It has been a very strange week here in Baja Canada, and an odd one for writing about.
I started this blog as a way to write things down that I wanted to remember, tell a few stories and keep myself and whatever readers I acquired along the way entertained. I like telling stories – it’s what I do for a living.
But recently all of the stories have been grim.
I live in a nascent police state, with a governor who is clearly out of control and bent on destroying a century of successful tradition and progress in the name of a lunatic fringe ideology. One who does not value education, perhaps because he never really took his own seriously, and who has decided that the children of this state shouldn’t even have the option to do so. One who does not see any particular need to follow laws that restrain his whims, or even the Constitution of his own state. One who is aided and abetted by a network of similarly radical cronies with similar disregard for decency, law and history.
Things are now so bad that firefighters responding to emergency calls in the Capitol are denied admission by hired goons with badges.
Things are now so bad that the Sheriff of the county has publicly labeled Governor Teabagger’s excessive police presence a “palace guard.”
Things are now so bad that the head of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association called the governor’s plans “insanely wrong.”
Things are now so bad that Teabaggers in the Senate have passed a law calling for the arrest of Democratic Senators despite the fact that such action is clearly unconstitutional.
It’s all about power. It’s all about greed. It’s all about forcing an extremist agenda down the throats of the rest of us in complete disregard for American values, history and law.
And it’s not much fun to write about.
That’s just one more offense to be laid at the feet of this tin-horn dictator, and nowhere near the biggest, just the most personal.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
Home Economics
So we did the math here in our household and figured out exactly how much Governor Teabagger is going to cost us with his plan to balance his giveaways to the rich and powerful on the back of the middle class.
Wow.
This will necessitate a certain number of serious lifestyle changes, yes it will. We’re still better off than many in this new age of Social Darwinism, but that’s not saying a whole lot now, is it?
The problem with this is not just that it is going to make our lives less comfortable. Really, the problem is that it is going to make a whole lot of people’s lives less comfortable, even those whose paychecks have not been unilaterally slashed by a guy who spends $70,000 a year out of state funds for a chef.
Supply-Side economics do not work in a Demand-Side economy.
Back in the Gilded Age that Governor Teabagger and his cronies are trying to hard to recreate, most economic activity was conducted between producers, at what we would likely call the wholesale level today. Only a small amount of the overall economy was driven by consumers. Imagine a pyramid labeled “Economic Activity.” Only the tip would say “Consumer.” The rest all says “Producer.”
For example, there was a lot of steel manufactured in the late 19th century in America. Most of it went into things like ships, railroad tracks, locomotives, machine tools, and other things that were not likely to be purchased by the likes of you and me. They’d be purchased by other manufacturers and industries.
In this kind of economy, the trick to prosperity is to maintain production. So you adjust your policies accordingly. You want high tariffs, to protect domestic manufacturers. You want low inflation, which favors creditors and keeps prices stable. You want low wages, since they are an expense and a drain on producers (though not as low as the Gilded Age manufacturers pushed them, which made it impossible to support a family of four by working 80 hours/week – that just leads to well justified hostility from workers that will, in the end, depress productivity). Having a society with a few obscenely wealthy manufacturers and a population deeply enmeshed in poverty is a social problem but not an economic one, since most of the prosperity is driven by the few anyway. You want to arrange your tax policies to benefit the manufacturers.
And if times get bad, you want to do whatever you can to ensure that productivity does not lag. Put money into the hands of producers, since that’s where most of the economic activity lies, and you will shortly return to prosperity. In other words, take care of the Supply Side of the equation, and the rest will take care of itself.
This is what the Teabaggers want us to return to.
The problem is that we don’t live in that economy anymore. We haven’t for nearly a century.
Sometime in the 1920s, as the end result of decades of shifting economic trends, the United States went from being a Producer Economy to being a Consumer Economy.
In this economy, the pyramid looks a lot different. Only a thin band at the bottom is labeled “Producer.” The bulk of the Economic Activity – the majority of the pyramid – is labeled “Consumer.” Most economic activity in this type of economy is driven by consumption, not production – by the Demand Side, not the Supply Side.
In this economy, most of the steel goes into things like automobiles, washing machines and other things that you and I would buy. Producers buy steel too, but the balance has shifted.
In this sort of economy, the trick to prosperity is to maintain consumption. You want low tariffs, to keep the cost of goods low. You want inflation, which favors debtors and encourages people to buy things on credit. You want high wages, since those get used by their recipients to buy things and drive the economy forward. Your society should strive to have a fairly even income distribution, because the more customers you have the better your demand will be. Prosperity is driven by the comfortable many, not the obscenely wealthy few, and if the many are in poverty they won’t drive anything anywhere. You want to arrange your tax policies to help the people in the middle and at the bottom, not the people at the top, since there are more of them and there are only so many consumer goods the wealthy can buy.
Prosperity in a Demand Side economy rests on maintaining demand, not supply. You can produce all you want, but if nobody can consume it your stuff will just sit there and rot.
So when times get bad you want to do whatever you can to keep consumption up and put money into the hands of consumers. Take care of the Demand Side of the equation, and the rest will take care of itself.
Note that this switch happened in the 1920s. This tells you two things.
First, it tells you why the Great Depression lasted as long as it did. Hoover and, at first, Roosevelt, tried the old remedies that had worked in previous economic downturns – boosting the Supply Side. And they didn’t work. In fact, they made things worse. It’s only when Roosevelt gets serious about putting money into the hands of consumers that the Depression starts to ease, and every time he tried to back off from that (1937/38, anyone?) it would return. When the war came and all sorts of money found its way into consumers, that’s when the Depression ended.
And second, it tells you why Governor Teabagger’s policies are not going to work very well.
Because faced with this income reduction, we will do what responsible people do and cut our expenses.
Which means the businesses that depend on our patronage – and the patronage of others like us – will see their income fall, perhaps to the point of driving them out of business, perhaps not.
Which means the state will derive even less income from taxes than they were doing.
Which means the cycle gets to start all over again.
Even for the private sector business leaders who are so eager to cut my wages now.
I am petty enough that I will enjoy that last part of it, at least.
But that’s really not what I’m here for, and I would think it wouldn’t be what my government is here for. Apparently I’m wrong about that.
It’s going to be a long few years.
Wow.
This will necessitate a certain number of serious lifestyle changes, yes it will. We’re still better off than many in this new age of Social Darwinism, but that’s not saying a whole lot now, is it?
The problem with this is not just that it is going to make our lives less comfortable. Really, the problem is that it is going to make a whole lot of people’s lives less comfortable, even those whose paychecks have not been unilaterally slashed by a guy who spends $70,000 a year out of state funds for a chef.
Supply-Side economics do not work in a Demand-Side economy.
Back in the Gilded Age that Governor Teabagger and his cronies are trying to hard to recreate, most economic activity was conducted between producers, at what we would likely call the wholesale level today. Only a small amount of the overall economy was driven by consumers. Imagine a pyramid labeled “Economic Activity.” Only the tip would say “Consumer.” The rest all says “Producer.”
