The Road to Catastrophe

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By Ernest Partridge (about the author) Page 1 of 3 page(s)

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The economy of the United States, and by extension of the world, has arrived at the present crisis after traveling along a road marked with an abundance of warning signs. At this moment in time, it is rather easy to recognize the folly that caused the present emergency. "Hindsight," as they say, "is 20/20." However, in this case foresight was not blind. A decade ago, an intelligent and unbiased observer could readily realize that ongoing trends were unsustainable and thus could forecast that sooner or later the ongoing economic circus would lead to disaster. "Hubert Stein's Law" predicted the outcome: "That which can not go on forever, won't."

The American public has been led along this road to ruin by a set of dogmas that are unsupported by the historical record, by empirical evidence, and by practical experience. Nevertheless, these dogmas have been promoted by publications, by "think tanks," and by a media, that have been lavishly funded by enormously wealthy private individuals and corporations. And over the past forty years, following the resounding defeat of Barry Goldwater's conservatism in 1964, these promoters have accomplished through repetition and propaganda what they could not accomplish through reason and evidence: the support of a sizeable portion of the American public, the media, the courts, the Congress, and the Executive Branch of the U.S. government.

Below is an enumeration of three of these dogmas, which are generally labeled as "conservative." I prefer to call them "regressive," since they repudiate much of the economic and political wisdom acquired in the past century, and embrace, instead, doctrines once believed to have been decisively refuted by that wisdom.

Following that enumeration, I will list a few policy guidelines that might lead us out of the crisis into which these dogmas have brought us.

Because I will examine a broad field of inquiry in a brief space, many of my assertions might be properly criticized as oversimplified, unsupported, and, dare I admit it, "dogmatic." Fortunately, I have presented and argued these points at greater length in numerous Crisis Papers essays and in my book in progress, Conscience of a Progressive, which can be found online here. I will provide links to these sources in the following text. (For a start, here is a list of twelve contrasting "elements" of the ideologies of the regressive right and of the liberal left).

Social Atomism

The concepts of "society" and "the public" have a diminutive place in regressive ideology In fact, in the minds of many regressive libertarians, these concepts are mere myths. For example, Margaret Thatcher proclaimed, "There is no such thing as society there are individuals and there are families." And Ayn Rand: "There is no such entity as 'the public' ... the public is merely a number of individuals."

If "there is no such thing as society" or "the public," it follows that there is no such thing as "public goods" and "the public interest," apart from summation of private goods and interests. Accordingly, there are no "victims of society." The poor choose their condition; poverty is the result of "laziness" or, as the religious right would put it, a "sin."

The regressive is convinced that if each individual confines one's concern to the pursuit of one's private interests and the achievement of one's personal goals, the optimum satisfaction of all will be accomplished, "as if by an invisible hand." (Adam Smith). That which is good for each, is good for all.

Accordingly, the functions of government should be confined to the protection of individual "natural rights" to life, liberty, and property. Otherwise, the regressive insists, "you are on your own." Private initiative and private property will always produce superior results to public institutions.

The liberal, on the other hand, insists that "society" and "the public" are more than the sum of their individual, personal, components. As John Rawls puts it, a society is: "a cooperative venture for mutual advantage [which] makes possible a better life for all than any would have if each were to live solely by his own efforts." (A Theory of Justice, p. 4). Thus there are "public goods" and "social values." In numerous easily identifiable cases, individual self-serving behavior results in social harm, and conversely, individual sacrifice is required to accomplish public goods. In brief, that which is good for each may be bad for all, and that which is bad for each may be good for all.

Market Absolutism

Regressives are convinced that "the wisdom of free markets" will always produce superior results than would government initiatives. As David Boaz writes:

"[T]he free market allows more people to satisfy more of their desires, and ultimately to enjoy a higher standard of living than any other social system... We need simply to remember to let the market process work in its apparent magic and not let the government clumsily intervene in it so deeply that it grinds to a halt." (Libertarianism, a Primer, p. 40, 185.)

And Milton and Rose Friedman:

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http://www.crisispapers.org

Dr. Ernest Partridge is a consultant, writer and lecturer in the field of Environmental Ethics and Public Policy. Partridge has taught philosophy at the University of California, and in Utah, Colorado and Wisconsin. He publishes the website, (more...)

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