and revolutionaries of the late 19th century. Brilliant analysis, but What Is To Be Done?
Lenin’s great gift was his utter ruthlessness in pursuing his goal of toppling the Czarist Autocracy, to be replaced by. . .the Communist Autocracy. Mr. Levin’s essay addresses the question of what kind of people, what kind of country we wish to be. I fear the question the Left has foremost in mind is: Who’s in charge?
I don’t know whether “heightening the contradictions” or even de-funding the Left will answer that question, given the current battles over public sector employees in Wisconsin and funding for NPR and Planned Parenthood in Washington, DC.
I hope we’re in this for the long haul.
Progressives simply believe that the welfare of the country’s poorest, most vulnerable citizens trumps every other priority. They also believe that money from the government is as much an American birthright as anything spelled out in the Constitution. The way we feel about the Bill of Rights, they feel about Social Security, Medicare, etc. Not “nice to have if we can afford it” but “an absolute, ironclad right.” People who believe stuff like that are not going to let circumstances keep them from handing out cash – even if there’s no actual cash to hand out.
Bugs….You stated: ["Progressives simply believe that the welfare of the country’s poorest, most vulnerable citizens trumps every other priority."]
Beleiving that taking care of those citizens you refer to is progressive/socialist, I think all to many folks forget that the original legislation clearly defined who those persons of eligibility were and few if any American’s had any significant problems with it. The problem comes about from LBJ’s new Great Society and the EXPANSION of the original language redefining who is eligible for such government assistance. Every democrat administration since then, has added their own bits and bits of expansion…..not to mention robbing the what would have been a HUGE treasure chest of social security funds over the many decades.
IF we were to return to the original language and cleanup who and what qualifies for social security and disability and all that has been added through these entitlements, the program would be sustainable during transition to another system for the future.
Just a little background and food for thought.
Good info, thanks!
“To do that, we must have the kind of intellectual ammunition given to us by writers such as Yuval Levin.”
One can ponder much more productive combinations of Yuval Levin and ammunition. Just another “pragmatic Marxist” seeing the handwriting on the wall hoping to convince us to pretend conservative principles and Bolsheviks really mean the same thing after all.
” Conservatives must do more than fight old enemies; they must do more than simply repeat that we have too much government.”
Yes we “must do more than fight old enemies” we must crush them utterly. Ideally when Yuval Levin and those who used to write and preach such Marxist tripe walk down the street headed back to their rocks people would point and hiss Marxist as they pass. We “must do more than simply repeat that we have too much government” we must insure that government isn’t only reduced to the smallest size possible while still meeting it’s very limited responsibilities but that what government isn’t responsible for is clearly and ruthlessly adhered to.
So it is up to us to change course. To do that, we must have the kind of intellectual ammunition given to us by writers such as Yuval Levin. He understands that means developing serious answers to the questions that made the social-democratic ideal seem a good one. Levin knows that to develop that, conservatives cannot be made to appear to be enemies of those who need a social safety net, and who believe in making America’s wealth accessible to all in our society. He writes that it is not enough to yell “stop!” What has to be done is focus on the purposes of government itself, helping to show where it must go.
In our current age, Levin stresses as well that we need a change in nomenclature, as Roger L. Simon has argued in these very PJM pages. We must point out that liberals and most Democrats are “the reactionary party” that has its “head in the sand and its mind adrift in false nostalgia,” and is content with minor tinkering at the edges of our welfare state. Conservatives must do more than fight old enemies; they must do more than simply repeat that we have too much government. What they must do is develop real alternatives that the public can grasp and adopt, and to work so that others, not just the wealthy, gain access to capitalism’s benefits. To me, he makes the point well in this key sentence: “It would seek to help the poor not with an empty promise of material equality but with a fervent commitment to upward mobility.”
oh, maybe something like, I don’t know, let’s say… the idea’s and concepts written down in the FOUNDING DOCUMENTS!
over-educated dolts really don’t have a clue why TEA Partiers dress themselves and their children as the Founders?
where on earth do these people come from?
