If you are looking for a single statement that defines the essence of the modern welfare state, look no further than Secretary of Energy Steven Chu’s defense of the administration’s efforts to ban incandescent light bulbs. “We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money,” Chu said, quite satisfied with government’s efforts to protect Americans from their own choices.
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Contrast this with Milton Friedman’s view that
those of us who believe in freedom must believe also in the freedom of individuals to make their own mistakes. If a man knowingly prefers to live for today, to use his resources for current enjoyment, deliberately choosing a penurious old age, by what right do we prevent him from doing so? We may argue with him, seek to persuade him that he is wrong, but are we entitled to use coercion to prevent him from doing what he chooses to do? Is there not always the possibility that he is right and we are wrong? Humility is the distinguishing characteristic of the believer in freedom, arrogance of the paternalist.
For too long, both liberals and too many conservatives have attempted to impose on people the government’s standards of what is best for them rather than leaving them to their own decisions, merely because those decisions may be mistaken. That is the real legacy of the welfare state as expanded by President Obama and as it has been practiced on a bipartisan basis for the last half century or more: We are, quite simply, less free.
In some cases, the restrictions on liberty are tangible and easily seen. As the economy becomes more and more socialized, so too do the consequences of individuals’ behavior. This, in turn, creates an incentive for the state to control that behavior. After all, if individual decisions impose a collective cost, it is only rational for those bearing that cost to demand input on those decisions. Thus, the nanny state seeks to restrict all manner of private consensual activity, whether it is eating fast foods and smoking or having consensual sex or driving without a seat belt.
But there are other equally important, if less obvious, ways that the welfare state restricts liberty. Government-run health-care systems, for example, impose a minimum amount that you must spend on health care, either through taxes or through insurance mandates, as with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. They determine which medical conditions and eventualities you must insure against, even if you would prefer not to cover such conditions. Thus, they turn individual moral decisions, such as whether to buy insurance that covers abortion, contraception, or drug-abuse treatment, into political questions. And in some government-run systems they deny people the right to purchase the health care they want even with their own money.
By the same token, government-run anti-poverty programs limit your ability to support the charity of your choice. Money you pay in taxes to support government charity is money that you cannot donate to private charity. Yet the charitable activities chosen by the government may not be the ones that you would have chosen, or even the ones most needed. Indeed, the government’s charitable decisions are likely to be driven by politics, favoring those constituencies with the greatest voting power or those causes that capture the public imagination because they are on television or in the newspapers.
Government-run schools automatically pit the values of one group of parents against the values of other groups. How many textbook controversies or debates about what to teach about homosexuality, whether students may pray, or phonics versus whole language could be avoided if parents could choose the school their child attended?
Amen. The chief problem with statism is its immorality, especially in its depriving people of the ability to exercise their God-given freedom. Everything else -- the inefficiencies and market distortions, the perverse incentives that subsidize irresponsible behavior while punishing responsible behavior, the culture of dependency and resentment, and the inevitable fiscal crisis -- EVERYTHING ELSE is just the awful consequences.
The moral bankruptcy of the Leviathan state precedes the financial bankruptcy, chronologically and logically: big government would still be immoral even if it wasn't a complete fiasco.
For that reason, we should never concede the moral high ground on this issue, as if our opponents are moral but merely misguided.
You don't go far enough, Lawrence. The God-given freedom to do what? To exercise our free will. Our free will to do what? To choose right over wrong and good over evil. This freedom to choose right over wrong is precisely what the nanny state takes away from us. Like exercising a muscle, when we don't exercise our ability to choose right over wrong, that ability atrophies. That's the real danger inherent in statism.
This addresses the philosophical argument of Ayn Rand. _In addition_, there is the practical argument that even if government actors have perfect knowledge of what was good for us, they still cannot perfectly implement it.
As Groucho Marx said:"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." Only rarely (and by mistake) does this turn out good.
Excellent piece, and it expresses several of the reasons I wish to see the federal welfare apparatus completely dismantled.
It is likely each of us has witnessed someone wish out loud for a benevolent dictator to set aright the real or perceived ills of the moment. Whether caused by momentary desperation or moral cowardice, such impulses should be discouraged.
Dictatorship of any stripe is immoral, as aptly noted by commenter Lawrence. In the case of "benevolent dictatorship", the dictatorship part invariably persists much longer than any perceived benevolence.
Our current government, brought on by both the Right and Left is much like the “hover parents” of today. By attempting to control and influence each decision in a child’s life, that child is left with no individual constitution or thought pattern. He has become a model citizen, but not by his own accord, and when he leaves his home he becomes nothing but a wage slave, lacking in creativity and personal initiative.
This is the goal of Big Government, to coddle from cradle to grave so that we may become perfectly harmonious in our actions. The very real consequences of this are numerous with the worst being a loss of individual creativity and initiative. There is no longer an incentive to strive for greater wealth, happiness, or freedom. We simply become drones in the bee hive receiving whatever is deemed necessary by our leaders.
Without individual initiative and creativity this country will be doomed to relinquishing our presence on an international level. We will no longer be the leaders of the free world, but will instead be put off to the side as the BRICs take their place atop the international hierarchy. I pray we have the courage to combat complacency and instill personal responsibility in the coming generation.