For example, there was a lot of steel manufactured in the late 19th century in America. Most of it went into things like ships, railroad tracks, locomotives, machine tools, and other things that were not likely to be purchased by the likes of you and me. They’d be purchased by other manufacturers and industries.
In this kind of economy, the trick to prosperity is to maintain production. So you adjust your policies accordingly. You want high tariffs, to protect domestic manufacturers. You want low inflation, which favors creditors and keeps prices stable. You want low wages, since they are an expense and a drain on producers (though not as low as the Gilded Age manufacturers pushed them, which made it impossible to support a family of four by working 80 hours/week – that just leads to well justified hostility from workers that will, in the end, depress productivity). Having a society with a few obscenely wealthy manufacturers and a population deeply enmeshed in poverty is a social problem but not an economic one, since most of the prosperity is driven by the few anyway. You want to arrange your tax policies to benefit the manufacturers.
And if times get bad, you want to do whatever you can to ensure that productivity does not lag. Put money into the hands of producers, since that’s where most of the economic activity lies, and you will shortly return to prosperity. In other words, take care of the Supply Side of the equation, and the rest will take care of itself.
This is what the Teabaggers want us to return to.
The problem is that we don’t live in that economy anymore. We haven’t for nearly a century.
Sometime in the 1920s, as the end result of decades of shifting economic trends, the United States went from being a Producer Economy to being a Consumer Economy.
In this economy, the pyramid looks a lot different. Only a thin band at the bottom is labeled “Producer.” The bulk of the Economic Activity – the majority of the pyramid – is labeled “Consumer.” Most economic activity in this type of economy is driven by consumption, not production – by the Demand Side, not the Supply Side.
In this economy, most of the steel goes into things like automobiles, washing machines and other things that you and I would buy. Producers buy steel too, but the balance has shifted.
In this sort of economy, the trick to prosperity is to maintain consumption. You want low tariffs, to keep the cost of goods low. You want inflation, which favors debtors and encourages people to buy things on credit. You want high wages, since those get used by their recipients to buy things and drive the economy forward. Your society should strive to have a fairly even income distribution, because the more customers you have the better your demand will be. Prosperity is driven by the comfortable many, not the obscenely wealthy few, and if the many are in poverty they won’t drive anything anywhere. You want to arrange your tax policies to help the people in the middle and at the bottom, not the people at the top, since there are more of them and there are only so many consumer goods the wealthy can buy.
Prosperity in a Demand Side economy rests on maintaining demand, not supply. You can produce all you want, but if nobody can consume it your stuff will just sit there and rot.
So when times get bad you want to do whatever you can to keep consumption up and put money into the hands of consumers. Take care of the Demand Side of the equation, and the rest will take care of itself.
Note that this switch happened in the 1920s. This tells you two things.
First, it tells you why the Great Depression lasted as long as it did. Hoover and, at first, Roosevelt, tried the old remedies that had worked in previous economic downturns – boosting the Supply Side. And they didn’t work. In fact, they made things worse. It’s only when Roosevelt gets serious about putting money into the hands of consumers that the Depression starts to ease, and every time he tried to back off from that (1937/38, anyone?) it would return. When the war came and all sorts of money found its way into consumers, that’s when the Depression ended.
And second, it tells you why Governor Teabagger’s policies are not going to work very well.
Because faced with this income reduction, we will do what responsible people do and cut our expenses.
Which means the businesses that depend on our patronage – and the patronage of others like us – will see their income fall, perhaps to the point of driving them out of business, perhaps not.
Which means the state will derive even less income from taxes than they were doing.
Which means the cycle gets to start all over again.
Even for the private sector business leaders who are so eager to cut my wages now.
I am petty enough that I will enjoy that last part of it, at least.
But that’s really not what I’m here for, and I would think it wouldn’t be what my government is here for. Apparently I’m wrong about that.
It’s going to be a long few years.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Books Raining Down
It has been a good time to be a reader around here.
Now, on the one hand, it almost always is a good time to be a reader around our house. There isn’t a room in the house that doesn’t have books in it, and we are never happier than when returning from a looting and pillaging expedition to the nearest bookstore to add to that collection. So there’s something just a bit, I don’t know, mundane about that opening statement.
On the other hand, it has been a particularly good time to be a reader even so.
Autographed books are flying in. Free autographed books. Life is good.
Yesterday we got a package in the mail from Canada. It was simply addressed to us as a family, from someone that I had never heard of, and inside was a book. There was also a note congratulating one of us – the note did not say who, as the author apparently did not know which one of us to congratulate – on solving a puzzle in a previous book of his and apologizing for taking so long to get back to us, the publisher having taken its sweet time in forwarding along the solution to him.
It turned out this was Tabitha’s doing.
Last summer as her big prize in the library summer reading program she chose a book on codes and ciphers. At one point, the book got onto the subject of pinhole codes, where a seemingly normal bit of text is altered with pinholes above or below certain letters, and if you connect the letters you get a message. And lo and behold, there was indeed a pinhole code in that paragraph instructing whoever noticed and decoded it to send a note to that effect to the publisher.
Apparently Tabitha was one of six people – two of whom were adults (one being a US Army Intelligence officer) who caught that and sent in the note.
The author was so tickled by this that he sent an autographed copy of another of his books.
So. Cool.
Last month it was my turn.
Not that I won anything or figured out any puzzle the way Tabitha did. No, I just sent a request for information to the far side of the globe and scored.
A number of years ago I had discovered a wonderful book – a delirium of a book, one that is probably on my top ten all time even if it was the sort of thing you had to think twice about who you would recommend it to, as it was clearly not designed for everybody. It was also the first of a series and when each subsequent volume appeared I would rush out to buy it.
But the fourth and concluding volume never did come out here. It was published in its native Australia three or four years ago, but the American publisher still hasn’t done anything with it and at this point I doubt they ever will. They certainly weren’t interested in returning my calls, anyway.
So through the magic of the internet I tracked down the author.
The fact that he has his own website, livejournal and blog did make this easy, I will admit.
And I sent him an email asking what plans might be afoot for publication here in the US of A.
Several weeks went by, and then I got a very friendly reply explaining how the fate of the American edition of this book was a particularly sore point for him, that he didn’t know any more than I did what would happen, but if I would send me my address he’d send me the Australian paperback, signed and everything.
So I did. And so he did.
No, I’m not going to give out his name. He did me a nice thing, and I don’t want it to get out of hand.
But it is a good time to be a reader, here in Our Little Town.
Now, on the one hand, it almost always is a good time to be a reader around our house. There isn’t a room in the house that doesn’t have books in it, and we are never happier than when returning from a looting and pillaging expedition to the nearest bookstore to add to that collection. So there’s something just a bit, I don’t know, mundane about that opening statement.
On the other hand, it has been a particularly good time to be a reader even so.
Autographed books are flying in. Free autographed books. Life is good.
Yesterday we got a package in the mail from Canada. It was simply addressed to us as a family, from someone that I had never heard of, and inside was a book. There was also a note congratulating one of us – the note did not say who, as the author apparently did not know which one of us to congratulate – on solving a puzzle in a previous book of his and apologizing for taking so long to get back to us, the publisher having taken its sweet time in forwarding along the solution to him.
It turned out this was Tabitha’s doing.
