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Feature
Is Liberalism Dead?
No, not yet, not so long as it has the run of government and the programs it created to keep itself in power.
(Page 2 of 2)
“Public sector liberalism” represents the logical terminus for a movement that began in an effort to redraw the boundaries of government action in order to bring industrial capitalism to heel and grew in tandem with the expansion of government.
This evolution has produced an unprecedented conflict between the two major political parties with one rooted in the public sector and the other in the private sector.
In the past, political parties were coalitions of private interests seeking influence over government so as to facilitate their growth and expansion within the private economy. This was true of early party conflicts that pitted commerce versus agriculture, or later ones pitting free labor against slavery or business against organized labor. The conflict today between Democrats and Republicans increasingly puts public sector unions and beneficiaries of public programs against the middle-class taxpayer and business interests large and small. In states where public spending is high and public sector unions are strong, as in California, New York, and Illinois, Democrats have seized control; where the public sector is weak or not politically organized, as is the case across the South and Southwest, Republicans have greater strength. This configuration, when added up across the nation, has produced electoral standoffs between red and blue states that have been decided by a handful of swing states that do not fit readily into either camp.
How this standoff is resolved between popular conservatism and public sector liberalism is a legitimate subject for debate and speculation. It is obvious, however, that liberalism can only prosper if it can continue to build coalitions through public spending, public borrowing, and publicly guaranteed credit. These are the resources that underwrite their institutional advantages. Should those resources dry up, as they are now doing as a consequence of the long recession, liberalism will unwind as a political force as public programs are cut, public employees are let go, and retirement arrangements with public sector unions are renegotiated. In some public sector states, such outcomes now appear inevitable. Conservatives are in a position to hasten this process along by refusing to approve the spending, borrowing, and federal bailouts that will be required to keep public sector liberalism afloat, though at the price of being blamed for the pain and suffering associated with its collapse. But this is undoubtedly a price worth paying to guide the nation through an adjustment that will otherwise take place later and under circumstances far less to anyone’s liking.
About the Author
James Piereson is president of the William E. Simon Foundation and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He is the author of Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism (Encounter Books).
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Ret. Marine| 2.21.11 @ 7:11AM
"But this does not mean that liberalism is "dead", only that it is in the process of once more changing its appearance."
The single most important statement in this entire article and factually correct in all of it entanglement. Today we now have two against one. They now have the islamist/jihadist progressive alliance vrs. the Capitalist/middle class/Constitutionalists battling it out in the form of needs and wants vrs. outcome of one's hard work. Today We the People are in the biggest fight ever for this Nations survival and it is all based upon an "idea". The idea that millions upon millions of us are going to bend over and grab our ankles for this type of entitlement attitude we witness all across the globe, in separate Countries, States, Counties, and Cities is likely to lead to much more turmoil, destruction and deaths. We are witnessing the deliberate dismantling of the social norms, ethics, morals and cohesion that binds us as a people's of this earth, and for what? the idea that somewhere there exists a utopia of all things the same. Boring. We are all individuals, not a collective as many portray this need, it is a want not a need, it is a desired outcome of one fits all slavery model. I'll have no part of it, as I suspect others of the same/sane mind would agree. The day is coming and it will soon be upon us. That day will be the recognition of its either peace and prosperity for all or slavery and servitude. Pick a side and fight hard, may the best idea's win. God, Country and freedom is the best model ever conceived, no reason to doubt it.
Alan Brooks| 2.21.11 @ 7:21PM
What I don't get it why NR promotes Jeb Bush in its issue dated today. NR isn't a little kooky vanity-press rag, is it?
I sense NR is thumbing its collective nose about this.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.21.11 @ 7:19AM
Well spoken, Marine!
