Why vote for the lesser evil?
Bush, of course, launched numerous expensive new programs and entitlements, and failed to restrain the inherent growth of Clinton’s affirmative action easy mortgage program. He encouraged the growth of that program, though to judge by the screaming of the Democrats at the time, probably slightly less than the Democrats would have done.
But even if Bush had launched no new entitlements, restraining the inherent growth of Clinton’s mortgage program would have been unthinkably drastic and “racist”, would have been “cuts”, “cuts” directed at particular racial groups supposedly for racist reasons, “cuts” immeasurably more extreme and controversial than anything any tea party candidate dares speak out loud about, “cuts” far more dramatic than the quite controversial cuts happening now in Britain. To maintain the Clinton status quo against the inherent growth of Clinton’s programs would have required unthinkably drastic “right wing racist cuts”.
Every institution tends to grow. Institutions are made of people. They exist because they give those people what they want, so people in them always want more of that institution. Market institutions, such as firms, are inherently limited, because if the customer says “no”, the institution fails to grow, or vanishes altogether. Government institutions have no such inherent limits, so always grow barring frequent, extreme, and drastic “cuts”.
The growth of government in America was restrained by federalism, by market competition between the states. When the constitution was gutted, that restraint was removed. Almost everything the feds do except the post office, the patent office, and warfare, is unconstitutional. If all that stuff was passed back to the states and states such as California were allowed to go bankrupt, state to state competition and state bankruptcies might slow growth to levels that could be accommodates without social collapse.
There is a natural selection process going on– government programs that can be stopped half way, generally are, or at least are slowed, so government tends to be dominated by programs that inherently have limitless growth that can end only in social collapse or total domination of every aspect of society.
If any politician stops affirmative action mortgages, he launches himself on a path where he is going to stop all affirmative action and wind up in front of the television cameras ridiculing Marie Curie’s Nobel prizes and women scientists in general. You cannot stop affirmative action half way. The inherent logic and needs of affirmative action, like most successfully expansionist government programs, require total domination of every aspect of society, or complete repudiation.
The dominant part of government is programs that cannot be cut half way, can only be cut off at the roots, because the ones that can be cut half way, frequently are.
In the private sector, natural selection selects well run firms, so firms are mostly well run, and where most firms are badly run, for example retailing, well run firms such as Walmart tend to dominate.
In the government sector, natural selection selects programs whose growth is impossible to restrain For example: If you give “under represented groups” their fair share of Nobel prizes, you soon have to give them their fair share of degrees. If you give them their fair share of degrees, you soon have to give them their fair share of well paid high status jobs. If you give them their fair share of well paid high status jobs, you soon have to give them their fair share of mortgages. If you give them their fair share of mortgages, the economy collapses. So there is no help for it but to resist and ridicule giving them their fair share of Nobel prizes.
You cannot have half affirmative action, and half not, because if you do, either the half that is not affirmative action be racism and sexism, or the half that is affirmative action must be fraud, lies, pretense, and special privilege, must itself be racism and sexism. This is the formula for a successful government program – that any attempt to restrain its growth must be politically outrageous and extraordinary.
It follows that the biggest and most uncontrollable programs will be those that to cut is unthinkable, and that the only cuts of those programs that can succeed is total abolition. Compare and contrast with the most “radical” of the Tea Partiers.
If you can cut a program by five percent or ten percent, then it is unlikely to be a big problem. Most government is programs that cannot be cut by five or ten percent, cannot even have their growth much slowed, except by abolition.
If George Osborne slows the growth of Britain’s National Health scheme to levels that Britain can afford, in a few years the National Health Scheme will consist entirely of committees of expert authorities sending memos to other committees of expert authorities, while Britons die in the streets of readily treated ailments. Indeed, we are already seeing the horror stories in the British press. George Osborne tells some government entity that is blowing ludicrous amounts of money that it will have a few hundred million pounds less money that it asked for, a mere drop in an overflowing bucket. The entity finds some pathetic and deserving client, whose very life has come to depend on them spending a minuscule amount money on him, and announces that they will save a few pounds by letting him die. And then they do it.
cost-free stuff…
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Hi Jim–
Let’s stipulate (merely for the sake of argument of course) that the U.S. is fucked.
I’m curious what you think about where a lazy English speaker should consider emigrating to. Shocking as it might sound, Canada seems pretty good to me, except it’s so cold up there, and I’m a little worried that they’d fall apart too if the U.S. really went to pieces.
As I recall you’re from Australia, so what do you think about there? Ever consider going back?
I am spending a lot of time in Australia these days.
“Economic Freedom of the World” rates Canada, America, and Australia in 2010, as having almost equal economic freedom, and of the three, Australia is by far the most solvent.
I think that “Economic Freedom of the World” underrates the impact of affirmative action, which severely disrupts freedom of speech and economic freedom – economic freedom most severely in America, speech most severely in Canada.
In Australia the greenies are bad and getting worse, but affirmative action is not a big problem, and “race” related restrictions on speech are not severe.
Australia’s very politically correct ABC began a program on Islamophobia with “The recent bombings …” and somehow forgot to mention that Islam is the religion of peace, and the bombings have absolutely no connection with Islam. In America, people would reel in horror that the ABC’s political correctness is less than required. In Australia, people who blow themselves up are apt to be “Muslims” rather than “youths”.
On the other hand Greenie and gun restrictions on freedom are more severe in Australia.
Singaporeans generally speak English, of a sort, and Singapore has by far the soundest and arguably most libertarian economic policies. “Economic Freedom of the World” gives them a high rating, which rating I suspect is if anything understated, but in matters other than economics, not very libertarian at all. Conscription, drug war, draconian libel laws, though not nearly as draconian as Britain.
You cannot have half affirmative action, and half not, because if you do, either the half that is not affirmative action be racism and sexism
Well, there is a difference between affirmative action the policy and the ideology behind today’s affirmative action. AA has been practiced in lots of times and places without this sort of mission creep. Imperial administrations (e.g. China throughout much of its history), practice AA in order to bring local, conquered elites inside the tent. But, the intent of such AA is to destroy the targeted minority group’s culture. This can work out just fine. It’s multicultural ideology and radical nurturism which is the real problem.
If we could just race-norm test scores and tell the truth about what we are doing, things would be a lot less bad. Of course, coming out and saying that we are trying to co-opt black and mexican elites so that they don’t lead violent rebellions would not sell so well in today’s environment.
Yes, what is deadly is not affirmative action, but affirmative action based on the ideology that all groups are literally equal, interchangeable, and that any deviation from equal outcomes is raaaacism
Affirmative action that aims to include the potential leadership of an inferior and subjugated group to avoid trouble, is different from affirmative action that seeks to manufacture trouble in order to divide and conquer.