Last summer as her big prize in the library summer reading program she chose a book on codes and ciphers. At one point, the book got onto the subject of pinhole codes, where a seemingly normal bit of text is altered with pinholes above or below certain letters, and if you connect the letters you get a message. And lo and behold, there was indeed a pinhole code in that paragraph instructing whoever noticed and decoded it to send a note to that effect to the publisher.
Apparently Tabitha was one of six people – two of whom were adults (one being a US Army Intelligence officer) who caught that and sent in the note.
The author was so tickled by this that he sent an autographed copy of another of his books.
So. Cool.
Last month it was my turn.
Not that I won anything or figured out any puzzle the way Tabitha did. No, I just sent a request for information to the far side of the globe and scored.
A number of years ago I had discovered a wonderful book – a delirium of a book, one that is probably on my top ten all time even if it was the sort of thing you had to think twice about who you would recommend it to, as it was clearly not designed for everybody. It was also the first of a series and when each subsequent volume appeared I would rush out to buy it.
But the fourth and concluding volume never did come out here. It was published in its native Australia three or four years ago, but the American publisher still hasn’t done anything with it and at this point I doubt they ever will. They certainly weren’t interested in returning my calls, anyway.
So through the magic of the internet I tracked down the author.
The fact that he has his own website, livejournal and blog did make this easy, I will admit.
And I sent him an email asking what plans might be afoot for publication here in the US of A.
Several weeks went by, and then I got a very friendly reply explaining how the fate of the American edition of this book was a particularly sore point for him, that he didn’t know any more than I did what would happen, but if I would send me my address he’d send me the Australian paperback, signed and everything.
So I did. And so he did.
No, I’m not going to give out his name. He did me a nice thing, and I don’t want it to get out of hand.
But it is a good time to be a reader, here in Our Little Town.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Snippets Amid the Furor
Amid all the hoopla here in Baja Canada it is easy to forget that life does go on, and I don’t want to let a few things slip by without mentioning them. Because it’s my world being chronicled here, and that’s just how it goes. With apologies to Casey Kasem, we will return to the stylings of Governor Teabagger and The Cronies right after this break.
So, a few snapshots of a life in progress:
--
We are now down to one hamster, as either Hammy or Vee expired last week. I’m still not sure which one was which, but now there is only one so it doesn’t really matter.
On the one hand, whichever one it was had long exceeded its expected lifespan – we had them for as long as they usually live, and they were full grown when we got them – so there is only so much one can say beyond “fare the well, good rodent, you had a full life.”
On the other hand, ick.
Let’s just say that the deceased chose an inconveniently narrow place to expire and that the survivor really had to find a way to get from being on one side of the deceased to being on the other side of the deceased, and leave it at that.
--
We had our parent-teacher conferences for both of the girls on Wednesday, and they went well. We always look forward to these things, since the girls are both good students and their teachers have been consistently wonderful. And we were not disappointed.
Both Lauren and Tabitha had excellent report cards in all subjects – some room for improvement here and there, but by and large a job very well done – and the teachers report that they are good to have in class – helpful, fun and interesting.
I am immensely proud of them.
--
My classes are going well – even the hybrid, which had been a source of worry. I have great students.
The only problem is that I am teaching the same class – Western Civ II – three different times, and all three classes are now at different points due to snow, barrages of questions, and the accelerated schedule of the hybrid. The upshot of that is that I often have to ask myself whether I have already said this or that to this specific class. It’s a good thing I write stuff out.
--
One of the most difficult tasks facing any teacher is to stand in front of a class and not fart.
--
I find that I have changed my leisure reading (or, more accurately, my “I need to preserve my sanity and that’s more important than sleep” reading) to reflect the current political situation.
I normally tend toward rather bleak stories, often with anti-heroes, where being right and good and just is no predictor of victory, comfort or even survival. This hits a bit too close to home these days, so I’m working on lighter fare for a while.
Well, relatively, anyway.
--
I think 3-D movies have played themselves out again. We took Lauren to see the current animated 3-D movie a couple of weekends ago, when Tabitha had a sleepover with a friend, and I have to say that it would have been no different as a normal movie, and a lot cheaper.
I already wear glasses. I don’t need to buy another pair every time I go to the movies.
--
And now, back to your regularly scheduled blogging…
So, a few snapshots of a life in progress:
--
We are now down to one hamster, as either Hammy or Vee expired last week. I’m still not sure which one was which, but now there is only one so it doesn’t really matter.
On the one hand, whichever one it was had long exceeded its expected lifespan – we had them for as long as they usually live, and they were full grown when we got them – so there is only so much one can say beyond “fare the well, good rodent, you had a full life.”
On the other hand, ick.
Let’s just say that the deceased chose an inconveniently narrow place to expire and that the survivor really had to find a way to get from being on one side of the deceased to being on the other side of the deceased, and leave it at that.
--
We had our parent-teacher conferences for both of the girls on Wednesday, and they went well. We always look forward to these things, since the girls are both good students and their teachers have been consistently wonderful. And we were not disappointed.
Both Lauren and Tabitha had excellent report cards in all subjects – some room for improvement here and there, but by and large a job very well done – and the teachers report that they are good to have in class – helpful, fun and interesting.
I am immensely proud of them.
--
My classes are going well – even the hybrid, which had been a source of worry. I have great students.
The only problem is that I am teaching the same class – Western Civ II – three different times, and all three classes are now at different points due to snow, barrages of questions, and the accelerated schedule of the hybrid. The upshot of that is that I often have to ask myself whether I have already said this or that to this specific class. It’s a good thing I write stuff out.
--
One of the most difficult tasks facing any teacher is to stand in front of a class and not fart.
--
I find that I have changed my leisure reading (or, more accurately, my “I need to preserve my sanity and that’s more important than sleep” reading) to reflect the current political situation.
I normally tend toward rather bleak stories, often with anti-heroes, where being right and good and just is no predictor of victory, comfort or even survival. This hits a bit too close to home these days, so I’m working on lighter fare for a while.
Well, relatively, anyway.
--
I think 3-D movies have played themselves out again. We took Lauren to see the current animated 3-D movie a couple of weekends ago, when Tabitha had a sleepover with a friend, and I have to say that it would have been no different as a normal movie, and a lot cheaper.
I already wear glasses. I don’t need to buy another pair every time I go to the movies.
--
And now, back to your regularly scheduled blogging…
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Further Reports from the Front Lines of the Teabagger War on America
I spent a good portion of today walking in circles and talking to cops. It wasn’t a bad way to spend an afternoon.
It’s been a long week or two here in the Badger State. The situation in Madison has not gotten much better over the last week, and in some ways it has gotten worse.
For example, Governor Teabagger, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch Industries, was caught on tape the other day discussing his plans to seed the peaceful demonstrations with troublemakers. The only reason he has so far not sunk quite to this level is not – as you might expect – because putting the citizens and law enforcement officers under his jurisdiction at risk of their lives and safety to advance a political agenda would be a morally bankrupt and legally actionable dereliction of duty, but instead because he feared that the justifiable outrage at such a tactic might cause the public to demand he actually govern instead of just making peremptory demands and expecting obedience.
