A Passion for Liberty
Tibor R. Machan @ Rational Review
Posts tagged Obama
Column on Obama’s Keynesian Superstition
Sep 8th
Obama’s Keynesian Superstition
Tibor R. Machan
President Obama gave a speech on Thursday afternoon announcing the American Job Creation Act. There were numerous points that were open to criticism but before dealing with a few, it is important to state what creates jobs: Jobs are created when people who have earned an honest buck go to the market and purchase goods and services that other people need to produce. If a good many go to the market to do this, there will be many jobs, if only a few, there will be few jobs. Moreover only if the people get to choose what purchases they make in the market will the resulting jobs be more than make-belief, artificial jobs, like digging holes and filling them up again.
Mr. Obama and his team appear to believe that printing money and handing it to people who may or may not take it to the market and spend it on goods and services serves to create jobs but this is sheer superstition. It is like thinking that steroids produce healthy muscles in one’s body. Such spending is more akin to fueling artificial production–like getting a bunch of extra haircuts with phony money one has obtained from a forger. Or numerous baths or car washes–as if people had no ability to allocate their limited resources prudently but will do well by spending the phony funds (or other peoples’) on duplicate goods and services. So, bottom line: jobs are created from people spending honestly earned income, not from spending phantom income.
Now back to Mr. Obama’s address. He started by telling us all that “the millions of Americans who are watching right now do not care about politics.” Oh? Who are those millions of people who take part in primary elections, in caucuses, and in all the campaigns around election times?
Obama continues: these millions of Americans “have real life concerns,” as opposed to politics. What a thing to say for a lifelong politician. It is a strange confession, to proclaim that politics is not a real life concern. How these little asides turn out to be very revealing from a Harvard educated politician!
Obama also told us that all these Americans “know that Washington hasn’t always put their interests first.” No kidding–”hasn’t always”? How about has very, very rarely. Anyone with only a cursory familiarity with public choice theory–an idea Professors James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock developed (for which Buchanan received the Nobel Prize), in their book The Calculus of Consent (1962)–can appreciate that Obama completely understated the degree to which Washington fails to put the interests of Americans first. For one, Americans are a highly varied lot and they have zillions of interests which plainly cannot be addressed by Washington. Politicians aren’t deities, Mr. President.
Then, also, politicians are mostly busy looking out for their own interests–mostly getting reelected the next time they run for office–except when looking out for the interests of special groups and major donors that happen to further their own. So this entire line of reasoning on which it seems the president is basing his American Job Creation Act is fallacious.
Here is yet another howler from Mr. Obama: “The people in this country work hard to meet their responsibilities.” Well, some do but some don’t. Many people in America believe that they are entitled to benefits from the government simply because they exist, they have been born here, kind of like the what millions of Greek citizens evidently believe. And many believe that they are credit worthy even while being anything but. Which is to say millions of Americans have expected to be provided with loans to buy homes even though they had no idea how to pay them back or had the collateral to back them. This does not testify to what the president has claimed about the people of this country.
The entire plan of the jobs bill amounts to nothing more than artificially manufacturing jobs, from phony money, phony demand. And this doesn’t even address the issue of Mr. Obama’s favorite superstition, namely, his idea that he can somehow turn America into a showcase of green life without incurring massive expenses for this, expenses the country cannot afford. (It is interesting how Obama has avoided the subject of his giving awards to certain companies that went green big time and then went belly up!)
One could go on. Sadly if an Obama enthusiast were to come across these points they would most probably be dismissed as nothing but dirty Republican or Tea Party politics. No one of Obama’s team ever confronts the arguments–they just ridicule the people who put them forth, even demonize them.
And don’t forget the persistent rich bashing that made its appearance in this lecture just as it tends to in every other given to us by Mr. Obama or members of his team. Ok, so some rich folks are doing well even these days. So why begrudge them this? It’s like wanting to injure able bodied folks because there some some who are disabled. Disgusting. Moreover, even as a public finance, the idea of targeting the wealthy is ridiculous. If all those with over $250,000 had their money confiscated by the feds, hardly any dent would be made on the national debt, especially if one subjects the idea to more public choice analysis.
Mr. Obama, you aren’t going to make jobs and you aren’t going to do any good to most Americans apart from some of your pals in the bureaucracy with what you want to do. Take an entirely different approach, namely, remove government regulations and lower taxes for everyone and that will most likely energize the country’s economy.
