Writing a couple of days ago in this space, I asked whether President Obama’s spectacular mishandling of the economy was a function of his incompetence or his malevolence.
For what it’s worth, I believe that the answer is (mostly) “incompetence.” I take little solace from that conclusion. For one thing, I also believe he is doing everything he can to capitalize on this crisis (hence the “mostly”), bludgeoning cautious lawmakers with the prospect of “catastrophe” if they don’t instantly fall into line with his eye-popping spending proposals.
Even more worrisome, however, is the fact that the President’s brand of good intentions is potentially more destructive than simple malevolence. In other words, although I believe that the President is endeavoring to “do good” after his own lights, his understanding of the good is unrealistic and utopian. And, as I observed yesterday, the combination of benevolence and moralism, which the President exhibits in an astonishing degree, is a union that regularly conduces to human unhappiness.
Perhaps you will remember that old advertisement for Teacher’s Scotch: “In life, experience is the great teacher. In Scotch, Teacher’s is the great experience.” Neatly phrased. Sadly, the first sentence is only intermittently true. Experience shows that experience is often a very poor teacher indeed. Hence the ghastly spectacle of a President of the United States in 2009 behaving like a shell-shocked socialist circa 1935.
A few days ago, Michael Boskin had a melancholy piece in The Wall Street Journal called “Obama’s Radicalism is Killing the DOW.” The article has some revelatory things to say about its announced topic, but more troubling is the big picture. “The illusion that Barack Obama will lead from the economic center,” Boskin observes, “has quickly come to an end.”
Instead of combining the best policies of past Democratic presidents — John Kennedy on taxes, Bill Clinton on welfare reform and a balanced budget, for instance — President Obama is returning to Jimmy Carter’s higher taxes and Mr. Clinton’s draconian defense drawdown.
Mr. Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents — from George Washington to George W. Bush — combined. It reduces defense spending to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II, while increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest level in U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high levels (again, relative to GDP). And all of this before addressing the impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs.
In other words, not only are the President’s naive and utopian fiscal policies exacerbating an already parlous economic situation: his starry-eyed understanding of foreign relations is set to compromise America’s defense capabilities at the very moment when other parts of the world–Iran, Russia, China–are struggling madly to upgrade their military forces.
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1. Chlorian Theoreticus:In 1620 Francis Bacon published The New Organon, an epigrammatic treatise challenging scholasticism and promoting a more empirical approach to science.
In the Organon, Bacon identified four kinds of illusions (idola—usually translated as “idols”) that “block men’s minds.”
First there are the “idols of the tribe.” These are the illusions or distortions that are common to all men. In modern terms we would identify these with the physical limitations of our perception organs and the physical nature of the brain: we are all limited in the frequencies that we can see and hear and our brains produce artifacts and distortions that we all share.
Next are the “idols of the cave.” These are the illusions peculiar to an individual.
“For…each man has a kind of individual cave or cavern which fragments and distorts the light of nature.”
Third, there are the “idols of the marketplace.” These are distortions due to the shared use of false, equivocal, or fatuous language. Bacon recognized that language can function not only to elucidate but also to obfuscate reason and perceptions, and that furthermore, this power of obfuscation is proportional to the degree of general acceptance of misleading language.
“Plainly words do violence to the understanding, and confuse everything; and betray men into countless empty disputes and fictions.”
Finally, there are the “idols of the theatre.” These are shared illusions implanted by education.
“…for all the philosophies that men have learned or devised are, in our opinion, so many plays produced and performed which have created false and fictitious worlds.”
Bacon sensed that the versions of reality created by man-made philosophical systems–both the “facts” and the “logic” derived from these systems–are often more compelling, and have greater influence upon thoughts and perceptions, than true facts and proper logic. Furthermore, the influence of these philosophical systems is often invisible (in modern terms, subconscious) to those they afflict.
Bacon anticipated Karl Popper by noting that the “idols of the theatre” represent complete systems that can accommodate any external datum and bend any logic to fit their intrinsic curvature.
“There is no possibility of argument, since we do not agree either about the principles or the proofs.”
Bacon also recognized that the smart and well educated are more susceptible to the idols of the theatre, precisely because they are smart and well educated:
“It is absolutely clear that if you run the wrong way, the better and faster you are, the more you go astray.”