The Madison Police Department has noted its displeasure with this rather casual approach to their health and well being, and it will be interesting to see where this ends up.
There was more on the tape as well – threatening to go after demonstrators with a baseball bat, agreeing to take illegal quid-pro-quo donations from a supporter, discussing how to trick Democratic state senators into coming back to Madison under pretext of negotiation and then ramming through his bill unchanged once they showed up, and on and on. What a piece of work, this guy. What astonishes me is that the guy didn’t have the brains to deny he said any of it – that he seems proud of himself for thinking up these kinds of penny-ante tin-horn dirty tricks.
Nixon would have eaten this guy for lunch. And then he would have conceded on collective bargaining, taken the financial concessions offered by the unions, declared victory and figured out some other way to get exactly what he wanted while leaving his opponents with the shell of what they thought they had. Say what you will about the man – say that he was a certifiably paranoid schizophrenic, a divisive and damaging political strategist, a drain on the Constitution, and, alas, a crook of the highest order and lowest character – but very few American politicians could operate the way he could.
Seriously, Teabaggers – this is the best you can do? This guy is your standard bearer? All of the division and damage, with none of the gains? This is the guy you’re hitching your wagon to? And you wonder why civilized and decent people hold you in such disdain and contempt.
So, needless to say, the protests continue.
Madison is on my way home from Not Quite So Far Away Campus, and I decided I’d stop by and spend some time expressing my Constitutionally-protected rights of free speech, freedom of association, and the freedom to petition my government for redress of grievances.
I got there just as the firefighters were leaving.
You have to understand, the firefighters were explicitly spared Governor Teabagger’s axe in this bill. The fact that they are there anyway, standing with us, is a thing of beauty. Perhaps it was just because they knew they were next. Perhaps it’s because firefighters spend their lives bailing others out of trouble. Who knows. When the bagpipes skirl and they march by in full turn-out gear, you just have to be glad they’re there.
I marched around the Capitol for a while, holding my sign. It turns out that wearing my Philadelphia Flyers cap was a good plan, since the color for this rally seems to be orange. Many of the protesters and remaining Democratic legislators wear orange shirts. It was nice to be on the correct side of fashion for a change.
It was a smaller crowd than last time, as befit a grey, wet Thursday afternoon – maybe three or four thousand people, roughly split between those making the circuit around the outside of the Capitol and those in the Rotunda. Once again I was impressed with how clean the place was – it looks worse on most Farmer’s Market Saturdays, and everywhere I looked there were people carting things to the trashcans.
I actually made a point of stopping and talking with the police officers standing watch over all this. They were friendly and willing to talk, and every single one of them – EVERY SINGLE ONE – made a point of saying how civil this all was. How there had been no complaints, no troubles, no real need for them to be there at all up to that point, other than to give people directions and point them away from restricted areas.
There is no “riot,” folks. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you and trying to sell you an agenda. I was there. I spoke with the people who would know. It’s loud. It’s raucous. But so far Governor Teabagger has not succeeded in making it violent.
Eventually I went inside to the Rotunda, since it was cold and it seemed like that was where the action was.
It was packed.
This is what democracy looks like.
At one point some of the Democratic House members came out, to thunderous applause, but for the most part it was just the crowd itself, speaking, listening, and upholding the highest standards of American citizenship.
There are times when I find the actions and attitudes of this country appalling, but I am always proud to be an American and it is moments like these that confirm that.
It got even louder when the cops came in.
There was a lot to see. From clever protests to impassioned signs to doors covered in thank-you notes, there was simply a lot to see.
Just about the time I was ready to leave, Wisconsin’s senior Senator, Herb Kohl, arrived. I almost walked right by him – an easy thing to do, as he is not much taller than Tabitha and had arrived without media fanfare or security entourage – but he was gracious and shook my hand, and I thanked him for coming out.
I made a few more circuits of the Capitol, and then it was time to leave. I can only hope that somebody will take Governor Teabagger aside and talk some sense into him sometime soon. Otherwise it’s going to be a long winter.
It’s been a long week or two here in the Badger State. The situation in Madison has not gotten much better over the last week, and in some ways it has gotten worse.
For example, Governor Teabagger, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch Industries, was caught on tape the other day discussing his plans to seed the peaceful demonstrations with troublemakers. The only reason he has so far not sunk quite to this level is not – as you might expect – because putting the citizens and law enforcement officers under his jurisdiction at risk of their lives and safety to advance a political agenda would be a morally bankrupt and legally actionable dereliction of duty, but instead because he feared that the justifiable outrage at such a tactic might cause the public to demand he actually govern instead of just making peremptory demands and expecting obedience.
The Madison Police Department has noted its displeasure with this rather casual approach to their health and well being, and it will be interesting to see where this ends up.
There was more on the tape as well – threatening to go after demonstrators with a baseball bat, agreeing to take illegal quid-pro-quo donations from a supporter, discussing how to trick Democratic state senators into coming back to Madison under pretext of negotiation and then ramming through his bill unchanged once they showed up, and on and on. What a piece of work, this guy. What astonishes me is that the guy didn’t have the brains to deny he said any of it – that he seems proud of himself for thinking up these kinds of penny-ante tin-horn dirty tricks.
Nixon would have eaten this guy for lunch. And then he would have conceded on collective bargaining, taken the financial concessions offered by the unions, declared victory and figured out some other way to get exactly what he wanted while leaving his opponents with the shell of what they thought they had. Say what you will about the man – say that he was a certifiably paranoid schizophrenic, a divisive and damaging political strategist, a drain on the Constitution, and, alas, a crook of the highest order and lowest character – but very few American politicians could operate the way he could.
Seriously, Teabaggers – this is the best you can do? This guy is your standard bearer? All of the division and damage, with none of the gains? This is the guy you’re hitching your wagon to? And you wonder why civilized and decent people hold you in such disdain and contempt.
So, needless to say, the protests continue.
Madison is on my way home from Not Quite So Far Away Campus, and I decided I’d stop by and spend some time expressing my Constitutionally-protected rights of free speech, freedom of association, and the freedom to petition my government for redress of grievances.
I got there just as the firefighters were leaving.
You have to understand, the firefighters were explicitly spared Governor Teabagger’s axe in this bill. The fact that they are there anyway, standing with us, is a thing of beauty. Perhaps it was just because they knew they were next. Perhaps it’s because firefighters spend their lives bailing others out of trouble. Who knows. When the bagpipes skirl and they march by in full turn-out gear, you just have to be glad they’re there.
I marched around the Capitol for a while, holding my sign. It turns out that wearing my Philadelphia Flyers cap was a good plan, since the color for this rally seems to be orange. Many of the protesters and remaining Democratic legislators wear orange shirts. It was nice to be on the correct side of fashion for a change.
It was a smaller crowd than last time, as befit a grey, wet Thursday afternoon – maybe three or four thousand people, roughly split between those making the circuit around the outside of the Capitol and those in the Rotunda. Once again I was impressed with how clean the place was – it looks worse on most Farmer’s Market Saturdays, and everywhere I looked there were people carting things to the trashcans.