MikeD| 2.21.11 @ 8:04AM
It is sometimes instructive to study one's enemies. I use the term "enemy' rather than 'adversary' here intentionally because, in this current struggle, make no mistake; we are thought of as the enemy, and the libs/dems/progressives have proven over and over that they have done, and will continue to do anything to win. If that victory happens to result in the very destruction of our country, well, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
This confrontation is the most cataclysmic struggle in this country since the sixties riots and civil rights activities. The liberals see the serious nature of the situation and are pulling out all the stops to beat back the challenge to their 'goodies' and 'royal perquesites'. These excessive bennies are assumed to be due them; and that attitude pervades their entire being. They care not one iota for the school children; the kids are just convenient pawns to be played as a tool against the 'other side'. "What about the children?" has worked every time it has been played before! But don't be fooled. These people don't give a damn. The next thing to watch will be how they can work in "The race card"; although it will be a sign of absolute desperation in this case.
Governor Walker CANNNOT back down; he is being watched by those in every other state in the Union. This is the Waterloo for the public employee unions, and thusly, for barack obama who has, once again betrayed his narrow view of reality and complete political incompetence by making things worse (for himself AND his supporters) by opening his mouth before reading the teleprompter.
He, of course, cried that those protestors are "their friends and fellow citizens." No, they're not. They are the self described enemy who are in it only for themselves. The dem senators pulled their usual cowardly, childish stunt by sneaking out of town to avoid doing their jobs, once again leaving it to the adults. It happened before; which serves to illustrate their true feelings: Their idea of compromise and negotiation means that you give up and they get their way. We can no longer afford to indulge their childish fantasies; the time is here to pay the piper.
Liberalism will not be dead as long as there is one college professor jamming down their student's throats. It will not be dead until the media tells the truth instead of selective reporting and sheer fabrication. It will not be dead until the democratic party itself says it has had enough and purges the evil ones. And, it will not be dead until some amount of common sense returns to our political and societal arenas. We must be on them like a cheap suit and deny them at every turn. They will never give up, they'll just slither lower in the gutter to avoid detection. No wonder hey have to lie, their truth is deadly dangerous.
martin j smith| 2.21.11 @ 8:22AM
I agree with the idea that Liberalism is not dead only I do not call it Liberalism--it has morphed into Socialist-Marxist-Leninist leadership with the MSM very obviously playing a major role along with Government unions. No it is not a Party or movement that I see as American--rather it is foreign. European,Soviet and yes this love affair with totalitarianism in China,Russia or Iran are no accident. Neither is it an accident that the NYT years ago covered up the holocaust as well as Stalin's mass murders--and others.
This group has tried to cover up who they really are--and perhaps always have been. But now they ar out in the open. What Conservatives must realize is they must be stragtegic,thinking ahead of the game to politically counter this Socialist crowd. Deal making may be right or it may be dead wrong and one has to choose very prudently
in the end voters will choose who they feel is best for them. So to counter the Socialists Conservatives must: Act responsibly, illuminate the Socialist agenda and its effects on the pocket book of voters and offer a better plan--
while behaving reasonably within limits to the other side. Conservatives behaving in a totally hostile manner might fail unless they can show they have good reason. In the case of Obama and his fellows, there is good reason , but still do so carefully.
Bob K.| 2.21.11 @ 8:24AM
"But we must recognize a more fundamental phenomenon. This is the waning of liberal and parliamentary democracy. Here we face two, perhaps superficially contradictory, developments. One is that liberalism has, after all, triumphed: it's self-imposed tasks are done. The other is the overall waning of its appeal, of the appeal it once may have had.
If "liberalism" means the extension of all kinds of liberties to all kinds of individuals, mostly as a consequence of the abolition of restrictions on all kinds of people, these have now been institutionalized and accomplished in formerly unexpected and even astonishing varieties of ways. (And with not a few fateful and, yes, deplorable consequences, such a laws approving abortions, mercy killing, cloning, sexual "freedoms," permissiveness, pornography.......a list almost endless.) ..........................
Many of these deplorable consequences were and are, again, results of the liberal emphasis on justice--if need be, at the expense of truth."
This quote is from:
"DEMOCRACY AND POPULISM Fear and Hatred" pp. 217-218 Professor John Lukacs, Author. Published 2006.