Mar 7, 2009 - 4:09 pm 2. SCOTT:“Bacon also recognized that the smart and well educated are more susceptible to the idols of the theatre, precisely because they are smart and well educated”
Once again, Stove : “But the more powerful minds will fall into the worship of some dangerous and intelligent lunatic like Plato, Augustine or Hegel, Comte or Marx” I’d add Obama, but his real talent is inspiring the masses(which, of course, is far more dangerous); indeed this in an important skill, but it doesn’t require exorbitant degrees of intelligence. His talents as a demogogue far outweigh his intellectual abilities; that’s the part that scares me the most.
Mar 7, 2009 - 6:07 pm 3. Billy Oblivion:Mmmm…. Bacon!
Mar 8, 2009 - 2:00 am 4. Pajamas Media » The Road to Serfdom:[...] Read the entire piece here. [...]
Mar 8, 2009 - 3:15 am 5. fear Obama:President Obama:
Money is not my Idol and wont be a problem.
We will have lots of printed money.
I plan to stuff my mattress with penny stocks-
AIG- GM- Citigroup- Fannie Mae- ect.
20 years from now,
when I can sleep again,
I will have a nice soft fluffy bed.
You need to stuff your extra living space with food and water- if you have a living space.
You wont be able to eat stocks, bonds and monopoly money.
He is the MAN-
Mar 8, 2009 - 4:46 am 6. Bob:But you already knew that.
From Wikipedia: The Road to Serfdom is a book written by Friedrich Hayek (recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1974), first published in 1944. … Hayek’s central thesis is that all forms of collectivism lead logically and inevitably to tyranny, and he used the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany as examples of countries which had gone down “the road to serfdom” and reached tyranny.
Hayek argued that within a centrally planned economic system, the distribution and allocation of all resources and goods would devolve onto a small group, which would be incapable of processing all the information pertinent to the appropriate distribution of the resources and goods at the central planners’ disposal. Disagreement about the practical implementation of any economic plan combined with the inadequacy of the central planners’ resource management would invariably necessitate coercion in order for anything to be achieved.
Hayek further argued that the failure of central planning would be perceived by the public as an absence of sufficient power by the state to implement an otherwise good idea. Such a perception would lead the public to vote more power to the state, and would assist the rise to power of a “strong man” perceived to be capable of “getting the job done”. After these developments Hayek argued that a country would be ineluctably driven into outright totalitarianism. For Hayek “the road to serfdom” inadvertently set upon by central planning, with its dismantling of the free market system, ends in the destruction of all individual economic and personal freedom.
My comment: If the economy rebounds within the next year, Obama will proclaim his “stimulus” package worked – and see authorization for more such government spending. If the economy continues to tank, he will proclaim that the “stimulus” package was the right idea but just wasn’t big enough. What we need is more government spending, economic planning, control of banks, financial markets, auto manufacturing, etc. There will never be empirical evidence that will convince BHO and other true believer liberal-collectivists-socialists that less government is the answer to anything.
Mar 8, 2009 - 4:58 am 7. Meryl:The last line of the piece is the rhetorical question, “Will we never learn?” It depends on who you mean by “we”.
If by “we”, you mean the ninnies who elected the BMOC, some of them (the well-meaning, easily led, trying-to-impress-with-their-allegedly-colorblind-vote, lifelong democrats) MIGHT.
If by “we”, you mean the newly registered voters who enjoy victimhood and the power that comes with it in our twisted, PC subculture, the answer is NO.
If by “we”, you refer to the entire population of the United States of America, then I object loudly and vociferously. Most of us who voted for Mr. McCain did so, not because we were in love with his policy proposals, his record or his speeches, but because we already know (by instinct and common sense and a little bit of historical understanding) the things you suggest we still need to learn.
Can we please stop the group self-loathing? Not everyone in the country is as stupid, ignorant and self-destructive as the individuals (and the group) who elected these people.
Lifted from another poster on another thread: “For the first time in my adult life, I’m ashamed of my country.”
Mar 8, 2009 - 5:21 am 8. Still Bill:Roger: Approximately 40% of Americans don’t pay income taxes right now, and that number will soon rise to over 50% if Obama and his lackey Democrats in Congress have their way. I’m tired of supporting these bums (Democrats) who spend there days watching soap operas, drinking beer, and blowing farts. If these bums (Democrats) aren’t going to contribute to this country monetarily, there are plenty of other ways they can contribute. I could use one or two of these bums (Democrats) to mow my lawn during the summer and shovel my snow during the winter. There are probably enough of these free-loading bums (Democrats) out there that we could probably eliminate half of the federal work force.