Column on The Anatomy of bona fide Compromise
Aug 14th
Anatomy of the bona fide Compromise
Tibor R. Machan
On the current political front there is a lot of talk about whether to compromise on various issues, such as continuing or increasing the Keynesian economic stimulus, abortion, gay marriage, extending the debt ceiling, continuing the two–or is it three–wars America is involved in abroad, getting tough on illegal immigration, how to treat radical Muslims in the courts, etc., etc. The president’s stance, peculiarly, is urging compromise on all fronts and not sticking to any firm position based on principle but entering the discussion with a middle-of-the-road outlook.
Yet there is something basically amiss with Mr. Obama’s position and indeed with that of all those who insist that there is great virtue in compromise. The main problem is that a compromise is the outcome of discussions between those with basically different positions. So, for example, if you hold that injecting more stimulus into the American economy is a good idea and I believe that it is not, we might compromise by agreeing in the end that a bit of stimulus will be injected but not as much as promoters of the idea hope for. Thus, to take a concrete case, if Paul Krugmann of Princeton University and The New York Times believes that the government should inject massive amounts of fiat money into the economy, via public works and subsidies, and various make-work projects–one’s the free market would not fund but government officials believe might generate employment–and another economist, say Don Boudreaux of George Mason University and The Pittsburgh Tribune Review, argues for avoiding any policy of printing and spending any kind of fiat money to stimulate employment, the result of spending a modest amount of such fiat money might be a compromise.
Notice that in such a case the two sides did not enter the discussion with what the result turned out to be. Compromises, in short, are what come out of debates between people discussing what kind of public policy should be adopted. Just as the middle between two points is something that cannot be established without knowing where the beginning and the end lie, so a compromise is dependent on positions that aren’t themselves the results of compromises.
Anyone who argues like President Obama–and his cheerleaders such as CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria–that what is needed on all sides is more willingness to compromise haven’t a clear idea what a compromise is. If they did, they would start by laying out the two sides that they urge to reach a compromise and indicating what would it be given the base positions of the two sides. What is it, for example, that Krugmann and Boudreaux really want and then why should they give up their commitment to that position and go along with something else, namely, the proposed compromise the likes of Zakaria propose?
The bottom line is that in any important debate one rationally demand of the debaters that they compromise prior to the process that must preceded it, namely, the debate. Maybe in the debate one side will manage to demonstrate to the other that it’s position is better that the opposition’s. In principle this has to be a possibility. But if one starts with demanding that people who enter such debates start with compromises, one is asking for the impossible. After all, the reason people tend to have firm positions is that they believe them to be sound, to be the right solutions to problems. But because the problem faces groups of people who must come to some kind of common resolution, it is likely that they will not be able to succeed with having their firm positions accepted by all parties to the debate. So what is sensible to ask for is that everyone involved in the discussions will go slow and only accept changes if they see no other way to proceed. To put it differently, the result of a compromise is never desired by those debating issues. These results are grudgingly accepted at best and imply that neither side was successful in convincing the other of the soundness of its stance.
Bottom line is: Don’t urge people to compromise; urge them to debate seriously and intelligently. The resulting compromise will then be the best and only one that could be achieved among these people who have to make collective decisions.
Column on You Know He’s Desperate Now
Apr 22nd
You Know He’s Desperate Now
Tibor R. Machan
So President Obama will create a task force to investigate if there might be crimes committed that lead to high gas prices. The operate term is “might.” That is what one says when one has zero evidence but intends to implicate unknown parties and please one’s base which is committed to the class warfare idea of economic relations.
Of course gasoline costs a lot. Just look around the world–people are using more of it and the prognosis is they will be using even more in the near future; the places where oil is drilled are in shambles; the American government will not allow any digging where there’s plenty of oil in the USA, and on and on. Speculators, a perfectly decent bunch of people who try to take care of their and their clients’ economic welfare–part of the group of wealth care professionals in the land–will obviously try to buy oil futures now so as to escape the coming even higher prices. This is elementary economics and to be expected of people who choose to be prudent in their lives and economic affairs.
But Mr. Obama seems to want to cash in on it all by revving up the rhetoric of class warfare. Who must be behind rising gas prices? Someone, surely (even while he preaches about shared responsibility when it comes to the enormous debt the government has assumed). So who shall it be this time–Wall Street? The banks? Tea Party Republicans? No, this time it will be speculators, unnamed people who can be conjured up in the minds of people who already do not like business (wealth care) professionals. Mr. Obama needs those who harbor such hatred since they are the ones who hopes will go out and campaign for him. Who else would?
Now do I know that this is Mr. Obama’s intention? No, but I seriously suspect it. Moreover, there is better evidence for this suspicion than for the alleged suspicion Mr. Obama voiced, namely, that corrupt people in the oil industry are committing crimes and driving up gas prices. That, it should be noted, is sheer fantasy, totally baseless.
