Where Else It Went
My post below gives the impression that nationalism, including militarism, and anti-left ressentiment are the sole causes of the collapse of limited government as a movement in American politics. I recognize perfectly well that they are not. It’s instructive, though, that David Frum, who has himself tried to be a nationalist and a limited-government conservative, doesn’t mention nationalism as a cause at all in his essay. He does mention that defense spending has increased 50% of GNP in the last decade, but seems to regard it as a fact of life. That we might have chosen and still choose to fight a radically different and less grandiose “war on terror” doesn’t come up.
Bruce Bartlett is good on the demographic drivers behind the collapse of limited-government economic policy. (His prescription, a VAT, fills me with horror. If you accept that entitlements aren’t going away and that it’s legitimate and proper to increase taxes to pay for them, then raise existing taxes rather than create new kinds.) Frum’s only reference to the Republican Party’s moralist side is a glancing mention of “the impeachment battle” of the 1990s. Frum writes that “while small-government conservatism remains an important faction within the Republican party, it is only a faction,” but doesn’t discuss what the other factions are (the Christian Right and the national greatness wing) or why those factions should have come to hold the whip hand in the GOP.
At bottom the problem is this: limited-government types, conservative or otherwise, don’t much like politics. We think politics should retreat from broad areas of economic and social life rather than advance into new ones.
We’re exactly the sort of people who are going to suck at political activity.
And we haven’t got a lot of goodies to offer. The State-Capitalist GOP can offer businesses all sorts of subventions. All we can offer them is “a chance to compete on a level playing field.” The Christian Right can offer busybodies a country in which the police enforce their morals on the unrighteous. All we can offer them is the right to try to hector the unrighteous into agreeing with them. The national-greatness right can offer the chance to kill foreigners and Do Good and feel part of a grand enterprise. All we can offer is boring old peace. The welfare-state left can offer people oodles of other people’s money. We got squadoosh.
Political success comes from energizing defined constituencies and we ain’t got any.
Comment by Doug T —
May 4, 2006 @ 8:06 am
”And we haven’t got a lot of goodies to offer.”
I’d say that’s a more important point than any of your previous comments. THe issues within the Republican party are pretty unique to the US, but small government conservatism hasn’t had much success anywhere in the developed world. So I think the explanation for this has got to be broader than details about the GOP coalition.
If you look historically, people in almost every country have agitated for more expansive government regulatory powers and an increased safety net because they think those things improve their quality of life. And when they’ve gotten them, they like them. Libertarians mainly offer a justice-oriented argument against them, and utilitarianism trumps that almost every time.
The times small government arguments have made any headway is when they shift to the utilitarian realm and try to convince people that smaller government will improve their lot. Hence the appeal of supply-side theory, and why most political arguments for lower taxes or whatever are now couched in terms of improving economic growth. But once you’ve ceded the justic argument for libertarianism, then it’s awfully tough to convince people to toss out known programs that they like in favor of some undefined future benefit that may or may not occur.
Especially in a time of rising inequality and less and less trickling down of economic growth. It’s probably not in most people’s interests to get rid of Social Security in return for lower taxes so that the economy can grow more, if that growth is only benefitting the top 3% of the country.
Comment by jlw —
May 4, 2006 @ 10:22 am
I’m probably not the guy you want to ask for advice–and I’m not sure why I’m giving it, as I support certain types of government intervention (such as in social and health insurance) that give libertarians the willies–but I think libertarians would be better served by fighting over the location of government, rather than its raw size.
Federalism had a terrible 20th century, mostly because it was used as a cover for naked racism (states’ rights) in the South. Some on the right mouthed paeons to federalism out of opposition to the New Deal, but Nixon, Reagan and their followers quickly found that Federal power could be their precious as well, and now the Republican Right seems much more expansionist than the Left, which is saying something.
But home rule and local governance and the whole Jeffersonian yeoman jazz still has a deep resonnance in the American psyche. I’m a New Yorker and a subway rider, but I have a hard time arguing that someone in Mizzoula needs to pay for mass transit, just as I have a hard time buying that I need to subsidize farmers and mining companies. There’s a lot of the Federal enterprise that could be relocated to the states (why do we need federal departments of education and agriculture?) where they could be done either better or, depending on the circumstances, not at all.
Now, I’d argue that to be serious about such a recentering program, you’d have to also propose redrawing jurisdictional lines on a massive scale–combining counies to form cantons, say, and/or joining together blocks of smaller states into regional commonwealths. But such a comprehensive overhaul is likely needed at this point anyway.
Anyway, just a thought.