Mar 8, 2009 - 6:04 am 9. RE:I’m not able to dismiss malevolence. Obama is a product of the grievance industry. In his world where one is either an oppressor or a victim.
Obama supported Rev. Wright far too many years to excuse.
The fact that he even had Ayers and Dohrn in his house at all speaks volumes.
Obama just hides the chip on his shoulder better than his wife does.
America (and the world) are now paying a very high price for willful ignorance and complacency regarding this empty suit demagogue and his platitudes.
I’m not ashamed of my country. I’m angry that America has disgraced itself by electing this malevolent incompetent.
Mar 8, 2009 - 6:12 am 10. Still Bill:Correction: In the fourth line of my brilliant commentary, change “there” to “their”. I do have some self-respect, which is more than I can say about the bums (Democrats) who I am tired of supporting.
Mar 8, 2009 - 6:23 am 11. MPHobgood:I agree with Meryl-in the immortal words of Tonto, ‘ what’s this “we” stuff paleface? ‘
Mar 8, 2009 - 6:57 am 12. Terry Quinn:Half this country was scared to death of an Obama presidency, and rightly so. It is not a case of disillusionment- it’s a case of “I told you so”!
It was six years from Hitler’s legal election to the death camps.It took Castro less time than that.
It doesn’t take long to undo centuries of civilization, does it?
In every socialist revolution it has been the liberals and moderates who made the victory of the left possible. And in every socialist revolution, they go to prison,to exile, or to the death chambers with the rest of us. Look it up. It’s called HISTORY. You might also want to look up the term “useful idiots”.
Another sad legacy of Obama’s tenure (assuming he actually ever leaves office,) will be the total skunking of racial relations in America.
When the gravy train comes to an abrupt halt and all the freeloaders have to disembark, the resentment we have seen in the past from the race hustlers (Wright, Sharpton, Michelle O,) will be back in quadruplicate.
Mar 8, 2009 - 7:25 am 13. Obama’s Dangerous Incompetence « Cliftonchadwick’s Blog:[...] See the whole thing at http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2009/03/07/traveling-down-the-road-to-serfdom/ [...]
Mar 8, 2009 - 7:46 am 14. Svend:It has been noted by classmates that the O did not like history at all in school. I have suggested that this Naif of a president(Gawd I love that word)have Axelrod put a history of socilist economoics and maybe some world history in general on his teleprompter in front of the oval office desk so that in his spare moments when he isn’t running the country into the ground and talking down to we the masses of ill-fortune, he can maybe learn just a little bit of what this all means. BUT I wouldn’t count on it as I presume that he is intent on revisiting history on his own. Naif,,,,hee, heee, hhee,,,,,,sheesh. Thanks
Mar 8, 2009 - 8:43 am 15. acj:What color bow tie are you wearing?
Republican rule means less charity, dispite tax breaks…
Mar 8, 2009 - 8:55 am 16. Self-hating Boomer:http://www.ncoc.net/index.php?tray=content&tid=top30&cid=258
Donations are brisk during the rule of Democrats.
I think you and many others are making this a lot more complicated than it really is. Occam’s razor: he’s neither naive nor ideological. He’s simply paying off his friends and spanking his enemies. Everything he’s done to date makes sense if you look at it this way.
He’ll start losing support when his friends start realizing that their investments won’t come back until he changes his ways. Then he’ll change his ways. Even the carbon market will be a bust if the economy stays depressed.
Mar 8, 2009 - 9:07 am 17. Insufficiently Sensitive:It has been noted by classmates that the O did not like history at all in school.
And that fact had to be ‘noted by classmates’ because the useful idiots in charge of the MSM utterly refused to exert the resources needed to present the public with a detailed history of the ‘education’ of one B. H. Obama.
Never has such a propapaganda campaign been mounted by the so-called ‘mainstream’ media. Beside the refusal to present us with a clear background of their preferred candidate, it included an intense 6-year negative campaign against Obama’s predecessor, and a four-year fawning over Himself beginning with the 2004 Democratic convention.
You just can’t get good information out of the MSM – additional sources are needed. Now we know what Soviet citizens knew, in their attempts to parse beyond Pravda.
Mar 8, 2009 - 9:34 am 18. Pamela:What difference does it make whether he does what he does because he’s a mistaken idealist, an incompetent nitwit or a malevolently evil man? (Personally, I go for the last).
Mar 8, 2009 - 10:02 am 19. john from cinncinatti:Whatever the reason for his undertaking actions that wreck American economy and individual freedom, the result on each and every person is the same.