I actually made a point of stopping and talking with the police officers standing watch over all this. They were friendly and willing to talk, and every single one of them – EVERY SINGLE ONE – made a point of saying how civil this all was. How there had been no complaints, no troubles, no real need for them to be there at all up to that point, other than to give people directions and point them away from restricted areas.
There is no “riot,” folks. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you and trying to sell you an agenda. I was there. I spoke with the people who would know. It’s loud. It’s raucous. But so far Governor Teabagger has not succeeded in making it violent.
Eventually I went inside to the Rotunda, since it was cold and it seemed like that was where the action was.
It was packed.
This is what democracy looks like.
At one point some of the Democratic House members came out, to thunderous applause, but for the most part it was just the crowd itself, speaking, listening, and upholding the highest standards of American citizenship.
There are times when I find the actions and attitudes of this country appalling, but I am always proud to be an American and it is moments like these that confirm that.
It got even louder when the cops came in.
There was a lot to see. From clever protests to impassioned signs to doors covered in thank-you notes, there was simply a lot to see.
Just about the time I was ready to leave, Wisconsin’s senior Senator, Herb Kohl, arrived. I almost walked right by him – an easy thing to do, as he is not much taller than Tabitha and had arrived without media fanfare or security entourage – but he was gracious and shook my hand, and I thanked him for coming out.
I made a few more circuits of the Capitol, and then it was time to leave. I can only hope that somebody will take Governor Teabagger aside and talk some sense into him sometime soon. Otherwise it’s going to be a long winter.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Actual Conservatism in America, Concluded
One of the questions that comes up about Liberalism is how it survived the nineteenth-century assaults on the Enlightenment. And the answer to that question – or, more accurately, the current condition of the answer to that question – bodes ill for our world.
If Lockean Liberalism were just the political expression of the Enlightenment, it would have died in the nineteenth century.
Especially after 1794, when the French Revolution had conclusively proven that the Enlightenment, like everything else devised by human beings, could be taken too far, you began to see a backlash against it. This backlash took many forms.
Sometimes it came from people using the structures of the Enlightenment – reason and natural laws – to question the progress that was the purpose of the Enlightenment. Thus you got thinkers such as Thomas Malthus and, to some extent, Charles Darwin. Both of these men used their reason to uncover natural laws that seemed to deny the very possibility of progress and thus undercut the whole rationale for the Enlightenment – and, by implication, anything that came from it, such as Liberalism – in the first place.
Sometimes it came from people who disagreed with the structures of Enlightenment thought themselves, who felt that the world was not predictable in the way that natural laws said it was and that reason was not the way to truth. They favored intuition, emotion, faith and other irrational or anti-rational ways of looking at the world. Thus you get Romantics, Transcendentalists, Revivalists, and the like.
Given this, it would make sense that Liberalism would decline, that it would wither under the assault on its Enlightenment foundations and fade away in the face of other ideologies.
But it didn’t.
And the reason for this was the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution was more than just an economic development. It did more than create new products, new manufacturing methods, and new wealth. It was a social movement, and it created new kinds of people.
Specifically, it created winners and losers.
The losers were many and varied – the old elites of the pre-industrial ancien regime, the industrial working class (ironically enough) and so on – and each group has a separate tale to tell. This is not their story. Not until the end.
The winners were the industrial middle class.
The winners of the Industrial Revolution were the white collar workers who ran it – the managers, the executives and so on, who harnessed the power of workers and machinery, organized it into coherent enterprises, and were well paid in both money and time for doing so. They were the professionals that those managers required for their services – bankers and financiers, doctors, lawyers, accountants and so on, the people on whom the industrial middle class relied and who were also well paid in both money and time for their services. They were the shopkeepers and other buyers and traders who served as the middlemen between those managers and professionals and the goods and services they needed and wanted.
These are the people who had the disposable income to buy the mountains of consumer goods being produced in the factories and the nice housing in which to put them. If you ever look at an interior photograph of a middle-class Victorian home you will understand as if for the first time the true meaning of the terms “clutter” and “firetrap.”
These are the people who had the leisure time to go to the new amusement parks and spectator sports and dance halls that emerged out of the Industrial Revolution’s plenty.
These were the winners.
And good for them, I suppose.
This industrial middle class was new, though. Obviously it did not – could not – exist prior to the Industrial Revolution. This was an entirely new kind of person.
One of the charming features of human nature is that groups need ideologies to justify their world – to explain the world in terms of their own experience, to justify their position in that world, and to tell them that their experiences are good, just and right. And new groups, not having one, need to find one.
To this end the industrial middle class adopted Lockean Liberalism.
It spoke to them.
With its emphasis on individual rights, on private property, on liberal democracy, on progress, on freedom from restraints, it seemed to describe their world fairly well.
For the industrial middle class, things were getting better. They did have private property – lots of it. They were the individuals who were allowed to vote and be represented in the democracies of the west. Their restraints were being lifted. Their world was, in fact, a Liberal world. Of course they became Liberals. Liberalism spoke directly to them, explaining their experiences, justifying their positions and telling them that their experiences were in fact good, just and right.
It was because of this that Liberalism became the default ideology of the Western world. The winners of the most important and powerful movement in the history of modern Western Civilization adopted it as their own. It became what you believed if you were, or considered yourself to be, or had aspirations of being, middle class.
And as more and more people began to move into the middle class, they too adopted Lockean Liberalism as their ideology.
As the old elites merged into the industrial classes, they saw how this could speak to them as well. Over time they tended to abandon the Conservatism that they had codified in response to the Liberal threat and instead worked to make Liberalism work for them. Conservatism fades away as a coherent movement when the old elites join the middle class, in outlook if not in finances.
As industrial workers unionized and began to earn real wages, wages that could support their families and buy some of those consumer goods, they tended to abandon the Socialism that had spoken to them in the mid- to late-nineteenth century and see themselves – or at least their children – as part of that broad middle class that Liberalism justified and defended. Socialism never really gets anywhere in the United States because American workers get good at winning the Liberal game and adopt the outlook of the middle class.
We all think we’re middle class today in the United States. If you don’t believe me, go out into the streets and start asking. See if you can find ten people today in America who don’t think they’re middle class.
Go ahead, I’ll wait.
The guy working third shift at the gas station thinks he’s middle class. The local mechanic thinks he’s middle class. Your doctor thinks he’s middle class. You think you’re middle class. I’d be surprised if professional athletes, US Senators, corporate CEOs and other millionaires also claimed to be anything other than middle class.
In a world defined by the middle class, Liberalism wins. It really is that simple.
But the middle class has been under assault in this country for decades now.
At this point I could drown you in statistics. Real wages haven’t increased in the US since 1973. The gap between rich and poor is now worse than it has been since the late 1920s, and getting bigger. And so on. Finding such statistics is not hard. Following where they lead, that’s the trick.
Because the sad fact is that the United States is on track to become an ancien regime society of wealth and poverty, with little to buffer the one from the other. It is working toward becoming a society without a middle class.
This is one of the many reasons why Governor Teabagger’s frontal assault on Wisconsin’s unions is so worrying. The net result of this will be to shrink wages, lower working standards and remove large numbers of people from the economic world of the middle class that has made this country strong - and not just in Wisconsin, but, as other states follow this lead, across the US as well.