Bob K.| 2.21.11 @ 9:33AM
Note the last sentence in the above quotation!
USSAlabama| 2.21.11 @ 1:25PM
""Many of these deplorable consequences were and are, again, results of the liberal emphasis on justice--if need be, at the expense of truth.""
Justice.
Social justice, economic justice, and *always* at the expense of truth.
al| 2.21.11 @ 8:40AM
piereson, one tyrrell, zero.
Bob K.| 2.21.11 @ 9:30AM
It is a tie.
Liberalism is in it's declining years. (moments?) It's effects linger on and will cause damage for years, if not decades, to come.
Scott| 2.21.11 @ 8:54AM
I think M. Steyn (as always) points out something very important these days--the incredible rapidity, efficiency, and control of technology in imposing regulation and extracting money from private citizens. One can't move to a state like Idaho anymore and expect limited regulation, etc., to last very long. This brings up the debate of whether a general apathy or a growing frustration with such faceless instruments and methods will prevail.
Curly Smith| 2.21.11 @ 8:58AM
Before the Industrial Revolution we were, as was the world, largely a nation of farmers. The Constitution gave us freedom but the technology limited how much impact we could have. With the Industrial Revolution came liberalism, fostered by academics, politicians and "experts"... but to what end? The academics, politicians and experts all represented "old money". Before the Industrial Revolution they were largely in control of our Manifest Destiny through positions of power and influence but technology unstoppered the bottle and allowed the Archie Bunkers to sidestep the power brokers. Liberalism was always about controlling the masses, about stifling freedoms and limiting opportunity "in the interests of the children" while, oddly, filling the pockets of politicians, academics and experts.
Both technology and freedom are force multipliers, both allow a single individual to accomplish astonishing feats. Without the Constitution we'd have been Mexico. If liberalism had been more effective early we'd have been Mexico. If the GOP doesn't grow a lasting spine we've still got a chance of becoming Mexico
Bob K.| 2.21.11 @ 12:52PM
Curley,
Consider these thoughts from John Lukcas's Historical Essay: "DEMOCRACY AND POPULISM Fear and Hatred," published 2005; at pages 223-224 from the chapter titled: "Triumph and disappearance of 'liberalism'."
"I have argued throughout this book that the old categories of "conservative" and "liberal" have become almost entirely outdated. "Right" and "Left": not quite so. But one tendency is evident. The "Left" has been losing its appeal, almost everywhere. It may be in the future the true divisions will not be between Right and Left but between two kinds of Right; between people on the Right whose binding belief is their contempt for Leftists, who hate liberals more than they love liberty, and others who love liberty more than they fear liberals; between nationalists and patriots; between those who believe that America's destiny is to rule the world and others who do not believe that; between those who trust technology and machines and others who trust tradition and old human decencies; between those who support "development" and those who wish to protect the conservation of land--in sum between those who do not question progress and others who do."
He cites Lord Salisbury: "Free institutions, carried beyond the point which the culture of a nation justifies, cease to produce freedom. There is the freedom that makes every man free: and there is the freedom, so called, which makes every man a slave to the majority." p.225.
Bob K.| 2.21.11 @ 12:56PM
Pardon me, but the Professor's last name is spelled Lukacs. (not Lukcas)
Wayne | 2.21.11 @ 9:06AM
I think we can not ignore the globalistic goals, and the Will to Power. Both have been scaring the bejeabers out of us conservatives for over 2 years. Worse some Republicans have engaged in their own globalistic goals. We had the neo-cons, and now we have the Obamites. Both use the resources of the United States for global ends, and this is what has been destroying the US economy.
In s way, that has ben a good thing, because the Obamites are now constrained by economic realities, and we get to slow them down. But we know that they will use force in the end to get their way. Hence this is a dangerous time. That is why we must support those of us on the front lines: The Palins, the Malkins, the Walkers, for they are slowing that Progressive train (no doubt Obama knows the symbolism of High Speed Rail).
