“Statism”, Again
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So I’ve criticized the overeager use of the “S”-word before, and certainly shouldn’t have gone in for it so quickly last night. That said, I still don’t agree with Lee:
… what many people–not just those naive youngsters–conclude is that the market does not, left to its own devices, magically solve our “complex economic problems.” What exactly is the “free market” solution to the fact that tens of millions of Americans lack health insurance? Or to environmental problems? Or to ensuring an adequate education for all kids? Funny how Microsoft and Cisco haven’t taken care of all this. Would these companies pick up the slack if we axed what Healy calls our “wealth-destroying Social Security system”?
Conservatives and libertarians are, of course, free to propose solutions to these problems that are more in keeping with their philosophy, but what they mostly do is deny that they are problems and/or that government has any role in addressing them. Liberals, progressives, social democrats, and others, by contrast, see a role for government in stepping into the gaps left by the market. If that’s statism, I’m happy to be counted among the statists.
As I’ve remarked before, though, this way of putting things also obscures more than it clarifies, since there are very few serious participants in our political debates who really think that there are no problems that government has a role in addressing. Hence the claim that taking such a position is what conservatives and libertarians “mostly do” strikes me as a caricature no more helpful than that suggested by talk of “statism”: the real debates are over what, in each instance that seems to call for a role for government, the appropriate role will be. And when it comes to such questions the differing inclinations of conservatives and libertarians on the one hand and progressives and social democrats on the other manage to underwrite substantive political debates like those concerning, say, cap and trade vs. straightforward carbon taxes, supply- vs. demand-side approaches to economic stimulus, and health care vouchers and health savings accounts vs. public options or single-payer systems. (And yes, there are also positions worth entertaining that reject carbon rationing, stimulus packages, or – much less reasonably, I think – federally-driven healthcare reform altogether.) It’s certainly unfair to peg all supporters of Obamacare or Social Security as closet Soviets, but it’s no more helpful to regard everyone on the other side as a believer in “magic” and an inflexible ideologue.
That said, some of these unhelpful labels are brought on by precisely the sort of rhetoric that Lee is criticizing Gene Healy for adopting. That Reagan line about government being the problem rather than the solution has got a lot of charm, and in many cases it’s pretty clearly right: but it isn’t always right, and indeed Reagan himself limited that diagnosis to the circumstances of the “present crisis”. And while Healy may be right to lament the preponderance of younger voters choosing “strong government” over “the free market” as the force best suited to handle “today’s complex economic problems”, it seems that the better response is simply to reject this false dichotomy altogether: for one of the greatest strengths of a truly strong government will lie in its willingness to be a guarantor of market freedoms, and not a competitor to them. Same goes for the millennial generation’s “romantic view of federal activism”, which conservatives and libertarians would do well not to replace with their own ultra-idealized vision of utter federal passivity. Support for menu labeling laws and government supervision of yoga instructors is pretty good evidence of the kind of inclination for which talk of statism may be appropriate, but those of us on the other side would do well not to devolve into self-caricatures of our own.
P.S. In a similar vein, see Conor.
Filed under: conservatism, libertarianism, politics
I take your general point, but when it comes to healthcare the vast, vast majority of all healthcare commentary from conservatives and libertarians is really quite odd.
As near as I can tell, there are three camps:
The first is the “free market” approach. Its the “let sick people die .” Or said another way “only let people obtain healthcare if they can afford it.” If you can afford to buy something, then you can buy it if you want. If you can’t, then you are out of luck.
That’s a straightforward argument. It’s sensible one to, even though I strongly disagree with it.
The second is the “for universal healthcare but government” approach. Here the conservative argues that she thinks everyone is entitled to a basic level of care but they don’t favor major government intervention of any kind. As near as I can tell, they don’t favor the government doing anything to ensure people obtain healthcare. Which begs the question: how do sick people afford healthcare without massive government intervention? I have not heard one persuasive argument from conservatives that would 1) have little to no role for government and 2) ensure universal access to healthcare. Usually, the terms “pre-existing condition” and rescission are completely absent from these arguments.
The third argument is the “for universal healthcare but cost” approach. This is a slightly different tact, usually taken by fiscal conservatives. Megan McCardle epitomizes this line of argument. Look, they, say we are for universal healthcare but we can’t afford it. It will create structural deficits that’ll bankrupt our country. We need to cut back our public healthcare programs to the poor and the elderly. In other words, we need to let sick people die and/or live in excruciating pain in order to balance our check book. This line of argument has the veneer of respectability but its pretty odd when examined closely.