And eventually, after a while, even Americans will figure out that most of us are not middle class anymore. We will go back to the social world of the ancien regime, of nobles and peasants, with a thin band of others between them.
We will be separated into a society of elites and the poor.
Where the poor will go for their ideology, I do not know. In a post-industrial world, I’m not convinced that Socialism will reappear among them. It might. I can’t say.
But I can say from simple observation that we are seeing a resurgence of Conservative thought among American elites. That authoritarian, hierarchical, anti-Enlightenment thought that says, “Obey your betters and stop trying to reach above your station,” that group-oriented, anti-rational appeal to tradition and obligation that does not seek to free the individual but bind him in chains of responsibility – that’s what you get when the middle class succumbs to attack.
In a world where the middle class disappears, Liberalism goes with it.
And what happens next does not look promising.
If Lockean Liberalism were just the political expression of the Enlightenment, it would have died in the nineteenth century.
Especially after 1794, when the French Revolution had conclusively proven that the Enlightenment, like everything else devised by human beings, could be taken too far, you began to see a backlash against it. This backlash took many forms.
Sometimes it came from people using the structures of the Enlightenment – reason and natural laws – to question the progress that was the purpose of the Enlightenment. Thus you got thinkers such as Thomas Malthus and, to some extent, Charles Darwin. Both of these men used their reason to uncover natural laws that seemed to deny the very possibility of progress and thus undercut the whole rationale for the Enlightenment – and, by implication, anything that came from it, such as Liberalism – in the first place.
Sometimes it came from people who disagreed with the structures of Enlightenment thought themselves, who felt that the world was not predictable in the way that natural laws said it was and that reason was not the way to truth. They favored intuition, emotion, faith and other irrational or anti-rational ways of looking at the world. Thus you get Romantics, Transcendentalists, Revivalists, and the like.
Given this, it would make sense that Liberalism would decline, that it would wither under the assault on its Enlightenment foundations and fade away in the face of other ideologies.
But it didn’t.
And the reason for this was the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution was more than just an economic development. It did more than create new products, new manufacturing methods, and new wealth. It was a social movement, and it created new kinds of people.
Specifically, it created winners and losers.
The losers were many and varied – the old elites of the pre-industrial ancien regime, the industrial working class (ironically enough) and so on – and each group has a separate tale to tell. This is not their story. Not until the end.
The winners were the industrial middle class.
The winners of the Industrial Revolution were the white collar workers who ran it – the managers, the executives and so on, who harnessed the power of workers and machinery, organized it into coherent enterprises, and were well paid in both money and time for doing so. They were the professionals that those managers required for their services – bankers and financiers, doctors, lawyers, accountants and so on, the people on whom the industrial middle class relied and who were also well paid in both money and time for their services. They were the shopkeepers and other buyers and traders who served as the middlemen between those managers and professionals and the goods and services they needed and wanted.
These are the people who had the disposable income to buy the mountains of consumer goods being produced in the factories and the nice housing in which to put them. If you ever look at an interior photograph of a middle-class Victorian home you will understand as if for the first time the true meaning of the terms “clutter” and “firetrap.”
These are the people who had the leisure time to go to the new amusement parks and spectator sports and dance halls that emerged out of the Industrial Revolution’s plenty.
These were the winners.
And good for them, I suppose.
This industrial middle class was new, though. Obviously it did not – could not – exist prior to the Industrial Revolution. This was an entirely new kind of person.
One of the charming features of human nature is that groups need ideologies to justify their world – to explain the world in terms of their own experience, to justify their position in that world, and to tell them that their experiences are good, just and right. And new groups, not having one, need to find one.
To this end the industrial middle class adopted Lockean Liberalism.
It spoke to them.
With its emphasis on individual rights, on private property, on liberal democracy, on progress, on freedom from restraints, it seemed to describe their world fairly well.
For the industrial middle class, things were getting better. They did have private property – lots of it. They were the individuals who were allowed to vote and be represented in the democracies of the west. Their restraints were being lifted. Their world was, in fact, a Liberal world. Of course they became Liberals. Liberalism spoke directly to them, explaining their experiences, justifying their positions and telling them that their experiences were in fact good, just and right.
It was because of this that Liberalism became the default ideology of the Western world. The winners of the most important and powerful movement in the history of modern Western Civilization adopted it as their own. It became what you believed if you were, or considered yourself to be, or had aspirations of being, middle class.
And as more and more people began to move into the middle class, they too adopted Lockean Liberalism as their ideology.
As the old elites merged into the industrial classes, they saw how this could speak to them as well. Over time they tended to abandon the Conservatism that they had codified in response to the Liberal threat and instead worked to make Liberalism work for them. Conservatism fades away as a coherent movement when the old elites join the middle class, in outlook if not in finances.
As industrial workers unionized and began to earn real wages, wages that could support their families and buy some of those consumer goods, they tended to abandon the Socialism that had spoken to them in the mid- to late-nineteenth century and see themselves – or at least their children – as part of that broad middle class that Liberalism justified and defended. Socialism never really gets anywhere in the United States because American workers get good at winning the Liberal game and adopt the outlook of the middle class.
We all think we’re middle class today in the United States. If you don’t believe me, go out into the streets and start asking. See if you can find ten people today in America who don’t think they’re middle class.
Go ahead, I’ll wait.
The guy working third shift at the gas station thinks he’s middle class. The local mechanic thinks he’s middle class. Your doctor thinks he’s middle class. You think you’re middle class. I’d be surprised if professional athletes, US Senators, corporate CEOs and other millionaires also claimed to be anything other than middle class.
In a world defined by the middle class, Liberalism wins. It really is that simple.
But the middle class has been under assault in this country for decades now.
At this point I could drown you in statistics. Real wages haven’t increased in the US since 1973. The gap between rich and poor is now worse than it has been since the late 1920s, and getting bigger. And so on. Finding such statistics is not hard. Following where they lead, that’s the trick.
Because the sad fact is that the United States is on track to become an ancien regime society of wealth and poverty, with little to buffer the one from the other. It is working toward becoming a society without a middle class.
This is one of the many reasons why Governor Teabagger’s frontal assault on Wisconsin’s unions is so worrying. The net result of this will be to shrink wages, lower working standards and remove large numbers of people from the economic world of the middle class that has made this country strong - and not just in Wisconsin, but, as other states follow this lead, across the US as well.
And eventually, after a while, even Americans will figure out that most of us are not middle class anymore. We will go back to the social world of the ancien regime, of nobles and peasants, with a thin band of others between them.
We will be separated into a society of elites and the poor.
Where the poor will go for their ideology, I do not know. In a post-industrial world, I’m not convinced that Socialism will reappear among them. It might. I can’t say.
But I can say from simple observation that we are seeing a resurgence of Conservative thought among American elites. That authoritarian, hierarchical, anti-Enlightenment thought that says, “Obey your betters and stop trying to reach above your station,” that group-oriented, anti-rational appeal to tradition and obligation that does not seek to free the individual but bind him in chains of responsibility – that’s what you get when the middle class succumbs to attack.
In a world where the middle class disappears, Liberalism goes with it.