But we are now firmly in the Information Age, and we can now discover the truths for ourselves. And in the end, it is that which brings down the tyranny. It can not function in the day light. The enduring image of the White House with Obama will always be the Christmas eve deals in the dark of night away from cameras and Republicans. That is also a symbol. He couldn't have done better wearing fangs.
It is not that Liberalism is Dead, but rather that Liberalism is for the Dead.
beejay| 2.23.11 @ 1:59PM
Love the description of O :wearing fangs"!!!
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.21.11 @ 12:24PM
Mr. Peireson,
Splendid article.
Guys above,
Thank youse (smile)
My contribution is simply: "Liberalism is in fact dead...........but communism, (pardon the shorthand), is NOT!"
Mohamedism is NOT!
Gird your loins for battle my friends. This is going to get nasty.
Mike D.| 2.21.11 @ 4:06PM
Totally agree here. Leftism has in fact achieved its greatest triumph, elected a true marxist destroyer as the President of the United States.
IMHO, I don't see any other recourse other than total defeat of these "college communists" that parade themselves as intellectual elitists now populating our government. I abhore the term "liberal". Collectivism and redistribution of wealth and those that practice it are marxists and wield its principals as control of the masses and nothing less. Marxism is the mental masturbation of academics and the sword of death of tyrants. Communism is evil and tens of millions have died because of it. Now we have to deal with it here, in our own country, the last refuge from this sickness on humanity in the world. Its going to get dicey friends.
John Navratil| 2.21.11 @ 5:17PM
Ken,
Can you believe that in our beloved Texas, 25 people can petition our state government and create a special taxing district that it will 75% of those in the district to dissolve. It's happening HERE. The liberals have make it trivially easy to create a bureaucracy and almost impossible to remove it. No real surprise there, but in this case the bureaucrats are answerable to absolutely no one and do not stand for election.
Look to stopdistrict11.org for more info. Read and weep.
Ed| 2.21.11 @ 12:53PM
I think there is a more fundamental reason Liberalism will not die. As long as liberals can appeal to the worst of human nature.. envy and greed for what others have... and cloak it in the highest of human ideals... altruism and compassion... liberalism will live on.
Kurt in S.L.C.| 2.21.11 @ 8:25PM
Ed,you are spot on,but you could have added that it not just envy and greed that motivates the Left,It's outright hatred of the success of those who have achieved it outside of the elitist nexus of academia,non-profits,unions,etc. That couldn't have been made clearer than when Bob Schieffer of CBS asked Obama if he didn't know that higher tax rates led to lower revenue for the government and Obama replied he didn't care,it was a matter of "fairness".These people are not merely stupid,they are evil.
simon templar| 2.21.11 @ 1:37PM
Liberalism is not dead... its just more virulent and it has been able to show its true colors as it has reducated a large segment of the public to accept what was not normal or accepted. The author writes, " new aims of liberalism -- environmentalism, feminism, homosexual marriage, high taxes, and income redistribution are not new aims at all but all are directly out of Karl Marx and his contemporary's writings. We are the ones who have changed as we have become desenzititized and accepting of these ideas as legitimate political ideas and have forgotten that they were the essential components of Socialism from the very start.
