WASHINGTON — There is a vexed brouhaha going on between two of
my favorite conservatives, Rush Limbaugh and Senator Tom Coburn
of the great state of Oklahoma. It has been caused by a
mischief-maker by the name of Jeff Greenfield, now working
apparently for CBS TV. Greenfield began his TV career as a
mischief-maker on the late William F. Buckley’s “Firing Line” and
continued it on CNN. Now he interviews personages for CBS, but he
has not lost his knack for creating a row…or simple confusion.
Shortly after President Barack H. Obama took the oath of office,
Greenfield was interviewing Senator Coburn, whom he stopped in
his tracks after the senator genially offered that he wished the
new President well and hoped he would “succeed.” Greenfield
notified the senator that Limbaugh, “probably the most prominent
conservative commentator in America,” did not wish Senator Obama
success. Greenfield quoted Limbaugh as saying, “I know what he
[President Obama] wants to do and I don’t want him to succeed.”
That sounds like Rush has gone into kamikaze mode. It sounds
downright unpatriotic. Yet it misrepresents what Rush was talking
about, and later on his radio show Rush explained his point.
All depends on what President Obama “wants to do,” and Rush
believes he wants to socialize the economy — the banks,
healthcare, the auto industry, the works. Rush believes that
state control of commerce is, well, the road to serfdom, as
Friedrich von Hayek put it six decades ago. Since Hayek’s time we
have had ample evidence to meditate on the performance of
socialism, and such renowned socialist states as India (the soft
form of socialism) and China (the rough form of socialism) have
discarded it. Both have fashioned their economies around market
capitalism and flourished in a way that would have been
unthinkable a generation ago.
Capitalism brings prosperity. Since the Reagan Revolution,
America has enjoyed a quarter of a century of almost unbroken
economic growth. There were two brief and shallow recessions, but
in modern history there has never been such a period of
prosperity. Now we are in a recession and it appears it will be
neither short nor shallow. That is why I have been drawing
attention to the original cause of this recession, namely
government. It was government, specifically the Clinton
Administration, that goaded two government instrumentalities,
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to traffic in subprime mortgages, and
traffic wantonly. The junk mortgages were sold all over the
world, often to government-regulated institutions. I stand with
the newly elected President in admiring government regulation, at
least some government regulation. But this economic mess proves
that government regulation is not foolproof. The regulators were
human and humans fall prey to error, as they did in regulating
American banks in the 1990s and more recently.
So once again Rush is right. Socialism is a menace to freedom and
to prosperity. If President Obama nationalizes as extensively as
some of his supporters are advocating, I too will be against him.
Fortifying the banking system and buying up troubled assets is
wise, and, as was seen in the late 1980s rescue of the troubled
savings and loan institutions, is effective. The President’s
proposed giant stimulus program is another matter. We have tried
such programs in the past. They are ineffective, breed
corruption, and leave in their wake inflation.
Yet for my part I am willing to give the new President the
benefit of the doubt. In his fine and workmanlike speech he spoke
out for markets, saying their capacity “to generate wealth and
expand freedom is unmatched.” There was a day not so long ago
when liberals denied markets even existed. The gat advocate of
the mixed economy John Kenneth Galbraith, who late in life
identified himself as a socialist, jeered at the very idea of a
market, joking that he could not see it, he could not touch it.
Well, most educated people now recognize the existence of markets
and their indispensability to economic prosperity. I say let us
give the new President an opportunity to show us what he knows
about markets.
