Modern Socialism

Politicians are once again concerned about “socialism” almost as much as they were about “communism” in days of yore. They predict bread lines in New York, no houses for anyone, and dust and empty shelves for all. Just as in the USSR, China under Mao, North Korea now. That economic vision (whatever it is) has been proved by history to fail .

Yet today, there are elements of socialism everywhere, as there are elements of capitalistic free enterprise almost everywhere. There are few bread lines, and few any worse than in the “food pantries” set up for the (more fortunate) indigent in the United States .

The fact is that none of these systems is as it once was. Socialism, communism, capitalism are all far different in current practice than their conceptions of 100 years ago. The ongoing industrial and information revolutions have changed economics mightily. A world of (at least temporary) abundance based on possible ecologic disaster fails to fit any of the classic patterns.

What is unfortunate is that every thinker with an ax to grind pulls out the old unvarnished philosophies instead of coming up with something new, positive, and relevant. Our current drift may sooner rather than later be disastrous .

Barbarians

The Greeks called those outside their linguistic tribe “barbarians” because their language sounded like “bar bar bar” (or “blah blah blah”) nonsense. The name stuck for anyone not abiding by the “civilized” rules _ implicit and explicit _ of any given society. Being a barbarian is in the eye of the beholder .

“Uncivilized” attitudes and behaviors from those within a tribe are more difficult. For the most part, that comes down to ignoring laws and customs and saving a special treatment (good and bad) for friends and family. Living and possibly ruling by petulant whim .

Obviously not all barbarians arrive from “outside” like Attila the Hun. Internal monsters and their gang are frequent interruptions in “the march of progress” which includes peace and prosperity. More importantly, civilization implies a stable or rising economic framework and basic security for its members.

Once a barbarian clique gains power, it is difficult to dislodge, since it uses all the leverage of the state to maintain position. It seems most such situations are resolved more by internal squabbles and knives than by anybody legally replacing them. And on occasion a violent revolution. Or, of course, outside invaders.

The best hope for those trapped in a culture captured by barbarians is to lie low and hope they quickly eliminate each other .

Blame Game

All revolutionary, authoritarian, mob rule movements eventually come down to blaming someone else for your problems. MAGA voters are no different .

Once it was aristocrats, or Jews. Now it is illegal aliens who are responsible for crime, minorities who keep you from getting a good job, conspiracies which keep prices up, evil elites who burden good people with rules, fiendish Chinese who enable drug addiction. And on and on .

There’s a lot wrong with the world, and enough blame to go around. Now the populists are in power, rampaging like the directorate of 1793. No one and nothing is safe. There MUST be a simple fix to complex problems. SOMEONE is preventing us from using it .

But since the election, none of the cultists seem to ask: is crime down, are prices lower, are jobs better, does the future seem brighter, has anything actually improved in day-to-day individual life? The standard answer for all leaders in such a fix is “we have not gone far enough.” Punish more enemies. Check if they hide among your acquaintances, friends, family. Roll out the guillotines, send professors to the farms! Double down on what we are sure will work, somehow

It’s an old and continuous disease of every civilization that ever existed. We’ve never found a vaccine, cure, or antidote. Just plain human nature, I guess .

Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy is where most citizens interact with any government. Naturally, it is usually hated. The functions may be necessary, but no one loves a tax collector. Including the tax collector .

In the modern world, bureaucracy is the most stable institution of government. “Rulers come and go”, the tax collector remains. Soon it is all wrapped into a hated “deep state”. Since the days of the ancient empires, no matter who gets in charge, a tax collector or other agent will show up. “Meet the new boss …”

Our founding fathers didn’t think much about bureaucracy. There’s nothing about it in the Constitution. Except for national defense (and even most of that) they left it as a local matter to towns and states. They just figured folks would be temporarily hired at need .

It didn’t work. Bureaucracy grew from the beginning. But who was in charge? Just as corporations became “persons”, bureaucracy magically turned into an “executive function.” That’s surely wrong. It really should be fully controlled by the legislature. One of the big – really big – powers of the presidency that is completely unchecked .

And now, after centuries of civil service reform, it appears to be reverting to a “spoils system”. The second leg (politicization of the military is first) of establishing authoritarianism .

Limits

There are two main purposes for any government. One is to provide group security. The second is to maintain social stability. If either fails, government change will occur .

A new book by Phil Gramm claims government should avoid all economic interaction. Like most capitalist visionaries, he certainly does NOT mean that government should not protect property or enforce contracts. Capitalism, after all, requires a certain amount of coercion .

Most of us have come to agree that free enterprise competition, “within limits” is the best economic system. Yet even fervent capitalists agree that monopoly – a natural tendency of successful business – is hardly free enterprise. ONE fruit seller in the market is not the way to better product and lower prices .

But the second purpose of government is what is in question right now. How many limits (“regulations, taxes”) should be placed on capitalistic enterprises to assure security continues? Zoning laws, poverty relief, public spaces, protection of natural resources (air, water) and on and on. It’s not as simple as the narrow-minded ivory tower economists pretend .

Many of us believe that in the modern world of abundance, a certain minimum level of lifestyle should be provided to all adults and a high lifestyle to all children. Not doing so is not only immorally mean, but also a danger to our civilization itself .