Oldefarte| 2.21.11 @ 2:00PM
Great article James, and equally great comments ALL [AND THANK YOU]! Liberalism in my life experience has represented GVERNMENTAL CONTROL. As stated, our 18th century Constitution installed governmental restraints, and liberalism is an an adverse reaction to same. Liberals have increased the influencial power of government, and enabled it with increasing taxiation to fund same. Whereas conservatism represents individualism and the economic empowerment of same, liberalism attempts to shelter those left behind by conservatism through the power of government. As liberalism [or statism, totalitarism, communism, etc] increases in political influence, the individual liberties of citizens diminishes. Liberalism's increasing influence throughout the 1950-60's was eventually hindered by the increasing conservatism of the 1980's-90's, which would have continued if not for these recent Middle East/Gulf wars. This country's reaction to 9/11/01 was correct and warranted, but our mistake was in becoming bogged down in an unwinable, continuing land war against a hidden/masqueraded enemy [just as with the Viet Nam War]. The previous administration was warned by an astute military head that a prolonged Gulf war would result in a IF YOU DROP/BREAK IT, YOU OWN IT situation. Citizen-voters were simply fed up/disgusted with the [politically enumerated by liberals] the military death tolls reported, and over-reacted by ignoring intellectual common sense and voting into the Presidency someone of highly questionable loyalties [and professional experiences]. As is said, THE REST IS HISTORY. Have conservatives, moderates and anyone wih an ounce of brain-cell matter finally WOKEN UP? We'll see, come November of 2012!!!!!!!!!
davelnaf| 2.21.11 @ 3:02PM
Very good article. The author is right in saying that liberalism will fight tooth and nail from its current redoubts within government to preserve itself. Its dilemma is that it always had to be seen ramping up entitlement spending in order to make itself appear relevant. This could not go on forever. With the private sector now unwilling and probably unable to bail Liberalism out it is faced with a relevancy crisis that has no solution. Liberalism will survive in some form or other because it will be hard to pry liberals from their redoubts. But their days of fighting for ever higher entitlement spending are about over. Mr. Tyrrell's argument that Liberalism is about to die a political dead, rather than be completely expunged, is the more meaningful argument.
David| 2.21.11 @ 5:27PM
Liberalism is not dead and will probably never be as long as most of us are educated in public schools and the ruling class media continue to have the influence they do.
Liberals GIVE things to people. Conservatives are always painted as TAKING back from people what Liberals have GIVEN them. Conservatives simply can't win that battle with public school educated citizens and a media vehemently opposed to everything conservatism is.
Want proof? Watch what happens, even in this current climate that favors conservatism, when we start saying that insurance companies WILL be able to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, or that the insurance companies will NOT be required to insure 24 year olds on their parents' insurance plans.
As I've said many timse before, as long as we have in place legalized theft by our fed government in the form of the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit), not much will change other than tinkering around the edges. I wonder how many people still DO NOT know what the EITC is?
It is flat out theft from those who actually pay fed income taxes and given to those who pay ZERO fed income taxes (now 40+% of workers). It is not a targeted gift for specific necessities such as food stamps, housing assistance, medicaid, etc. It is a cash gift (in the thousands) every single year, to a family who pays no fed income taxes, to buy whatever it is that they choose to buy with the cash government has stolen from actual taxpayers. Televisions, stereos, another car, drugs, booze, prostitutes, cigarettes, etc. All life's necessities - right?
If we can't stop the EITC, then there is no hope we will ever make a significant dent in any other program. Liberalism ALWAYS marches on - ALWAYS. Even welfare reform the repubs forced Clinton to sign is now moot thanks to Bam Bam. Bam Bam got away with sending poor inner city kids back to shitty schools right after he took office by defunding the charter school vouchers that so many poor BLACKs depended upon. The program was a great succes for those kids and their families, and Bam Bam and the dems/libs got away with crushing a couple of thousand poor kids. How? The media and spineless repubs for not harping on what he did day after day after day. You know, like the dems do. We all know repubs are dumb because Dan Quayle misspelled potato 20+ years ago. But hey, Bam Bam can visit all 57 states with 2 more to go and no one remembers that or any of his other moronic statements.
It makes me sick when repubs hold the libs to only 10% of what they wanted on any issue, and then celebrate as if they had WON a victory for conservatism. They are idiots and morons - they don't realize they just LOST another 10% to the libs. They didn't and almost always don't WIN anything from the libs. And on and on it goes, and I suspect it will always be so.
Michael L. Hauschild| 2.21.11 @ 7:49PM
Great thread, all the heavyweights. The jarhead won by the way.
Vita Men| 2.21.11 @ 8:43PM
----About as dead as our CON-serving,
Rockefeller front op, Globalist 'CON-servatism'.
