No Criticism Allowed?
by Jeffrey Folks
Issue 126 - February 18, 2009

Of what else does President Obama’s so-called stimulus bill consist than laws aimed at punishing or enabling particular people? This extraordinary piece of legislation seems to have been crafted for no other purpose than to reward those individuals and groups who contributed to the success of the Democratic Party in the recent election—and to punish those persons, groups, and states that voted the wrong way. Never before have we witnessed blatant confiscation and transfer of wealth on such a scale as that authorized in this coercive bill.

It is not just that the stimulus package confiscates wealth from successful individuals and corporations and transfers it to inefficient and unproductive ones through such tactics as “tax credits” for persons already paying no tax, expanded bailout programs, and augmented welfare programs across the board. It is that this transfer of wealth is intended to create a permanent clientele for the so-called services funded in the bill. The enormous increase in funding for education, medicine, job training, housing, and food programs solidify the role of the federal government within the most essential areas of everyday life. Once established, this expanded role will be difficult to reverse.

We are moving toward a society in which government will be the primary provider of the essential needs of daily life for most Americans. As Nobel economist F.A. Hayek pointed out, a state-sponsored monopoly of this kind is not subject to the restrictions of a private monopoly since it is “protected against both potential competition and effective criticism.” The expansion of the SCHIP program and movement toward universal, government-regulated health insurance will close off competition, effectively nationalizing health care. The president’s warning, on the day of Exxon-Mobil’s record fourth-quarter earnings report, that “this is not the time for businesses to be making profits” betrays an ambition to further regulate and control the energy sector, even to the point of mandating that private businesses not make a profit.

The president’s comment suggests such an astounding degree of ignorance of and disdain for the free market as to be almost beyond belief. Under what circumstances would anyone invest money in a business entity which was prohibited by an authoritarian government from making a profit? In the absence of such investment, what would there be to prevent the ruin of our nation’s entire productive capacity? Obama and his Democratic colleagues do not appear to have reflected on these matters. Or else—a more ominous possibility—they intend the ruin of our economy and subsequently transform it into a collectivist economy.

We have already seen chilling evidence of the president’s effort to render government monopolies impervious to criticism. In language all too familiar from previous periods of government expansion, both in this country and in Britain, those who criticize the present stimulus bill have been labeled “partisans standing in the way of relief.” Proponents of limited government are portrayed as enemies of “working families.” They are said to care only about the rich. Meanwhile, the fundamental objection to the mushrooming of wasteful and unresponsive bureaucracies is never addressed.

For his part, the president seems to disallow criticism altogether. His tone of voice has already come to seem a lot less cordial than it was during the campaign. Even in his first weeks in office, his demeanor betrays a note of testiness and severity. In the few months since the election his expression has undergone a transformation from boyish likeability to something like the look of an angry parent. What will it be once the honeymoon is over?

Friedrich Hayek, who was born in 1899, lived a very long time, long enough to witness the collapse of the Soviet Union and of communism in Eastern Europe. Those events were monumental victories, but even with these victories, Hayek must have understood that the collectivist mentality had not yet been put to rest. When he died in 1992, it was still hanging on in a few oppressive communist states, but it was also resurfacing in the most unlikely of places: that is, among the very same nation-state who had spent a half century defeating it.

Hayek once identified the central principle of individualism as “the respect for the individual man qua man.” This respect for varying “views and tastes” and for “individual gifts and bents” can only be preserved in a society committed to personal liberty, and liberty can only be preserved under the condition of limited government. We are now witnessing a massive expansion of government that threatens to rob us not just of our purse but of our liberties. Hayek’s analysis of the Rule of Law in his classic The Road to Serfdom focused on limiting the scope and aims of government. A key point was that the Rule of Law “excludes legislation either directly aimed at particular people or at enabling anybody to use the coercive power of the state for the purpose of such discrimination.”

As Hayek knew, expansive government, which is always ushered in under the compassionate banner of public assistance, always ends in state control. Those who have been paying attention already have a good idea how much of their earnings are to be handed over to the state and how they are to be used, often in contravention of their wishes. Get ready to be told something else: that we must never criticize the state that cares for us and that we must love the state that sustains us. Even as we see our lives regimented and impoverished, we must love the state. Even as we grow hungry, dependent on an ever-diminishing ration of welfare, we must love the state and nothing else. We must love the state with all our heart.

Dr. Jeffrey Folks taught for thirty years in universities in Europe, America, and Japan. He has published nine books and over a hundred articles on American culture and politics in national journals and newspapers. He is currently writing on issues in American literature, media, family, and education.