Smash and Dream.

Or maybe dream and smash? Angry people often believe that every problem is somebody else’s fault. If they can’t find an avatar scapegoat, they blame immigrants, government, society, or vague cabals. Somebody is obviously making them victims, because they’re not doing as well as mommy and daddy told them they would .

So they dream of a better world, like most of us. But they are certain that vague and evil powers will stop their desires. So first they must smash and destroy everything and rebuild in the rubble for a glorious future .

Oh, sure, lots of people will be hurt and die. Maybe even they will die. But they will be happy martyrs, welcomed into their vision of eternal heaven, admired down the future ages. Happy imaginations .

Usually, they expect that right will prevail. A little because it must be true and right. A lot because its purity will make it a strong survivor. To be honest, most of the greatest smashers also believe they will remain since they are the strongest .

Finally successful. Mommy and daddy must be proud .

And now – all settles down to sweetness and light .

Finally, the right people in charge .

The more things change …

“If you can keep it”

Franklin’s famous phrase is somewhat opposed to the current meme “rule of law.” In some sense, any organized society lives under a kind of rule of law – laws determined by whoever is in charge, even if the “law” is “I can do whatever I want and you must obey me” .

The founders considered a republic to be based on rights grounded in ideas of liberty. Laws which infringed on that liberty were wrong and should be unenforceable.

Those founders did not see much difference between liberty and “rights” owed to any adult white males living in the country. Those folks were supposed to preserve the idea of liberty (even if they treated women, slaves, etc differently.) Fundamental rights included being able to defend oneself, protect property and contracts, and think and say what you wanted. In a libertarian manner – they did not initially see any need to explicitly enumerate a bill of rights – freedom to do anything that doesn’t harm someone else .

All would of course be forever preserved by the innate virtue of the ruling elite. After the founders finished laughing, they constructed a complicated federal system of checks and balances. Alas, over the years, we have deconstructed most of that in the name of “pure democracy” – what the founders called mob rule.

We may be in the final stages of a semblance of a republic. It was, for a while, a nice nearly working dream .

Chairman Trump

Americans are used to hearing about the “rule of law” which sets the ideals of our Republic above other forms of government. But it seems to have been forgotten that “rule of law” does not mean simply obeying whatever momentary capricious rules are enforced by a government in power. In that sense anyone in an organized state – China North Korea Nazi Germany – lived under a “rule of law.”

The idealized American conception, however, implied more than that. It thought that laws were formulated following certain procedures, that most law was stable, that all classes of people were treated the same and – importantly – that historic “rights” were protected .

When any leader – a king, a military dictator, or a popularly elected official – can arbitrarily not enforce certain laws, artificially enhance others, pardon offenders at will, “go after” enemies legally and economically – that is not what we have considered a “rule of law”. Increasingly, that situation seems to be what we have now .

Elite philosophers through the ages have known that the concept of “rule of law” is fragile. It is hard to establish, easy to destroy. As we are now witnessing .

Lean, Mean, Government

It’s been all the rage for a while for organizations to claim they want to be “lean and mean”. Such a desire will apparently yield greater efficiency, keep costs down, lower prices. What could possibly be wrong with that ?

Not long ago, however, people actually prized other things. They ridiculed those who “knew the price of everything and the value of nothing”. Even today the wealthy expect services far beyond a “wham bam thank you ma’am” approach. We have begun to regret the loss to society as civility has been submerged by nastiness .

More than that, whatever the benefits to a private economic organization, such an approach has never worked socially. “Lean and mean” families generally fall apart or produce monsters. Lean and mean social organizations fail miserably .

So it is with government. As rich technocrats take over and seek to “streamline” everything, they fail to realize that the primary goal of government, as in families and social organizations, is not to produce a product at lowest cost, but to provide a service that keeps a culture healthy, whatever the expense.

Like many slogans, “lean and mean” is a shallow fad of limited utility once the shock wears off and the actual results are evaluated. Even most successful organizations learn they must find ways to happily engage as a collaborative tribal unit. But too often, a lot of things are wrecked before that happens. In a government, that is a massive, and perhaps fatal, tragedy .

Almost Right

People like to seize on the clearest and simplest explanations of phenomena. Things fall to earth because they “want to be nearer to it”. The Earth is flat. Those explanations are, actually, almost right. They are good enough for everyday life. They only fail if one is trying to predict something or control it. Malaria was associated, rightly, with bad air and swamps. Which just happened to also be filled with disease carrying mosquitoes. Avoiding the bad air in season almost worked very well. But it was useless for an eventual solution which required either draining or spraying the swamps.

I’m reminded of this with the MAHA fanatics, who once again want clean, simple explanations to complex problems. They point out that “science was wrong” in believing that COVID 19 was spread by infected air particles (largely able to be stopped by masks) when it was actually conveyed by tiny free floating viruses (against which most masks were useless). MAHA doesn’t believe science should ever be wrong _ if science gives incorrect advice it’s because scientists have nasty secret agendas .

Probably science has become much too complicated for most of us to understand. And it is still notably wrong or incoherent or provisional in many matters of health. So if flat earth and bad air were good enough for our grandparents, folks are sure they should be good enough for us .