It’s pointless to argue about it. The only thing to do is work out how to protect yourselves from the results of his actions. That wont wont change whatever his causes are.
welcome to Bartertown, what do you have to barter? well i have cats and dogs to eat….
Mar 8, 2009 - 10:32 am 20. Sherab Zangpo:this kind of reminds me of that movie King Rat. Obama and the government as the Japanese guards and the rest of us as the POWS. can’t wait till the end of this movie when the Americans come to rescue us. we can change congress in 18 months and maybe put some brakes on this runaway gravy train. in the meantime don’t use your credit cards.
Our beloved President went to “church” for twenty years in a “church” were anti-americanism was the only “sacred doctrine”. His friends are terrorists.
The American media, populated by radicals, have pumped him up and upper for the whole time of the campaign.
There is no need to be astonished now if he “fails”: he is not failing, he is doing what the radicals could never do before, he is working to make America weaker and weaker.
And it is not even matter of Mr.Obama, more important than him is the shadow party, led by Soros, that has worked to attain this goal.
Typical gramscian strategy: they conquered the universities and the media, then they moved to get the executive branch.
Only honest Congressmen, honest journalists, honest intellectuals and honest people can save America now.
So, let’s pray for the Light of God to touch many many hearts and minds.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Mar 8, 2009 - 11:46 am 21. geoffgo:Fear0@5
“What I don’t think people should do is suddenly stuff money in their mattresses”
because money stuffed in mattresses cannot be electronically confiscated! Ja’think he left that part out intentionally, comrade?
Mar 8, 2009 - 11:59 am 22. RE:“What I don’t think people should do is suddenly stuff money in their mattresses”
The inflation Obama is creating will render it worthless in no time.
Mar 8, 2009 - 12:48 pm 23. AThinkingPerson:ENOUGH!! It’s time to take action! Write your congressperson! Cancel left-wing newspapers and magazines that he’s using as his personal mouthpiece. Attend any “tea party” close to your home. What will happen to the US as we know it if we wait 4 years to tell him to stop destroying the US? Our children’s future is at stake now. In just over one month, look at the destruction he has wrought. It’s the people’s government after all right? At least it used to be.
Mar 8, 2009 - 1:06 pm 24. James:http://m1.smartmoney.com/aheadofthecurve/images/0306-chart.gif
Mar 8, 2009 - 2:06 pm 25. davod:<a href=”
Mar 8, 2009 - 2:31 pm 26. davod:http://www.mises.org/books/TRTS/Traveling down the road to serfdom. Pictures are worth a thousand words. Start at the back of the book.
Mar 8, 2009 - 2:34 pm 27. Pghmom:Traveling down the road to serfdom. Pictures are worth a thousand words. Start at the back of this cartoon edition of the book.
The depressing part for me is I think the majority of people believe him. I listen to the local talk radio in Pittsburgh and the majority of callers think the rich have taken too much and that Obama by taxing only the rich is now providing them with all the freebies they are entitled to to live a middle class lifestyle. They have taken to heart the mantra that incomes have stagnated. The best line was “Why should the rich have all the money”. It is like there is a big pile somewhere and some people got there first. We are in for a rough period and it is anyone’s guess how long it will last. Envy is hard to stuff back in a bottle.
Mar 8, 2009 - 3:27 pm 28. Still Bill:To acj: Charity begins at home. Obama has a half-brother living in a ditch covered with a cardboard box in Barracks’s mother country and place of birth – Kenya. He’s real good at spending my money on welfare payments to assorted bums and low-lifes in the Democrat party, but he won’t spend any of his own money on a relative in need. That’s all I need to know about this clown in the White House.
Mar 8, 2009 - 4:19 pm 29. Max:Excellent piece. I’m deeply concerned that what we’re seeing here isn’t the change in policy that accompanies every presidential transition, but rather a fundamental reshaping of what government does and what society expects it to do for them. That’s terrifying, especially to someone like me who will be finishing college and looking for a job 3 years from now.
Mar 8, 2009 - 5:18 pm 30. Mike2:23. AThinkingPerson:
You have it exactly right. The only thing to add is that the 48% of us who knew who he is and didn’t vote for him need to stop watching CBS, NBC and ABC because they are his mouthpieces. If enough of us do so they will fold like the NY Times and other left wing newspapers because their advertisers will flee like crazy.
Mar 8, 2009 - 7:10 pm 31. ked5:——————————
Who is John Galt?
you want to be nice. you don’t want to believe someone could be so malevolent. He really is.