And what happens next does not look promising.
Monday, February 21, 2011
The Rise of Actual Conservatism in America
I have long maintained that there are no real Conservatives in America. Lately, I’m not so sure.
The political ideology that the United States was founded upon in the late eighteenth century – “classical republicanism,” sometimes referred to as “Neo-Harringtonian republicanism” – no longer exists. It died a long, slow death over the course of about half a century, and by around 1820 it was no longer a viable force in American politics. If it hadn’t been enshrined in the structure of government outlined in the Constitution it would have been forgotten. And indeed, most Americans have no idea that it ever existed.
This is why every four years we get puzzled over the existence and function of the Electoral College.
Since the early 19th century, all of American politics has taken place within a very narrow band of Lockean Liberalism. Derived from the writings of John Locke, entering into American political discourse in a significant way in the 1770s, Liberalism is the default ideology of America. It took on classical republicanism and beat it over a fifty-year span. We are all Liberals in this country.
At least I used to think so.
Liberalism is a complex ideology, but one that can be boiled down to a few basic principles fairly easily. For one thing, it is the quintessential form of Enlightenment politics. As such it draws from the three fundamental principles of the Enlightenment:
1. It is based on reason. Liberals are great ones for starting from first principles and working out from there.
2. It is based on the idea of universal natural laws. Liberals firmly believe that this is the proper form of politics for all humanity, regardless of history or culture.
3. It is based on progress. Things can and will get better. The Golden Age is in the future. Using our reason, we can figure out the natural laws that govern human society and politics, and we can use them to make this a better place.
From there Liberalism adds three more principles, things that all Lockean Liberals have in common:
1. The individual is the fundamental building block of society.
Lockean Liberalism is the only major political ideology in the West (and to my knowledge, in the world) that makes this claim. All others are based on the primacy of the group, although which group (the social class, the “nation,” the order, etc.) varies. Liberals believe that it is the individual who is the basic unit of society and therefore that all of society must be set up to benefit and protect this individual.
Now, who counts as an individual varies over time. It wasn’t until the 20th century that women, people of color, or the poor were defined as “individuals” in this sense. But that is an issue to be discussed, not a difference in principle.
2. The primary function of a society is to free the individual from restraints.
Liberals buy into the rather optimistic Enlightenment view of human nature as basically good, rather than depraved. Therefore the job of society and government is to get out of that individual’s way and let him (again, mostly “him” for a long, long time) get on with his life. And the primary purpose of that is:
3. Equality of opportunity.
Liberals believe that all individuals, however defined, should have equal opportunity to get ahead. Note that this is an equality of the starting line, not the finish line – Liberals assume that there will NOT be equality at the end, because people will use their opportunities differently. But a well-ordered society will level the playing field for all by removing restraints on the individual so that that individual can succeed.
These principles can be spun in two different ways, depending on what playing field you want to level.
If it is the political playing field, this leads to a belief in the existence of civil and political rights inalienable from the individual, rights that must be protected by an active government. And everyone who counts as an individual must be given a voice in this government, thus leading to liberal democracy.
Americans tend to call this position “liberal.” It is the position of Progressives, of FDR, of the Great Society and legislation like the ADA and the Voting Rights Act.
If it is the economic playing field, then this ultimately leads to a belief in the sacred nature of private property, the primacy of private interests, and the general worthiness of laissez-faire capitalism, where the atomized individual is freed from governmental or societal restraints to maximize his equal opportunities in the marketplace.
Americans have for generations – perhaps for rhetorical convenience – called this position “conservative.” It is the position of Gilded Age politics, of Barry Goldwater, of Taft-Hartley and small-government activists across the United States.
But it’s all Liberal, in the original Lockean sense of the term.
Real Conservatism exists in opposition to this. It was codified as a coherent ideology in the late 18th century explicitly as a reaction against this – notably against the radical extremes that Liberalism was taken to during the French Revolution.
It is an anti-Enlightenment ideology.
1. Rather than reason, Conservatism stresses tradition and authority. It is not for you to question things and work them out for yourself. It is your role to accept what tradition and authority dictate, because those things are there for a reason. Things don’t become traditions, people don’t become authorities, for no good reason, and you are not fit to question that.
2. Rather than universal natural laws, Conservatism stresses specific histories. The idea that a single ideology could be stretched to cover all peoples the way scientific laws such as gravity cover all reality makes no sense to Conservatives.
3. And rather than progress, Conservatives see the future as grim and fearful. The Golden Age is in the past, and the job of the Conservative is to conserve as much as possible against degenerative change.
From there, Conservatives reject all of the principles of Liberalism.
1. The individual is not the basis of society. Society is based on groups and institutions.
These things were there before you were and will be there long after you are gone. You don’t count. You should sacrifice your private interests to the good of the groups and institutions to which you belong.
2. Individuals should not be freed from restraints but bound by responsibilities and obligations.
Humanity is depraved and cannot be trusted on its own. It must be firmly ruled and tightly bound or it will degenerate into chaos and anarchy.
3. And there is no equality of opportunity. The world is hierarchical. Those at the top belong there. Those at the bottom belong there.
For the latter to attempt to become one of the former is presumptuous and can only end in disaster. You owe responsibilities and obligations to your betters, and questioning them is treason.
For most of American history, nobody believed this. Not on the left. Not on the right. In fact, the most Lockean Liberal group out there in the original sense is probably the Libertarians, long considered the hard right of American politics.
But over the last decade or two I have noticed a disturbing resurgence of true Conservative values.
Here in my own state, Governor Teabagger has been very clear about his role in the decision-making process versus my own. He feels it is his job to dictate and mine to obey. He seems to get very angry when people dare to question his commands.
He has a compliant group of cronies in the legislature that is willing to bend over and take this.
This is why they refuse to discuss the current abomination of a budget bill in Madison – they simply declare their power and expect obedience.
The bill was not shared with opposition lawmakers until last Monday, which is why several of them found out about it on the radio, listening to commercials made by the extremist group “The Club For Growth.” Apparently special interest groups get to hear these things in advance, but elected representatives don’t.
Governor Teabagger insisted that the bill be rammed through the legislature in four days – a 144-page bill overturning nearly a century of successful Wisconsin practice in the name of a radical agenda. That this left no time for lawmakers to seriously consider the bill is obvious. That they were not supposed to consider it is equally obvious.
It is not surprising, therefore, that when the Republicans in the Wisconsin House told Democrats to show up at 5pm on Friday to begin voting on amendments to the bill, they actually began voting at 4:45 and were just about to wrap up and vanish when Democrats arrived and found out about this illegal move. I hope there are impeachments that come out of this.
That the public was to have no role in this – that our role is to accept the diktats of authority – goes without saying.
This is an abomination.
There is no Decider in the American system of government. It is not my job as an American citizen to accept uncritically the vomitus of authority. It is my job as a Lockean individual to question it. To ask for reasons. To express my equality and my views. And to remind our leaders that there are other aspects of Lockean Liberalism that they may not care to hear.
Aspects that did play a role in the founding of this country.
As Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence,
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
If Governor Teabagger insists on becoming destructive to the ends of government, he may find that government altered or abolished around him, and a new government instituted.