Pratt,
I am not saying that parents do not have the right to raise their children in any fashion that they deem necessary. I am saying that the government has become like those most radical parents that believe they must be by their child's side at every moment of their life making each of their daily decisions.
Instead of providing apt instruction and guidance patents/government have decided that they need to make every decision for their charges. I believe that with proper instruction and guidance a child/populace will be able to make the proper decisions for itself based upon the constitutions its parents/government instilled in it. Individual liberty to choose is the foundation of this country, not an ideology of we will make every decision for you, down to what you eat. External Link
Thank you Michael for an excellent article. Freedom is the end, not just the means to something. Sure, freedom leads to more, and more widely and fairly distributed, properity than does "benevolent" dictatorship (which is an oxymoron). But I don't care. I would choose freedom either way.
I wish that the freedom to make one's own decisions were seen as a form of diversity, and legally protected. I don't want to be like everyone else, and squander the opportunity to be me. I regret most the lost opportunities for innovation that children now miss, through being indoctrinated rather than taught how to think for themselves.
Great article, Michael. One point of disagreement though:
“Once paternalism is accepted in principle, there is no limit to the actions that government may take in controlling our lives and restricting liberty.”
Consult brother Jonah. It’s “maternalism” that is the problem. It’s a nanny state, not a pappy state that we are growing. But that’s just a friendly quibble.
This is why I've often thought that the mantra "fiscal conservative but social liberal" is impossible.
Without the kind of internal restraints that social conservatives' defense of traditional morality is designed to protect against a government that increasingly weighs in against it, people tend to become less capable of self-government.
The prescriptions of the God of Abraham overlap to a considerable extent with those of the Gods of the Copybook Headings. Unless they're rich enough to afford insulation from life-destructive choices (like the fiscally-conservative, socially-liberal country-club Republican who dislikes high taxes, and judgment of his relationship with his secretary, in roughly equal measures), disregard of time-proven internal standards results in large numbers of people making a hash of their lives.
This creates all kinds of photogenic misery, which in turn leads to irresistible public pressure for government to Do Something. The ultimate end of this unlimited dynamic is the end of limited government.
Without widespread personal loyalty to an unenforceable moral law, no government can possibly enforce enough laws to properly protect people from each other and themselves. No government will ever be able to raise enough money to backstop an amoral population's determination to self-destruct. Overregulation and paternalistic programs are the trademarks of a society that has given up on the ideal of independent republican virtue.
Montesquieu got this:
"There is no great share of probity necessary to support a monarchical or despotic government. The force of laws in one, and the prince's arm in the other, are sufficient to direct and maintain the whole. But in a popular state, one spring more is necessary, namely, virtue."
This comment from the article shows that what seems to be "paternalism" (Mr. Tanner's word) is actually exploitation:
... Secretary of Energy Steven Chu’s defense of the administration’s efforts to ban incandescent light bulbs [was] “We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money."
[End quote]
Perople choose to continue to use incandescent bulbs because they like the bulbs' cheaper price, safety, and light quality. That's a rational decision.
Incandescent bulbs are being made illegal to assure that manufacturers have the money to close down US bulb factories and replace them with factories in China. The public is being gouged by much higher bulb prices to pay for a reduction in jobs.
Green laws and rules are often a cover for more damaging ideas.
Choices will have to be limited sometimes, despite the Libertarian chaotic strain that exists here at NRO.
Abortion is defined by some as a choice, but is really empowered life snuffing out vulnerable life, usually through pressure applied to vulnerable young women caught in the middle. Libertarians by and large support "choice" and reflexively support death in the womb because of that; conservatives support government intervention against that "choice", and rightly so.
There will be limits on freedom, including the freedom to live, whatever decisions society makes. You only get to choose which limitations to live with.
You think that's a zinger? There are quite a few libertarian types who happen to agree with that, myself included.
Even if we didn't, however, it hardly stacks up to the intrusiveness described in the article.
Unfortunately, WG, even though it goes against the fairy tales liberals tell each other, it's the Left who wants to control far more of your personal life than the Right does. I know your head will explode if you ever let yourself think that way, but it's nonetheless true.
Not only is paternalistic/progressive/nanny-state gov't deadly in multiple ways, in the US it's illegal, at least at the Federal level. The states are free to impose on themselves any paternalistic idiocy they're stupid enough to embrace. However according to the Constitution the Feds are limited to only a few functions. The rest is left to the States and to the people. The fact that the wicked and lazy sovereign of this nation, We the People, have allowed and encouraged our legislators, execs, and justices to grossly violate this for decades doesn't change the Constitution. It still says what it says. So many assume that, if the SCOTUS says it's Constitutional, it must be Constitutional. Reality check: this is the same SCOTUS 5/9ths of which claim that the Constitution says every state is forced to allow every mother to have her unborn baby killed up until he's fully born. We the People shouldn't have confidence in that SCOTUS to interpret a grocery list, let alone the Constitution.
This gross disregard for the plain text of the Constitution is doing massive damage to the economy of the Republic. Eventually this will substantially degrade the ability of the military to defend this nation. Given that the Constitution is being grossly violated by vast swathes of Fed bureaucrazies, and given that the officers of the military take an oath to defend the Constitution, at some point will they decide enough's enough?
