In comments in a thread below, recently added Blogger blogger Goat, from Goat's Barnyard, challenges me to "think" and "use logic" not adhere to "failed philosophies." He also manages to call me a "slavery supporter", and that particular logical leap I simply fail to see - because I support progressive taxation on the rather banal basis that those who make more money can afford to pay more, and that such taxation includes funding for transfer payments (SSI, Food Stamps, WIC, AIDC, and may other direct payments to individuals) I apparently also support "legal theft". I suppose, because Goat has thrown down the gauntlet, as it were, I should explain, clearly and simply, why I hold the political views I do. I promise this will be as short as possible, because there are other, far more interesting things out there than the source of my political views.
First, I tend to view governments not as discrete entities, but as participants in history. Political philosophy, even at its best - Locke, Rousseau, Montesqueu - attempts to be descriptive rather than proscriptive. Until, that is, the mid-19th century. With the rise of industrial capitalism, the destruction it caused to the traditional social contract and social fabric (a good examination is given by religious historian Richard Rubenstien in The Age of Triage in which he examines the effects of English enclosure laws, and the creation, for the first time, of "citizens" and "individuals" - and at the same time, the creation of "surplus populations" - not members of a larger society with traditional rules), and the havoc wreaked by Napoleon upon Europe and the rise of German national identity we have two developments with which we are still living, although their moment has past, for the most part. First, taken in reverse order, was the development of a political philosophy by Hegel, and then the application of Hegel's method, if not his conclusions, by his erstwhile student, Karl Marx. For the first time since the Renaissance, serious thinkers were thinking about the state in prescriptive terms (although I doubt Marx would agree with that description, as he insisted that he was merely describing the effect of certain historical forces upon the state and society). Since then, a whole host of social and political and economic upheavals have brought us syndicalism, anarchism, trade unionism, democratic socialism, fascism, Naziism, Stalinism, democratic socialism, neo-liberal economic capitalism, and American reactionary conservatism. Each has attempted, first, to construct some kind of theoretical basis for why it does, or would do, what it does, or would do, before it actually begins ruling (with the exception of Stalinism, which was essentially an old-style autocratic regime with better organizational tools and more guns, and given a patina of philosophical verbiage thanks to Stalin's time in a seminary in Georgia; his approach was as didactic as a cathechism).
This is ludicrous. One does not invent a theory of the state and then seek to apply it. States already exist, with all sorts of political and social and civil infrastructure, and the task of any ruling elite is to use these tools to maintain the viability of that state. It's really that simple. FDR is often scorned by the right as an ideologue, but FDR was the exact opposite of an ideologue, and indeed is the model from which I derive much of my thought. His idea of attacking the Depression through "bold, persistent experimentation" is the best way to describe what I think is a good way to govern. You try something, using existing legal and political, social and civil institutions, and if it fails, you try something else. As Roosevelt said at an early cabinet meeting, as reports of the ravages of the Depression piled up on his desk, "For God's sake, do something."
In other words, the best rulers are those who can improvise well. As any musician worth his salt knows, however, improvisation at its best works within an agreed chord and modal framework, and follows the melody, or enhances the melody, or acts as a counterpoint to bring out the melody, rather than simply playing any note one wants to play. The latter is practicing. The former is called jazz, and is art.
I am not doctrinaire in my political views - I like what works. My problem with much of conservatism, and the past six years have proven this quite clearly, is that, as a governing philosophy for a nation-state as large and diverse and variegated as ours, doesn't work. It doesn't work not because too many people have become dependent upon government; it doesn't work because (a) it fails to account for all sorts of institutional changes that make many of its underlying assumption not just wrong but irrelevant; and (b) when put in to practice, as it has been for the past six years, it fails abysmally. Actual failure is usually a good test of the effectiveness of any theory, and no amount of tweaking reality, no amount of time given for some idiotic plan to work, no amount of ignoring certain uncomfortable facts can change the unutterable failure of conservative ideology. For Republicans to charge that conservatives and conservative ideas haven't failed, but were never given a chance during the past six years is ludicrous. We have had nothing but conservative ideas and principles and legislation since January 20, 2001, and look where we are. Our Constitution is in tatters, our economy is moribund (at best) and near to sliding down a narrow slope to recession, we are mired in a war/occupation shoved upon us through duplicity and questionable legality, and otherwise intelligent thoughtful persons such as yourself (anyone who can admire Goldfinch's is OK in my book, and yes, I am still your friend, even with our differences) can call an evil person like Ann Coulter "brilliant", and Hugh Hewitt "the master of the interview".
The state shoulders all sorts of obligations fulfilling its function of self-preservation, including taxation (who likes to pay taxes?), defense, what has been called in historical and political science circles "the police powers" (the state maintains a monopoly on force to maintain civic order), and the construction and maintenance of both they physical and social and civil infrastructure of the state. One of the most dismally awful failures of conservatism, based upon the ludicrous Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom (actually, Goat, I minored in economics in college and managed an "A" in every class I took, including a paper in which I tore Freidman apart), is the privatization of public services. From security at embassies around the world, long the purview of the Marine Corps, to health care at Walter Reed (more about this later) to simple municipal services like garbage collection, privatization has been an abject failure, costing us more money, and operating less efficiently and with less direct control than any publicly run entity could possibly provide. The idea that the commonweal (what is known, again in poli-sci circles, as the "commons", based upon old British traditions of communal property used by all for grazing their sheep) should be managed by a profit-driven corporation, with only minimal oversight by its actual owners (the people represented in Congress) is an abject failure, no matter how one looks at it.
As an undergraduate, I attended a faculty debate over the management of certain social institutions. One of the faculty members was an engineer, who prattled on and on, saying over and over "if we can predict and control all variables, when we can manage the outcome of every endeavor". Essentially, that was his argument. I asked a simple question: "How is it possible to predict, in advance, every variable, or control what by definition is unknowable beforehand?" His nonanswer was to repeat his original formula.
More than any class I took, any book I have ever read, that one little exchange proved decisive to me; I no longer looked to "philosophies" but to the way states actually have worked in the past, and work now in their governance; I no longer thought it important to make sacrifices in the short-term, sacrifices that meant real people got hurt, or even died, for some imagined future that was all rosy and warm and cuddly. It also meant that, like all of us, I support things that I don't always enjoy - like the occasional higher tax (as old as society; calling it "legal theft" and "confiscatory" is rhetorical sleight-of-hand; our taxes were much higher and much more "confiscatory" at a time when the US enjoyed unprecedented economic growth and general prosperity) - but deem necessary for the greater good. The reason I do so is simple - I am not an isolated individual, whole and complete unto myself, but a small part existing for a brief blip of time of an ongoing project called the United States of America, and sacrifices on my part are necessary for its continuation as an entity. You see, for all my complaints about much of our current government and its idiotic policies and its ridiculous propaganda, I happen to love living in the US. I am with Churchill; our form of government is the worst there is - it is inefficient, costly, rancorous, and occasional delusional - until one considers the alternatives.
Virtual Tin Cup