BTW ---check out who's relocating out of the
country!
David Rockefeller sets up in RED China,
joining Maurice Strong, Jim Rogers and,
so we hear, Kissinger ----while the Bushes
are off to Paraguay where they're buying
HUGE swaths of land over the world's
largest aquifers of clean water --even as
our own clean water is being MASSIVELY
exported to RED China.
Clean water is going to be the new oil as
Globalists have effectively contaminated
what we're drinking worldwide with fouride,
lythium, prozak and a host of other toxins
and chemicals.
SO-----KEEP watchin' that Super Bowl kiddies!
----EVERYTHING'S JUST DANDY!
Jeff| 2.21.11 @ 11:51PM
Liberalism is not dead and will not ever die unless and until we conservatives quit making process arguments against it and start making root arguments against liberalism.
Process argument: There is not enough money to make liberalism work.
Liberal answer: That is because the right people have not been doing it. "We are the ones we have been waiting for."
Root argument: Liberalism can never work because it is based upon the FALSE premise that the fundamental nature of man can be changed.
Liberal retort: You are mean spirited.
That is how liberalism will finally be defeated. By fundamental root arguments. For these they have no cogent answer.
Marc Jeric| 2.22.11 @ 4:08AM
I found much to like in both of these articles about the "liberalism" being in the state of dying or close to it. However, it is not the liberals we should fear - it is now professional marxists and communists in power, and these do not like to lose power. There will be another bloody revolution in this country before long - with the most probable outcome in favor of a terminal communist victory.
JohnR22| 2.25.11 @ 9:02AM
I would say Liberalism is not dead for the same reason that religion is not dead. Although both of these ideologies have been pretty much proven to be false, we will always have them with us because they're based not on reason but on fear and emotion.
It's time we admitted that Liberalism is more of a religion (secular of course) than a political ideology. I'm talking about today's Liberalism of course; which bears NO resemblance at all to the classic Liberalism of FDR and JFK.
Liberalism promises utopia. It promises "free stuff" that eeevil people (the rich) will fund for the righteous (the so-called working man). It also promises a world free from racism, war, and poverty. A world where the Liberal forces for "good" will hold the evil conservatives at bay. It promises the world...in exchange for your vote and your taxes. Of course, it never delivers on any of this, but that's OK because it's easy to blame the evil conspiracy of the Right.
steamboat| 2.25.11 @ 2:50PM
Liberalism may not be dead, but it is WRONG !
Loaiine| 2.25.11 @ 3:50PM
This is a very biased and untrue article.
Alex Scipio | 2.25.11 @ 7:35PM
Of course Liberalism is not dead. Liberalism - CLASSICAL Liberalism - supports the individual AGAINST the State. Classical Liberalism is about individual liberty and freedom - and about ensuring that they are not sacrificed to an ever-enlarging/engorging State.
Today, of course, Classical Liberalism correctly is called "Conservatism" as that is where the defenders of the Western Liberal Tradition, of individual liberty, of personal freedom are to be found. (Except, of course, for the Far Right SoCons, the Progs of the Right.)
But "Progressivism"? The second-most tyrannical and authoritarian force on the planet (behind only Sharia law in Islam), that ideology that fails in every time, geography, nation and culture in which it has been tried, that takes with it lives, hopes, dreams, communities, cities as it inevitably - and always (there are no historical exceptions) FAILS, that worldview pretending (for it is only pretense) that it remains committed to "Liberalism"?
THAT is dead. Look at WI. They can't even show up and debate their ideology against adults, so, like children, they run away.
Dracovert| 2.26.11 @ 2:58AM
"Liberal" has become a catch-all term for whatever. The classical liberalism of Hume, Locke, and Jefferson was intended to make citizens free from untoward influences of popes and potentates, and presented a coherent, unified political philosophy, benign as long as the citizen were not screwed with. We have strayed so far from this really rather simple concept that it is scarcely recognizable at this point. Pierson postulates five stages of development of "liberalism". The first stage is progressivism, an erosion of classical liberalism, and each subsequent stage becomes fractionally less similar to the liberalism of Jefferson. The serial social and economic shifts between subsequent stages have resulted in a quite unrecognizable system divorced from its liberal roots. So why do we continue to call it liberalism? More specifically, why do we allow the left to claim the most noble, transformative, and prosperous political system ever devised?
