Party of 1

Some months ago I blogged on a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey, whose libertarian views on the health-care reform issue provoked some efforts at a consumer boycott. At the time, I mentioned that the WSJ editorial board was happy to embrace Mackey — for the moment.  From a “macro” perspective, however, I observed that the very existence of Mackey’s company was problematical from a libertarian perspective. Setting aside the health-care issue, the attitude of the free-market crowd toward the natural-foods phenomenon generally is one of at least mild belittlement, I argued.

Sure enough, Tuesday’s WSJ brings a review of a new offering by Canadian journalist Andrew Potter, entitled The Authenticity Hoax. We learn that “the ever-narrowing search for just the right kind of food has less to do with saving the environment or pursuing a healthy lifestyle than with achieving a certain self-image…. the search for authenticity often ends up as a status-seeking game…. By competing against one another to see who is more authentic, he says, we just become bigger phonies than we were before.” Affluent consumers have fallen prey to a new form of status-seeking in the form of “conspicuous authenticity.” Reviewer Paul Beston of the Manhattan Institute concludes that “Mr. Potter is here to tell us what should be obvious: that there is no paradise back there, that we moderns have never had it so good and that authenticity in the way we’ve defined it is a sham,” although he does allow as that “while much of the authenticity search is absurd, not all of it is so easily separable from the self-criticism that has been foundational to Western success.”

In my opinion, the article reflects not so much on the author or the reviewer as on the editorial board that solicited the review.  The rhetorical pressure exerted by the review is anything but “traditionalist” — no matter that it serves the purposes of this editorial board to pose at times as defenders of “traditional values.” Indeed, the pressure is all in the direction of “hyper-modernism” — you’ve never had it so good, so don’t give a second thought to what might be going on behind the scenes.  As I mentioned some months ago, you might think this would prompt John Mackey to have a second thought or two about his libertarianism. The very existence of his company suggests that there is something wrong with the superabundance of foodstuffs to be found in the supermarkets and supercenters that the market economy has supplied so lavishly. Generally, free-market enthusiasts are unwilling to take the organic-food movement sitting down.

Only the most affluent are able to take much of their time seeking out organic or locally-produced food – and their enthusiasms leave them open to caricature.  Still, our economic system, with its chain stores and mass production, while it confers considerable benefits, also prompts unease.  Some people may alter their purchasing habits out of a consumerist search for “authenticity,” but others may be concerned that, while human biology hasn’t changed radically in the past century or so, what we eat and the way it is produced has changed radically.

In some senses, a more localized agricultural economy with organic methods of production might be better. However, I don’t see how it can come about until and unless the economy as a whole moves in the same direction — which probably will require much higher energy prices. That might be better on the whole, although the transition to it might be wrenching in the extreme….

Momentum appears to be building on behalf of the idea of anti-obesity taxes on sugary sodas. Last week’s New York Times featured a piece on New York State health commissioner Dr. Richard F. Daines, who is outraged by highway billboards promoting “Any Size Soda, One Dollar.” (“Who would go in and order the petite size?… It’s just a signal to consume.”)

Years ago, late-night talk-show hosts and comedians used to joke about it.  Taxes on beer, taxes on cigarettes — what’s next, a tax on Big Macs? I can’t think of a better idea — if what you want to do is incite anti-government “tea party” sentiment and drive away voters of low to moderate incomes. It’s a good illustration of the chasm between suburban professionals and the working-class, blue-collar grassroots. Christopher Lasch, an irascible and eclectic thinker, wrote in his 1991 book, The True and Only Heaven, of suburbanite progressives who “proposed to reduce the deficit not only by cuts in the defense budget but by heavy taxes on tobacco, beer, and hard liquor — the traditional consolations of the working class.”

This situation evokes the image of the boxer who let his guard down, and left himself open to a roundhouse right.  Is obesity a serious problem? Absolutely.  Are the soda companies lobbying aggressively against the proposed taxes? Without a doubt. My suggestion would be that we find another way to address the matter….

Bruce Bartlett, an economist who served briefly in Ronald Reagan’s White House, became disaffected from the policies of George W. Bush, which has caused him to be regarded as something of an apostate on the right.  Writing last week on the website of Forbes magazine, he reminds us that, whatever we might make of the current administration’s economic policies, freedom is more than a matter of government spending as a share of GNP. “Perhaps we are moving toward European levels of taxation and spending. While I would prefer not to live that way, I certainly don’t view those in Scandinavia, where the level of government is twice what it is here, as twice as close to slavery as we are.”