Shutdowns and Charades in Washington
What passes for a government in Washington is in chaos as lawmakers debate the budget, the deficit, and a possible government shutdown and the president, when he’s in town, takes potshots at Republicans by calling a bill providing for paying the military ”a distraction.”
The GOP House of Representatives passed another continuing resolution on Thursday to keep the government in business–for a week. The Democrat Senate still has to pass it. The president has vowed to veto it. However, since he and the family may be off again to Williamsburg this weekend on their umpteenth vacation trip, who knows?
Things couldn’t be any more farcical in a banana republic.
Are the Dems paying attention?
The budget is stalemated due to the ineptitude and cowardice of former Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid.
They could have and should have passed the 2011 federal budget in the last session of congress when Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and the presidency and it would already be law. Instead, they chose to diddle and dawdle rather than making some hard spending decisions so that Republicans would be saddled with those choices and have the shutdown albatross hung around their necks.
If Democrats haven’t noticed, the country is on the fiscal ropes. We owe $14 trillion to various people, we borrow 40 cents for every dollar we spend, we’re running a $830 billion deficit, ($113 billion more than last year at this time), and Democrats are quibbling over $12 billion in cuts? Then, adding insult to injury, our flip president flips off a citizenry struggling with a recession, unemployment, and gasoline prices well through the roof by advising motorists to “Think about a trade-in”?
May they eat their cake, too?
As far as fiscal sanity is concerned, Democrats haven’t seen nothin’ yet! If they get their panties in a wad over $12 billion, what are they going to say and do when Rep. Paul Ryan (R, WI) presents his proposals for fiscal 2012 and beyond? . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4095)
I think this article is out of step with the growing perception that the strident advocates of the free enterprise system, a system that promotes larcenous greed, have brought the US to its economic knees because of that greed. Here are the results of a recent survey that supports such pessimism:
“A new report by GlobeScan, an international opinion research consultancy, suggests that the number of Americans who believe in the strength of the free market economy dropped markedly last year. In fact, according to the survey results, both Brazil and China, on a percentage basis, ranked higher than the U.S. in overall support for free market capitalism.”:
Have you people ever heard of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. Those countries’ political systems are the epitome of social-democratic governance, and they thrive, and according to world wide surveys, they are much happier than we are
Nothing like starting a debate on abortion and the EPA when the government’s about to shut down.
“Republicans are demanding policy restrictions in addition to spending cuts before agreeing to fund the government through September. These policy restrictions would target abortion providers and seek to limit the reach of the Environmental Protection Agency.”
You must be joking. The Left has Never been interested in reality,except the reality of power. Being the “best and brightest” and official “compassionates”, understand full well their models of population “control” have Never worked wherever and whenever they were applied without slave/concentration camps and gulags for the recalcitrants who preferred to take their chances for their destinies in this life.
The Left consider serfdom / slavery to a “nobility/self selected elite” and vassalage to Aristocrats/ knights a la Camelot/government a desirable reality clothed as “benefits” for the serfs. Very 17th /18th century for “progressives” and their “New World Order”.
Odd that these Left are concerned about slavery in the West that ended more than a century ago, but have virtually nothing to say about slavery even now practiced in African and Arab nations, among other members in good standing in their favourite organisation the UN. Odd they do not mention the ultimate aim and effect is enslavement of entire populations already modelled for them in the Soviet Union, China and other nations in the 20th/21st centuries.
We must HOPE that those who the left designs to enchain in “their” government “largesse” “throw off their chains”, gather the will to resurrect the “old world” of America with personal freedom and individual Rights, protected in Law. Law respected and enforced, rather than manipulated to their ends, by the guardians of the nation: the “representatives of the People” in Legislature, Judiciary and Executive. AND that the citizens refuse to march /lock-step to the siren songs of the Left and their Pipers.
AND watch with EAGLE eyes their “representatives” to do the job for ALL Americans as individuals.
The Fundamental Law of the USA does not recognize any groups except citizens.