The development of each subsequent stage has been predicated on perceived inadequacies in the previous stage, often requiring legally-mandated changes in human nature, such as the eugenics movement of progressivism. These changes certainly include the mass of self-serving laws and regulations designed to control social and economic behavior among the proles, but not among the elites. In the later stages, anti-communist stalwarts such a JFK, Hubert Humphrey, and Scoop Jackson have been replaced within one lifetime by open and closeted Marxists. We have come that far from the original concept of liberalism.
Liberalism is certainly not dead, but what is misnamed as liberalism is being revealed as a fraud, and the fraud definitely includes the theft of the honored name of liberalism. We could start by properly labeling the current system led by the Democratic Party as Marxist, which it most closely resembles. It certainly does not resemble Jeffersonian liberalism. If many Democrats are "useful idiots" in the Marxist cause, that does not negate the need to put a proper descriptive label on the current Democratic Party. At any rate, Marxist useful idiots are the first executed when a Marxist state gains power.
Nor did Jeffersonian liberalism "morph" into Marxist inefficiency and corruption. Pierson's "cultural liberalism" is indistinguishable from Antonio Gramsci's "Cultural Communism", which was actively promoted by dotty Marxist professors to their draft-dodging students in the 1960s. Gramsci was an Italian socialist in the 1920s who became an associate of Stalin. Gramsci realized that classical Marxism did not work (the workers hated it), and proposed a system wherein elites captured cultural institutions (academia, media, political parties, churches, legal organizations, etc.) in behalf of workers. The workers obviously still hate it but that has not deterred the Marxists whom are on a mission from God secure in Marxist "inevitability".
"Market capitalism" was not well apprehended nor appreciated in Jefferson's more agrarian liberal philosophy, but that is not sufficient excuse to adopt inefficient, corrupt Marxism as a replacement for classical liberalism. Pierson's use of the term "business cycle" fails to note that every single major downturn of the 'business cycle" since WWII was the direct result of Democratic Party interference or neglect in free markets: LBJ's War on Poverty, Clinton's Dot.com Bubble, the Democrats' Unaffordable Housing crisis. Reagan's free market policies created a world-class recovery from LBJ's folly; we might even have been able to make Social Security work if we wanted to should Reagan's policies have been continued, but that possibility is long gone. Bush's orchestrated recovery from the Bubba Bubble did the same, albeit for a shorter period; the Democrats' Unaffordable Housing Project, originated in the Carter and Clinton Administrations, truncated a very positive recovery from the Bubba Recession.
But Pierson's projection "of an extended period of stagnation" in the current crisis is exactly right. The Democrats' Unaffordable Housing Project was huge, but a full order of magnitude less than the 2008 worldwide markets meltdown (~$40 trillion) that was triggered by the Housing Bubble.
Something else was a work in 2008. Obama, a closet Marxist, was the prime factor in the 2008 markets meltdown.
Investors are a savvy lot if they are any good at all, and Obama had sufficient radical, Marxist, and criminal associates (and apparently not any conventionally-minded associates at all) to make investors wary; what savvy investor would leave his assets at risk with an inefficient and corrupt Marxist in the presidency? The closer Obama came to the nomination and to the presidency, the more the markets dropped in fear of Marxism.
Now many economists seem mystified that the economy does not improve as it did in response to the Reagan and Bush tax cuts. They are not yet smart enough to realize that free-market tax-cuts create investment, growth, and jobs while Marxist tax increases, profligacy, and waste destroy investment, growth, and jobs.
Is that too complicated?
Reebok | 8.11.11 @ 3:06AM
is good