Progressives are never wrong
This piece by Arnold Kling touches on some of the more essential weaknesses of economic progressivism:
The important point is that Progressives are never wrong. Top-down reform is the only way to fix the health care system. Anthropogenic global warming is scientifically proven, and its solution requires strenuous exercise of political control over individual behavior. Deficit spending is necessary and sufficient to create jobs. Technocrats can make banks too regulated to fail. Markets without technocratic control are like adolescents without adult supervision. Individual happiness can be improved by political authorities using scientific knowledge. Concentrated political power is the wave of the future, and it is good.
I am not a populist. I fear the mob. But how can I fear the Progressives any less?
This reminds me of the healthcare debate we just witnessed. I would like to believe that centralized government could adequately provide health insurance for a nation of 300 million people, but I have serious doubts that this is really feasible. The more I study the bill-that-almost-was the more I see it as a serious move toward government run healthcare, and all the accompanying inefficiencies and costs – the more I think strengthening and means-testing the programs we already have in place is the way to go.
Along these lines, I think it’s important to note that, contra Ezra Klein, Democrats really didn’t compromise on fundamental issues with Republicans and nor was this bill a terribly “conservative” or market-friendly one either, however watered down and uninspiring the final lackluster product may have been. (I’m sorry, am I speaking of it in the past tense…?) The Senate HCR bill (and the House bill for that matter) was really a very technocratic bill that made a few market-friendly noises and feints in that direction. As Reihan Salam notes, however:
The essential conservative objection to the bill is to the premise that central direction is the way to lower costs rather than more robust competition. Many conservatives also object to a federal mandate that compels individuals to purchase a product from a private entity.
And really – fundamentally – that’s what the bill did. It centralized healthcare, and pushed insurance companies toward a utility model and – eventually – toward a state monopoly, either a state-granted private proxy, or direct state control. Either way, this is hardly the road most conservatives want to take healthcare down. Something like the Wyden-Bennett bill was much more of a compromise, and compromised on many of the fundamental points, while still leaving much of the actual administration of healthcare in private hands and in state, rather than federal, control.
Post Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment
T/S Members
Log in with your True/Slant account.
It’s a moral argument. Whatever the argument is, the fundamental issue is a *MORAL* one.
Whether we’re discussing universal health care coverage for undocumented visitors, granting the government the power to censor obscenity (like corporate speech), or making sure that marriage has *THIS* definition in the eyes of the government rather than *THAT* one…
It’s always a moral fight.
Don’t get me wrong. I tend to agree.
It’s just that as a Libertarian I have come to the conclusion that the underlying morals are significantly different than the ones the progressives (or the Republicans, for that matter) wave around and shake in my face like so many Polaroid pictures… but I’ve also come to the conclusion that many other folks are arguing conclusions that follow, more or less, from their underlying foundational morality.
The progressives (and the Republicans, for that matter… heck, even many Libertarians) tend to assume that the opposition isn’t arguing conclusions based on some foundational morality but arguing because of their own sinful nature (be that nature Christianist, Communist, or some mixture of the two).
Which sometimes results in fights looking like two groups of people screaming “I’M MORE RIGHTEOUS THAN YOU ARE, YOU ABOMINATION!!!”
Preach it brother. And thanks for commenting here, jaybird.
In response to another comment. See in context »To be kind to Kling, I’ll just assume he hasn’t spoken to a wide swath of leftists. I agree with Jaybird that this is fundamentally a moral difference. Because from faith comes morals and faith generates statements like this:
“The more I study the bill-that-almost-was the more I see it as a serious move toward government run healthcare, and all the accompanying inefficiencies and costs”
It is an article of faith among conservatives that government run anything is necessarily inefficient and costly. Why this can pass assumed and unexplained puzzles me. Like the article of faith that employers will better reward merit if unfettered by union contracts or faith that social security would be better privatized (hold off on that link to the Chilean experience, the piper plays in 2025 for their program). The beginning assumption is that government involvement is, generally, bad. It’s such a bedrock belief, I cannot recall a conservative actually grappling with the concept.
We’re currently have an enormously bureaucratic, uncaring, profit driven health care system. Every medical problem you experience is a profit reduction and with too many such incidents, your insurance company will seek to jettison your patronage. I wouldn’t mind the switch to an enormously bureaucratic, uncaring healthcare system where my family’s personal medical problems didn’t stimulate the market impulse to let me die. I didn’t like the legislation that went through and I think it’s clear Obama is a corporatist at this point. But I also don’t think that the private sector is the best way to solve every problem. And once you crack the door and admit certain problems are best solved by government, it’s a matter of taste where to stop.