The current status quo is already financially ruinous. The structural deficit is already going to bankrupt the country. And any reforms that would bend the cost curve on healthcare are just as unpopular and fraught with special interests as reforming healthcare at all. The McCardle’s of the world never answer how they’d actually implement cost cutting. People will mobilize for universal healthcare, special interests will mobilize to protect their profits, but who mobilizes to take away healthcare from grandma and grandpa? And more to the point, why must we let the sick, the elderly, and the poor suffer and die because entrenched special interests and free market ideologues make change more difficult then it needs to be? Said another way, we could balance our check books and extend universal healthcare but we’d have to cut into the profit margins of doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and insurers.
Ultimatley, I think universal healthcare and massive government intervention go hand and hand. You can’t have one without the other. The less government you have the more sick people will die because they can’t afford the medicine and medical services they need. I understand the anti-universal healthcare pro-sick people dying argument. But I am completely perplexed by those that argue for universal healthcare on the one hand and argue against government intervention on the other.
Or said another way:
How do you ensure everyone has access to affordable healthcare regardless of age, income, and health without having a massive government intervention?
Tax credits.
Uh, tax credits are a significant part of what’s distorting the current market. You do it with vouchers.
(Well I guess properly structured credits can amount to almost the same thing, but not everyone files for taxes.)
I agree with all of this as far as it goes. You’re right to distrust making broad statements about the rhetoric of ideologies. But I do think that it is accurate to say that conservatives and libertarians are far more likely to use sweeping statements about government failure than liberals are to make about government success. I literally don’t know a single liberal or progressive who doesn’t take pains to say that there are many things that government shouldn’t attempt to do or that government does poorly. But I have encountered many conservatives, and I’m sure you have as well, who are happy to say that government is always the problem. I think the history of the ideologies, and their relative political strengths over a broad swath of American history, are responsible for this division.
Tax credits.
Tax credits don’t work if your health care costs exceed the entirety of your federal tax burden, which wouldn’t be remarkable for people in the bottom third of the income ladder.
Fine, then vouchers; I was treating them as structurally equivalent. And obviously I didn’t have in mind anything like the present system of tax subsidies, but rather the sort of thing that McCain had proposed or that’s in the Wyden-Bennett bill.
Yes, they are happy to say that, but then – as you’ll gladly point out! – their actions contradict it, since they support the surveillance state and a militaristic foreign policy and wouldn’t, when push came to shove, actually be in favor of having the federal government eliminated altogether. It’s stupidly tough talk that doesn’t map onto actual political convictions.
Refundable ones do.
I’ve heard very few liberals say that there are things the government is not competent to regulate, with the notable exception of moral laws. And even those are usually not based on competence, but rather that these are liberties that should not be infringed on. The myths of government omnicompetence and popular accountability are entrenched so deeply in the American psyche that conservatives often end up overreaching in their futile efforts to push back the creeping mass of the regulatory bureaucracy. And then you have the libertarians, who are wed to an ideology that permits no nuance (this affects many conservatives too).
The myths of government omnicompetence and popular accountability are entrenched so deeply in the American psyche that conservatives often end up overreaching in their futile efforts to push back the creeping mass of the regulatory bureaucracy.
I’ve been blinking mutely at my computer for several minutes, trying to comprehend such an awesomely incorrect sentence.
[...] 22, 2009 by Lee John makes some fair points in his response to this post. In particular, I probably did paint with too broad a brush in characterizing [...]
[...] a somewhat related note, see also: John Schwenkler on “statism,” and Conor Friedersdorf at The Daily [...]
there are very few serious participants in our political debates who really think that there are no problems that government has a role in addressing
Why wouldn’t this be the case? If we are talking about the US government, its role is clearly defined by the Constitution. There’s an amendment in there that also says when the role of the fed is not clearly defined by said document, it is the role of the states to write laws.
This gets to the heart of “statism.” We have our guidance for what roles the federal government should play, but there are millions of people who don’t care about this guidance, and want to expand the role of the fed regarless of precedent. They are statists. Now, if they were able to gin up enough public support to get their intented goals written into the government charter, there would be no reason to complain.
The
hypocriticalright does overuse this term – if they had any credibility, they would look at their own abuses of the Constitution over the past 200 years and label themselves as statists. Additionally, it’s hard to argue against statism when the feds are clearly allowed to a) regulate interstate commerce, and b) tax stuff, just to name a few things our government charter allows them to do.As to Freddie’s statement:
I literally don’t know a single liberal or progressive who doesn’t take pains to say that there are many things that government shouldn’t attempt to do or that government does poorly
Your boy in the White House doesn’t seem to be taking pains to say that government has completely biffed Medicare, while lobbying for more government spending and intervention in medical care. Please explain.