What is happening to the economy is *exactly* what he *wants* to happen. He wants to implement his radical socialism, and the best way to do that is to get people so desperate they will be willing to believe anything he says.
He and his cohorts will be elitists ruling over the starving masses – the “new” serfs.
Mar 8, 2009 - 9:04 pm 32. rk:We are always on the horns of a dilemma with Obama.
Is the Brit snub a function of a guy (and staff) who is/are less than competent…or is this a careful snub based on grievance?
Same with the market and capitalism.
The majority have always assumed that Obama was a young in-experienced person, but that he had the right stuff.
But many have been afraid that he’s filled with grievance and Leftism, and that much of his background is in greivance theater.
At the mid-point of the first 100 days we still don’t know for sure, but the evidence is mounting.
And we have tea parties and Jim Cramer. There is even Evan Bayh, and rumors of more. Let’s hope and pray that the Left fails in re-making America.
Mar 8, 2009 - 10:55 pm 33. ccwildbill:Here are comments from 32(?) or more individuals, essentially all support some action…which can be realized by writing our individual congresscritters, who, with Obama, are ruining our economy, socializing private businesses, and ignoring the pulse of America: the market. Until we can replace them, our opinions count…even if you get form letter responses, like I have. We need to raise our concerns above the noise level, and congress seems to be the source of both the problems and…to listen to them…the solutions (heh).
Mar 9, 2009 - 6:03 am 34. howiem:ked5 has it right, along with a lot of others. Obama is a trained radical who believes that in order to build a utopia he has to tear down the existing structure. On one hand he gives (entitlements), and on the other he takes away taxes). Don’t for a second think this is “well meaning”. It is all about complete power, not about “doing good”. He is no different than a Hitler, Lenin or any of the tyrants. The only difference is that far too many Americans understand his words (but not the meaning). And why shouldn’t they not understand? he so called “conservative” media keeps calling Obama and his cronies “liberals”. They are about as liberal as Attila the Hun, Stalin or Hitler.
). If Hayek, von Mises, Milton Friedman, etc., were required reading in every university, I doubt we (used loosely:)) would have come to elect a power hungry totalitarian as president. As Milton Friedman said, “Fundamental differences in basic values can seldom if ever be resolved at the ballot box; ultimately they can only be decided, though not resolved, by conflict.”
Mar 9, 2009 - 6:10 am 35. Kurt:Bob, I am also an advocate of about 99% of what Hayek says (and I haven’t figured which 1% I am against
While I’m quite willing to accept that O. didn’t like history at all in school, given what is known about his background and his affiliations, I’m also willing to believe the unstated (and purely speculative on my part) corollary: that is, he didn’t learn much history at school, and most of what he knows about American history most likely came from a reading of propagandist “historians” such as Howard Zinn, after Zinn’s work was recommended by his activist mentors.
Mar 9, 2009 - 9:25 am 36. MikeD:Sherab @ #20 said: ‘Only honest Congressmen, honest journalists, honest intellectuals and honest people can save America now.”
Then we are lost!!!
Mar 9, 2009 - 5:32 pm 37. ahem:Another vote for willful and intentional.
Mar 10, 2009 - 1:16 am 38. David Guaspari:You mention Obama’s “combination of benevolence and moralism.” Presumably you know Michael Oakeshott’s remark that tyranny results from “the conjunction of ruling and dreaming.” (Quoted from memory.)
Mar 10, 2009 - 4:42 pm 39. Steynian 333 « Free Canuckistan!:[...] KIMBALL– Liberalism is watered-down fanaticism: a thought from Santayana; Traveling down the road to serfdom; A tale of two Presidents, Or, Semper Fi vs. a “tepid response”; The two most frightening [...]
Mar 11, 2009 - 4:39 am 40. Chemman:“Consider a boot stamping on your face forever”
Mar 11, 2009 - 9:48 am 41. Old Soldier:To the squishy middle that bought the hope and change kool-aid, How is the boot feeling about now?
Nobody has mentioned how serfdom first developed. During the later days of the Western Roman Empire, taxes were so high on the middle class (artisans, craftsmen, farmers) that they were literally selling themselves into slavery because slaves were not taxed. People were willing to trade their physical freedom for economic freedom. The middle class was taxed out of existence – only the poor and the tax-exempt aristocrats were remained.
To stop the loss of tax revenue, the Emperor decreed that free men could no longer sell themselves into slavery and farmers were no longer allowed to leave their farms. They were now medieval serfs.
Mar 11, 2009 - 11:30 am