I guess they’ve just decided to go The Full Orwell and no longer bother to pretend – from The Nation:
…We must develop an argument that the market is a source of constraint and government an instrument of freedom. Without a strong government hand in the economy, men and women are at the mercy of their employer, who has the power to determine not only their wages, benefits and hours but also their lives and those of their families, on and off the job…
The lack of comprehension expressed in those two sentences would be astounding except for the fact that it is just the same argument the left has been using for well more than a century now. Faced with the problem of what to do with a small group of plutocrats their solution is to set up a small group of autocrats, instead. Decrying the power of some over the lives of others, they seek merely to replace one group with another with never a thought that, just perhaps, the solution is to have no one in charge. They don’t understand that you can’t make freedom – you can only leave things be, and thus have freedom.
Curiously enough, it was Barack Obama who demonstrated the problem the left has. Once upon a time, in discussing our Constitution, he opined that it was flawed because all it had was “negative rights” – it forbade government to do this, that or the other thing. To fix it up, we need a Constitution with “positive rights” – for government to be able to compel this, that or the other outcome. There is no comprehension of the fact that if you’re trying to rescue me from a Capitalist who is compelling me to work for less than my full worth, the solution will not be found in some other entity compelling me in a different direction.
There are certain requirements for a just and free market. A free market is just that – free for any to enter whenever they wish on any terms they like. A just market is one where no one loses because someone else managed to gain an unfair advantage via law and regulation. As far as possible consistent with essential safety and with full respect for the rights of others, a free market is a place where people come and go as they please and do what they like.
It is wrong to have gargantuan corporations which can distort the market and make it difficult or impossible for someone to enter and complete. But it is more wrong to have a gargantuan government deciding who can enter, when and under what terms. The corporations, even the most powerful, cannot compel me at risk of life and limb to do their bidding – government can. I can be entirely relieved of Wal Mart by the simple expedient of not shopping there – but where am I to go to get relief from the Internal Revenue Service? So vast is the difference between the power of a corporation and the power of government that it ceases to be a difference of degree and becomes a difference in kind.
In a certain sense, it is touching to see this liberal faith still on display. Undaunted by logic, unwilling to face facts, impervious to the experience of the past century, our liberals are still determined that they can take the heavy club of government and turn it in to a magic wand of peace, freedom and prosperity. All we have to do is give them more and more power and they’ll eventually fix everything up for us – they’ll tell us how to be free and have a law, regulation and tax ready for every possible contingency to ensure we never escape the straight jacket of liberal freedom. We will be forced in to a mold, turned in to what is good and we will one day cry in unison, “we are free”. Such is the liberal dream.
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