Comment by Gary Farber —
May 4, 2006 @ 11:38 am
Speaking to JLW’s comment, I’m a vaguely (idiosyncratically) ”left-liberal,” and I’ve been saying for decades that there’s a lot more virtue to federalism and state’s rights than its racist uses.
I wouldn’t want us to devolve all power to the States; there are various areas where I think that would have more ill effect than good. But there are plenty of areas in which I’m happy to let States have either primacy or a major share of power (and defining power).
But I only speak for myself, of course.
Comment by David T —
May 4, 2006 @ 11:57 am
To me, the hopelessness of small government (or libertarianism with a small l) as a political movement was brought home when some state legislator introduced a bill to prevent employers from barring guns from the company parking lot. Lots of pro-gun people supported this clear invasion of the employer’s private property rights. In other words, even gun owners–who you would think would be one of the groups most open to libertarian influence–want positive assistance from the state, not just laissez-faire…
Comment by Brian Miller —
May 4, 2006 @ 7:06 pm
I’m definitely a lefty; but your conservatism is one I can at least respect.
Comment by Brian Miller —
May 4, 2006 @ 7:11 pm
And, I’ll second jlw’s appeal for true federalism. Because, obviously, the current regime is using federal power for Empire. And, Empire is something many on the (semi-)pacifist left and the right can agree on.
Comment by Brock —
May 4, 2006 @ 7:38 pm
At bottom the problem is this: limited-government types, conservative or otherwise, don’t much like politics. We think politics should retreat from broad areas of economic and social life rather than advance into new ones.
While this may explain why limited-government philosophies have never been, and probably will never be, politically dominant, it can’t explain the waning power of the limited-government within the Republican coalition since its peak in 1994.
Have limited-govenment types become even more disengaged from politics in the past 12 years?
Comment by Neel Krishnaswami —
May 4, 2006 @ 9:31 pm
Brock: In October 1994 a Democrat was president, and Democrats controlled Congress. To a Republican then, limited government was a vital rhetorical tool to bash the Democrats with.
After November 1994, we had a divided government, and the legislative and executive branches hated each other. This ensured gridlock, and even though the Republicans basically dropped the substantive content of ”limited government”, only a moderate amount of terrible legislation actually got passed.[*] At the same time, there was an economic boom and gridlock meant that government spending didn’t grow as quickly as the economy did.
So for a while it appeared, accidentally, that ”limited government” was viable. Now, none of those factors hold. We don’t have divided government, we don’t have an economic boom, and we don’t have gridlock to hold down spending. Also, Bush and Hastert are much less competent than Clinton and Gingrich.
[*]For instance: CALEA, the DMCA, and the Omnibus Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. I remember when I was freaked out about those bills. I miss those innocent days, back when I could worry about what could happen, rather than be worried about what has already happened.
Comment by Dmilligan —
May 4, 2006 @ 9:39 pm
Squadoosh. What a wonderful term! I don’t know if I’ve ever had squadoosh, but I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I’d remember.
Comment by Gene Callahan —
May 5, 2006 @ 3:48 pm
”And we haven’t got a lot of goodies to offer.”
This is why limited government is not a stable possibility. Sandy Ikeda’s book Dynamics of the Mixed Economy, describes the dynamic at work quite clearly.
Once you accept the validity of using aggression to achieve the goals you want (e.g., equipping the military), the game is over.
Comment by Neel Krishnaswami —
May 5, 2006 @ 4:52 pm
Incidentally, I should note that obviously, the modern day offers us a more free economy than (say) 150 years ago, so libertarian declinism is false to fact. I wonder if it’s an attractive trope because small-government types don’t really want to mess around with government.
Comment by fritz —
May 5, 2006 @ 4:56 pm
â€And we haven’t got a lot of goodies to offer.â€
Well, not everyone is like me, but I’d vote for any group came out in favor of vice. Everyone has one or more vices, but the political climate is pretty stacked toward uptight moralism.
There’s a common fallacy that one’s own attributes are representative of those of the population at large, and maybe I’m falling prey to that, but I think I’m not alone in being drawn to politicos who offer hope of stemming the moralism.
In the heady, early campaign days before the inevitable disillusionment, Arnold Schwarzennegger and George Bush both held a certain appeal for a young man who might like to smoke the wrong thing, due to a perception that they were not unsympathetic on that point.
So, you want to pick up a limited-government constituency? Fight for my right to party!
Trackback by Right Mind —
May 21, 2006 @ 8:35 pm
Handing out Goodies
Jim Henley offers the following reasons why libertarians have had so little political success: …