This may take some time. A peaceful shift in governance always does.
But it’s the American way.
The political ideology that the United States was founded upon in the late eighteenth century – “classical republicanism,” sometimes referred to as “Neo-Harringtonian republicanism” – no longer exists. It died a long, slow death over the course of about half a century, and by around 1820 it was no longer a viable force in American politics. If it hadn’t been enshrined in the structure of government outlined in the Constitution it would have been forgotten. And indeed, most Americans have no idea that it ever existed.
This is why every four years we get puzzled over the existence and function of the Electoral College.
Since the early 19th century, all of American politics has taken place within a very narrow band of Lockean Liberalism. Derived from the writings of John Locke, entering into American political discourse in a significant way in the 1770s, Liberalism is the default ideology of America. It took on classical republicanism and beat it over a fifty-year span. We are all Liberals in this country.
At least I used to think so.
Liberalism is a complex ideology, but one that can be boiled down to a few basic principles fairly easily. For one thing, it is the quintessential form of Enlightenment politics. As such it draws from the three fundamental principles of the Enlightenment:
1. It is based on reason. Liberals are great ones for starting from first principles and working out from there.
2. It is based on the idea of universal natural laws. Liberals firmly believe that this is the proper form of politics for all humanity, regardless of history or culture.
3. It is based on progress. Things can and will get better. The Golden Age is in the future. Using our reason, we can figure out the natural laws that govern human society and politics, and we can use them to make this a better place.
From there Liberalism adds three more principles, things that all Lockean Liberals have in common:
1. The individual is the fundamental building block of society.
Lockean Liberalism is the only major political ideology in the West (and to my knowledge, in the world) that makes this claim. All others are based on the primacy of the group, although which group (the social class, the “nation,” the order, etc.) varies. Liberals believe that it is the individual who is the basic unit of society and therefore that all of society must be set up to benefit and protect this individual.
Now, who counts as an individual varies over time. It wasn’t until the 20th century that women, people of color, or the poor were defined as “individuals” in this sense. But that is an issue to be discussed, not a difference in principle.
2. The primary function of a society is to free the individual from restraints.
Liberals buy into the rather optimistic Enlightenment view of human nature as basically good, rather than depraved. Therefore the job of society and government is to get out of that individual’s way and let him (again, mostly “him” for a long, long time) get on with his life. And the primary purpose of that is:
3. Equality of opportunity.
Liberals believe that all individuals, however defined, should have equal opportunity to get ahead. Note that this is an equality of the starting line, not the finish line – Liberals assume that there will NOT be equality at the end, because people will use their opportunities differently. But a well-ordered society will level the playing field for all by removing restraints on the individual so that that individual can succeed.
These principles can be spun in two different ways, depending on what playing field you want to level.
If it is the political playing field, this leads to a belief in the existence of civil and political rights inalienable from the individual, rights that must be protected by an active government. And everyone who counts as an individual must be given a voice in this government, thus leading to liberal democracy.
Americans tend to call this position “liberal.” It is the position of Progressives, of FDR, of the Great Society and legislation like the ADA and the Voting Rights Act.
If it is the economic playing field, then this ultimately leads to a belief in the sacred nature of private property, the primacy of private interests, and the general worthiness of laissez-faire capitalism, where the atomized individual is freed from governmental or societal restraints to maximize his equal opportunities in the marketplace.
Americans have for generations – perhaps for rhetorical convenience – called this position “conservative.” It is the position of Gilded Age politics, of Barry Goldwater, of Taft-Hartley and small-government activists across the United States.
But it’s all Liberal, in the original Lockean sense of the term.
Real Conservatism exists in opposition to this. It was codified as a coherent ideology in the late 18th century explicitly as a reaction against this – notably against the radical extremes that Liberalism was taken to during the French Revolution.
It is an anti-Enlightenment ideology.
1. Rather than reason, Conservatism stresses tradition and authority. It is not for you to question things and work them out for yourself. It is your role to accept what tradition and authority dictate, because those things are there for a reason. Things don’t become traditions, people don’t become authorities, for no good reason, and you are not fit to question that.
2. Rather than universal natural laws, Conservatism stresses specific histories. The idea that a single ideology could be stretched to cover all peoples the way scientific laws such as gravity cover all reality makes no sense to Conservatives.
3. And rather than progress, Conservatives see the future as grim and fearful. The Golden Age is in the past, and the job of the Conservative is to conserve as much as possible against degenerative change.
From there, Conservatives reject all of the principles of Liberalism.
1. The individual is not the basis of society. Society is based on groups and institutions.
These things were there before you were and will be there long after you are gone. You don’t count. You should sacrifice your private interests to the good of the groups and institutions to which you belong.
2. Individuals should not be freed from restraints but bound by responsibilities and obligations.
Humanity is depraved and cannot be trusted on its own. It must be firmly ruled and tightly bound or it will degenerate into chaos and anarchy.
3. And there is no equality of opportunity. The world is hierarchical. Those at the top belong there. Those at the bottom belong there.
For the latter to attempt to become one of the former is presumptuous and can only end in disaster. You owe responsibilities and obligations to your betters, and questioning them is treason.
For most of American history, nobody believed this. Not on the left. Not on the right. In fact, the most Lockean Liberal group out there in the original sense is probably the Libertarians, long considered the hard right of American politics.
But over the last decade or two I have noticed a disturbing resurgence of true Conservative values.
Here in my own state, Governor Teabagger has been very clear about his role in the decision-making process versus my own. He feels it is his job to dictate and mine to obey. He seems to get very angry when people dare to question his commands.
He has a compliant group of cronies in the legislature that is willing to bend over and take this.
This is why they refuse to discuss the current abomination of a budget bill in Madison – they simply declare their power and expect obedience.
The bill was not shared with opposition lawmakers until last Monday, which is why several of them found out about it on the radio, listening to commercials made by the extremist group “The Club For Growth.” Apparently special interest groups get to hear these things in advance, but elected representatives don’t.
Governor Teabagger insisted that the bill be rammed through the legislature in four days – a 144-page bill overturning nearly a century of successful Wisconsin practice in the name of a radical agenda. That this left no time for lawmakers to seriously consider the bill is obvious. That they were not supposed to consider it is equally obvious.
It is not surprising, therefore, that when the Republicans in the Wisconsin House told Democrats to show up at 5pm on Friday to begin voting on amendments to the bill, they actually began voting at 4:45 and were just about to wrap up and vanish when Democrats arrived and found out about this illegal move. I hope there are impeachments that come out of this.
That the public was to have no role in this – that our role is to accept the diktats of authority – goes without saying.
This is an abomination.
There is no Decider in the American system of government. It is not my job as an American citizen to accept uncritically the vomitus of authority. It is my job as a Lockean individual to question it. To ask for reasons. To express my equality and my views. And to remind our leaders that there are other aspects of Lockean Liberalism that they may not care to hear.
Aspects that did play a role in the founding of this country.
As Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence,
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
If Governor Teabagger insists on becoming destructive to the ends of government, he may find that government altered or abolished around him, and a new government instituted.
This may take some time. A peaceful shift in governance always does.
But it’s the American way.
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