Selectively dangerous collectivism

I can never stay angry with Brooks because he's so annoyingly gracious; episodically, anyway, such as today, subsequent to his neurotic breakdown over those mean Democrats who are making Republicans go crazy and do crazy things. Yet Brooks is not Fox-deaf to presidential eloquence. He writes, for instance, of Obama's second inaugural address as "surely ... among the best of the past half-century," a speech in which the president "came across as a prudent, nonpopulist progressive."

But--and you knew there'd be a but--Brooks also thinks that "Obama misunderstands this moment," a misunderstanding wrapped in a collectivist misreading of our uniquely individualist history:

The Progressive Era, New Deal and Great Society laws were enacted when America was still a young and growing nation. They were enacted in a nation that was vibrant, raw, underinstitutionalized and needed taming.

Putting aside that we as a nation had lost our once youthful virginity in every conceivable manner by the Vietnam era, Brooks seems to miss the almost unmissable historical point that Progressive Era and New Deal laws were enacted in response to a highly refined collectivism by the monied and powerful few. Early 20th-century government interventions in the marketplace came not in response to an American individualism in need of "taming," but to trusts, pools, holding companies, and monopolistic strivings of mutual agreeability. 

Capitalists, turned out (although Adam Smith had already told us of this), rather unreservedly loved collective action, as long as it was circumscribed with class-conscious propriety--roped off, that is, from the unworthy rabble.

And thus proceeds this century, same as the last--with the smartly organized warning the individually rugged just how perilous collectivism can be.

Comments

[Jim Milstein]

Excellent point, PM. The arc of capitalism, unrestrained, bends to monopoly. Your identification of oligarchy and monopoly with collectivism is most insightful.

Reminds me of how the inner circle of the Randians called themselves (ironically, of course) The Collective. They were so right -- in both senses.

[sueme]

Brooks' today's column mirrors almost exactly what he said last night on the PBS Newshour. He referred ,not once, but twice, last night to our "welfare society" being Social Security and Medicare. When will these people get it through there heads that working people pay a tax which is match by their employer of almost 13% to FICA. In some cases the payroll tax is higher than many of the wealthy pay in total taxes! But then David says it softly and with a smile!

[Jim Milstein]

Sueme's point is well-taken. And I would add that the employer's contribution is really part of the employees' wages.

It is not the rich who pay for Social Security and Medicare. The recipients themselves pay for it.

[Turgidson]

I'll pick up the slack and stay mad at Brooks for you, PM. He sprinkles in just enough sanity to remain the leading "reasonable conservative." That's part of the game. He's a shill for the same braindead ideology as Michelle Malkin, he just pretends to be more polite about it to further his and its ends.

[Peter G]

The president made a very important point during his inauguration address that got some attention but not as much as it deserved. He spoke of the liberating effects of social programs when it comes to taking risks. Let me put this into real terms. Thirty years ago, or so, I was a shiny new engineering graduate without a hope of finding a job. The prime interest rate in Canada was about 21 percent owing to inflation and job prospects for everyone was bleak. So I started my own business. Among the things I did not have to worry about should the worse befall was health care or disability insurance. I was able to defer my loans, pegged at prime plus one, owing to a government support program. Let me assure all who doubt, climbing onto a high wire is a difficult decision at the best of times but knowing that there is some safety net beneath you makes it easier to take the risk. I worked hard for the modest success I have enjoyed but I am under no illusions about having done it on my own.

[Bulworth]

Brooks never fails to give me op-ed whiplash. He starts off almost glowingly about Obama's speech but rapidly seques into criticizing it.

[Robert Lipscomb]

Brooks did what we have been demanding from conservatives. He made the case for conservatism (rather than the "right") in response to progressivism (rather than the "left").

I wish he had not conflated progressivism with liberalism and collectivism because this was a missed opportunity illuminate by educating a large audience. But he is the one getting paid to write columns. :-)

Regardless, Brooks (as did Obama - and PM) zeroed in on the correct political issue: the proper role of collectivism in a modern society. This is a radical departure by Brooks from the Reagan dictum, "Government is always the problem." That dictum, taken to its logical extent, is the source of the current craziness of the GOP.

It is also why the right correctly and immediately perceived it as a direct frontal assault on their reason for being.

To Brooks' credit, he perceived it as one-half of a legitimate debate.