“He who is not with me is against me.”
--Jesus (Matthew 12:30)
New York Times’ house conservative David Brooks knows government doesn’t work, but chooses to defend it anyway. Such writing groups him with the enemy, assuming we are waging a revolutionary struggle against big government.
In his latest column, Brooks rebukes (mildly, politely) Obama-type efforts to create green jobs. Brooks instead recommends a different approach, one more in line with conservative thinking:
[In Boulevard of Broken Dreams,] Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School [endorses] government efforts to set the table for entrepreneurial activity[--]building an underlying context for innovation: funding academic research, establishing clear laws, improving immigration policies, building infrastructure and keeping capital gains tax rates low.Brooks’ recommendation follows his earlier writing that under past and present administrations, government has
sucked resources away from the most productive parts of the economy — innovators, entrepreneurs and workers — and redirected it to the most politically connected parts. The byzantine tax code and regulatory state has clogged the arteries of American dynamism.Such writings suggest Brooks “gets it,” that in the words of Ronald Reagan, “Government is the problem.” Not so. Brooks is an open defender of government. In the column quoted above, Brooks also writes, “The United States became the wealthiest nation on earth primarily because Americans were the best educated.”
That is quite a statement. Now we have American exceptionalism reduced to elite private and public high schools like Radnor on Philadelphia’s Main Line, where 93% of graduates go on to college, and elite universities like the University of Chicago. Brooks graduated from Radnor and the University of Chicago.
I think Brooks truly believes our educated elite, mostly running the U.S. since Stanford engineer Herbert Hoover became president in 1929, is responsible for our wealth. Canadian-born Brooks, 50, the same age as ex-University of Chicago faculty member Barack Obama, didn’t arrive in the U.S. until well after our educated elite had taken over.
I don’t agree with Brooks that education is “primarily” responsible for our success. The educated elite, after all, are the folks who cannot bring us out of our current economic mess, and who—contrary to Brooks’ most fervent wish—must be removed from power. I go with conservative Thomas Sowell’s rebuttal of the importance of education:
How [is it] possible that transferring decisions from elites with more education, intellect, data and power to ordinary people [leads] consistently to demonstrably better results? One implication is that no one is smart enough to carry out social engineering. . .Brooks does want change. But he instructs us that change
[E]xperience trumps brilliance. Elites may have more brilliance, but those who make decisions for society as a whole cannot possibly have as much experience as the millions of people whose decisions they pre-empt. The education and intellects of the elites may lead them to have more sweeping presumptions, but that just makes them more dangerous to the freedom, as well as the well-being, of the people as a whole.
can’t be done without leadership from government [take that, Reagan]. Just as the Washington and Lincoln administrations actively nurtured an industrial economy, so some future American administration will have to nurture a globalized producer society. [emphasis added]So much wrong here. Washington saw the need for roads and Lincoln supported railroads, though privately built and run. It’s dishonest, however, for Brooks to associate either with the all-intrusive state we face today, marching toward cradle-to-grave socialism.
And it’s also dishonest for Brooks to talk about “administrations” as if big government’s been around since Washington. While the federal government did provide land for state-run agricultural colleges under Lincoln, neither president, for example, could ever have imagined the current federal government’s intrusive role in directing public and even private education from preschool (Head Start) through graduate school.
George Washington, father of big government? It’s a stretch too far.
2 comments:
Hi Dad - Wow, I feel this one post provides me most of what I need to know about modern conservatism.
* Education - who needs it?
* Roads, infrastructure - private sector will provide!
* Government spending - bad no matter the economic situation, never mind Macro 101!
I just have a few follow-up questions.
* What about Defense spending? Is this a proper role of government, and at what % of GDP?
* What about Medicare - would you prefer to purchase your personal health insurance, today, on a private market a la Paul Ryan?
* What about Social Security - would you prefer elderly left to their own savings + charity, as in 1930?
I feel like a few more posts along these lines will clarify everything.
Thanks!
Derek
Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
Education is important and necessary, far more so than it was in Washington's or Lincoln's time. But to credit education for the fabulous wealth of the U.S.??!! I ask for a response to the counter I provided in my post, the quote from Sowell. It's millions of hard-working people, working the areas they understand best, who have made this country wealthy, functioning under a system that provides them the freedom to succeed or fail, certainly not "primarily" our elite based outside the business sector.
In Washington's time, the Post Office built roads, but many other roads were private turnpikes. New York state, not the feds, built the Erie Canal, an early land transportation project, but financed well after Washington. It's just crazy to act as if Washington and Lincoln ever dreamed of the kind of federal government involvement we have today. Brooks makes the connection to the Rushmore guys because he wants to sanctify big government by associating it with our best presidents. At least Brooks refrains from trying to tie Jefferson to the cause!
I'm not sure about your reference to Macro 101, but yes, we conservatives reject Keynesianism, as practiced today by progressives. Only the private sector creates jobs, and most jobs come from small business. Government should support business, in ways that Brooks suggests. It's important for government to refrain from anti-business rhetoric and regulations.
Earlier, I had a post on how Republicans are now willing to see significant Defense cuts, a big blow to progressives, because the conservative love of the military made for compromises in the past that ended in ever-larger budgets.
I recognize that people who depend on government for their livelihood will be upset about the radical actions needed to bring the federal government's size down from 24-25% of GDP to 21%, where it was in 2008. Of course, most of all, we need economic growth, by far the best way to lower government's share. But some bloody cutting is needed as well.
That still leaves a lot of government, but a different looking future than Obama longs for. Of course, anybody with an IQ above 110 knows we have to do something about entitlements, but most Democrats act like they think not (kudos to Clinton for telling Ryan he was on the right track). How irresponsible.
I know we need bipartisan action. Ryan's Medicare proposal, which puts cost control in the hands of individuals rather than insurance, employer, and government bureaucracies, makes a lot of sense to me.
Social security is the simplest entitlement reform. Raise the retirement age, raise the income cut-off level, and means-test benefits. Democrats want a political club though, not reform. Medicare will be much harder to fix, and Medicaid is a mess, because it off-loads costs to the states, who have to balance their budgets.
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