The entire article by Bartlett is well worth reading. I would add that there is good reason to insist that our freedom is, in the first instance, political rather than economic. That may not be easy for many of us to swallow, considering that economics is a preoccupation for almost everyone, whereas many of us are politically passive. Furthermore, the view is widespread that political freedom is nothing but the “freedom” to rob Peter to pay Paul. According to that view, political freedom as it might be exercised by the “have-nots” is something like a criminal conspiracy. Why not then impose an authoritarian regime, for the sake of enforcing fair rules of the economic game as understood by the laissez-faire school of economics? Would we then be more free?

Under an arrangement like that, perhaps the “captains of industry” would be able to go about their business unfettered by government — a prospect that would warm the hearts of the admirers of Miss Rand. The problem would be that the same regime that grants unlimited prerogative to economic actors could also take it away. Without political freedom, no one would be in a position to speak up or do anything about it.

As much seemed to be the view of Hannah Arendt, whom I have discussed on the “About” page of this site. She wrote of the individual who “would be flattered at being called a power-thirsty animal, although actually society would force him to surrender all his natural forces, his virtues and vices, and would make him the poor meek little fellow who has not even the right to rise against tyranny, and who, far from striving for power, submits to any existing government and does not stir even when his best friend falls an innocent victim to an incomprehensible raison d’etat….”

The “tea party” activists think they are getting a raw deal from the media these days.  Fair enough: one, two or a dozen instances of incendiary rhetoric do not necessarily make for a trend.

A more serious vein of criticism is suggested by remarks contained in a Washington Post article from this past Thursday. The piece focused upon Tennessee farmer and Republican Congressional hopeful Stephen Fincher, who “could be a perfect ‘tea party’ candidate: a gospel-singing cotton farmer … seeking to right the listing ship of Washington with a commitment to lower taxes and smaller government.”

There’s just one problem: “Fincher accepts roughly $200,000 in farm subsidies each year.”

One supporter of Fincher sees no problem. “He is for getting the budget balanced. He does not want this health care. He is right in line with the views we are holding true to.” Another says: “I don’t see the agricultural subsidy thing as an issue at all … If it were an issue, then we would never elect a farmer to Congress at all. Because basically, most farmers get agriculture subsidies. If they didn’t, they’d be broke, and we’d be buying our food from China.” In his own defense, the candidate says: “People are quick to say with their mouth full, ‘Well, the American farmer is on the dole.’… But a loaf of bread is two bucks when it could be 10 bucks. I know what it is with the government in my business. We would be all for not having government in our business, but we need a fair system.”

These people represent themselves as tribunes of the oppressed masses, but what they really are, are affulent voters who haven’t thought through the implications of their own libertarianism. They’re not being oppressed. Their opposition to the health-care reform legislation borders on the hysterical. In their own detached and disinterested opinion, they’re overtaxed.

Somewhere in a trailer park, there’s a family with a kid on a respirator, and no health insurance. They’d like a “fair system” in health care, just as Mr. Fincher wants a “fair system” in agriculture.  I wonder whether he is aware that libertarians will belittle the invocation of “fairness” in either case.  What’s good for the goose is good for the gander….

Here’s the “Party of 1″ joke of the day: If you count yourself as a diehard American conservative and defender of “American exceptionalism,” try climbing to the top of an American skyscraper and jumping out the window — and see if you can make yourself an exception to the law of gravity.

That might seem harsh, but I offer it up with reference to the lead article in the March 8 issue of National Review, which came over the electronic transom a few days ago. The piece by Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru is entitled “An Exceptional Debate” — and those familiar with the concept of “American exceptionalism” can anticipate the argument.  The two worthies are concerned to demonstrate that Barack Obama is a threat to this vaunted “exceptionalism.” More broadly, the polemical pressure is in the direction of the view that fealty to “American exceptionalism” absolutely prohibits any social-democratic measures. “Lowry and Ponnuru aim for comprehensiveness, and they maintain a measured, thoughtful tone throughout their essay, marshalling a wide range of historical evidence for their thesis and making well-timed concessions to contrary arguments,” concedes Damon Linker of the University of Pennsylvania in a reply on the New Republic website (I note that Linker formerly was associated with Richard John Neuhaus’s publication, First Things). Readers can try the above links  and peruse both articles for themselves. For the moment, I am going to concern myself in the main with Linker’s reply.