CNN News Room newsreaders are all for Mr. Obama doing this shadow chasing. What else can they do? Repeat elementary lessons in economics? Do they bring in experts on oil economics? No. That would be responsible journalism and by now we know that CNN gives us partisan news through and through–Mr. Obama can do no wrong and all his pronouncements are sincere, meant earnestly. Even Fox TV gives more room to opposing positions now.
But there is hope. Mr. Obama’s popularity is plummeting. Not because he will not prosecute–or is it persecute–oil people but, most likely, because he will not do the most elementary thing about all this, namely let companies drill, drill, and drill some more. That would lose him another part of his base, environmentalists. Which is to say, Mr. Obama is putting politics and his ambition to get a second term way ahead of the task of addressing the high gas prices, which he seems to be merely pretending to address.
Mr. President, please, pretty please, toss the task force idea and open up our known oils fields and hope the voters will realize you did the best you could. Just as with gold, so with scarce oil, prices will keep rising. But there is little gold to go around, while there is plenty of oil to drill for.
Why are these folks not getting it? I suppose the answer to this is manifold but one source is the late Mancur Olson’s theory that not until the bottom falls out will people and their lobbyists and politicians stop engaging in what economists call rent-seeking, urging that other people be ripped off so they can have an easier way in their lives. And for such a political climate to prevail one needs to come up with accusations against those whom one wishes to be ripped off. This task force idea of Mr. Obama achieves that goal–demonize oil people. Next time he can go back to demonizing Wall Street, the banks and, of course, Tea Party Republicans.
Column on Obama is a Socialist—A Crazy Thought?
Jan 28th
Obama is a Socialist—A Crazy Thought?
Tibor R. Machan
Right after President Obama’s state of the union address several Republicans, mainly of the Tea Party faction stated that he is a socialist. This isn’t the first time the claim has been made. Indeed, based on his early schooling the idea that he may well be one simply cannot be dismissed.
Not that all of us inherit our parents’ political views, quite far from it. I myself had a father who was an avid champion of Hitler and a fierce Anti-Semite, whereas I grew up to embrace libertarianism in politics and a refined version of Objectivism in my general philosophy. A great many folks I know don’t at all think as their parents did. But there are those, also, who do and in the case of Obama it seems his socialist grandmother had considerable influence on him (judging by his own testimony).
When it comes to the allegation that Obama is a socialist CNN-TV anchor Soledad O’Brien quoted Webster’s Dictionary as evidence that he is not. The passage singled out the socialist view of property, namely, that everything important is to be collectively owned, that private property “in the means of production” must be abolished. (Which, by the way, for socialists means, human labor!) The Communist Manifesto makes this clear—Marx and Engels claimed the fist thing toward establishing socialism—the stage of history prior to reaching communism—is the abolition of private property. So it would seem that there is no way that Obama could be a socialist since he has said many nice things about the market place and hasn’t ever called for abolishing private property rights, only heavily regulating it and getting in bed with certain big businesses, which strictly speaking isn’t the same thing is collectivization.
However, looking a bit more closely, it needs also to be kept in mind that Mr. Obama has often declared his own pragmatism, which is a philosophical stance of not sticking by any firm principles. And such a policy could very well be deployed exactly when one wishes to disguise one’s actual political economic philosophy. And then there is this wonderfully instructive passage by Lenin himself, certainly a bona fide communist:
Only one thing is needed to lead us to march forward more surely and more firmly to victory: namely, the consciousness everywhere that all communists, in all countries, must display the maximum flexibility in their tactics…. [Lenin, "Left Wing Communism," 1920].
But this isn’t all. What is really central to socialism is the view that we all belong to society, that there are no genuine human individuals at all, that human beings are what Marx called specie beings somewhat on the order of termites or bees that exists as a collective, never individually. The collective ownership of everything that’s valuable and important is a derivative doctrine, not a primary one. This is one reason that some socialists are actually called “market” socialists. They recognize that as a matter of efficiency—or at times public relations—it is quite OK to give a nod to certain elements of capitalism.
It is not easy to tell what is in someone’s mind, especially not if that someone is convinced that the only way to advance his or her position is to keep its true nature obscure. Indeed, among neo-conservatives this is a prominent theme, learned from the political scientist the late Leo Strauss. He argued that it is only prudent for philosophers to keep their true views a secret, if only because it would scare ordinary folks to be told that brilliant philosophers have come o believe.
Surely this could apply in the case of Mr. Obama, as well: the American public would be very upset if he came right out and said, “Look, folks, I happen to believe that socialism is a sound political economic viewpoint and will do what I can to steer the country that way. I honestly think it is better than capitalism.” Not a way to win elections, so much better to keep it under wraps.