Despite his generous concessions, Linker finds the Lowry/Ponnuru essay to be “either a string of American banalities and clichés—or an abstract of the Republican Party platform.” That’s the point, of course — to equate “Americanism” with one party’s line — and, under current conditions, I suppose you have to hew to the line or else individuals of conservative inclination will come after you with torches and pitchforks, as it were. I wonder what the future holds for political competitiveness in such a country, where the very essence of the country is equated with one side of the partisan divide. You might as well declare a dictatorship for the sake of enforcing unlimited corporate prerogative — not so different from what they have now in Singapore or even in China.

As Linker notes, the invocation of “American exceptionalism” is supposed to serve as an inoculation against any “foreign” or — for heaven’s sake — European infection. With that in mind, it’s most interesting to peruse a “Review & Outlook” feature from last week, from National Review’s fellow travelers, the Wall Street Journal editorial board. It seems that Russian politicians Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin were disappointed in their country’s performance at the recent Winter Olympics. I understand that, in the meantime, several Russian sports bureaucrats have stepped down. The editorial board notes: “This thought runs against centuries of Russian tradition, but why not try to measure Russia’s greatness by its ability to build a free and prosperous country, a good global citizen at peace with its neighbors?” Well, no one should take exception to that, as far as it goes. The board further notes: “The four leading medals winners in Vancouver are free-market democracies.”

Actually, it was five leading medals winners by the time the Games were over: Germany, Canada, Norway and Austria in addition to the United States. I would simply note that for the purposes of this commentary, it suited the editorial board to christen the three European winter-sports powers, not to mention Canada, as “free-market democracies.” But if you pointed out that the other four have more extensive social-democratic measures than the United States, it would suit the purposes of polemicists of this ilk to portray them as quasi-totalitarian. Linder: “Jane Addams, Herbert Croly, New Deal economist Stuart Chase—all of them, and many more, failed to understand and appreciate America’s exceptional character and sought to replace it with ‘the best innovations of the modern dictatorial movements taking over in Europe’ during the 1920s and ‘30s. That’s America for you: Members of the modern conservative movement squared off against the European-inspired liberal fascists, forever searching in desperation for ‘a foreign template to graft onto America.’ If only the latter could be convinced not to hate—let alone to like or love—their country. But alas….”

All those countries are, of course,  “free-market democracies.” They are marked far more by their commonalities with this country than by their differences. All are part of a larger North Atlantic civilization which had its beginnings in Britain and Europe — of which this country basically is an offshoot, and from which all the components of “American exceptionalism” come. As Linker notes, such countries are described as “sclerotic welfare states” in contemporary polemic — but all of them exhibited plenty of innovation and dynamism. That, of course, can be inhibited by social-democratic programs — but these polities arrived at the conclusion that it is indeed possible to have too much of a good thing. Just ask the residents of Flint, Youngstown, or Buffalo.

Linker: Lowry and Ponnuru seek “to relegate contrary voices in our national narrative to the periphery of our history, and perhaps even to read them out of our history altogether.” Indeed, polemic of this genre often comes down to innuendo. In that connection, the March 8 National Review makes interesting reading indeed. It includes a book review by Matthew Scully, former speechwriter for the likes of Bush, Palin, and McCain. It may be regarded as something of a quirk, given his politics, but Scully has become an outspoken opponent of animal cruelty, and his book on the matter, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy, attracted  critical acclaim. Scully nevertheless found himself under attack from one Wesley J. Smith, author of the book under review, A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement. Scully apparently has been lumped in with those who “had ‘fallen for the deception’ of animal-welfare advocacy and ‘its true animal rights ideological agenda” — along with Rush Limbaugh, who, playing against type, offered some kind remarks on the radio about the activities of the Humane Society. In this polemical genre, offenses against the essential verities of Western civilization are never hard to find, and I suppose it could be a sort of just desserts for Scully, who may be  experiencing blowback from the innuendo he might have crafted on the half of the aforementioned Republican politicians. I see that the letters section of the same magazine (difficult if not impossible to find online, apparently) contains an exchange of letters from the authors of dueling books about John Dewey, whose thinking supposedly “rests upon a denial of the first principle of the American founding.”  Not that I have any beef to make on behalf of John Dewey, at least not for present purposes. From my perusal of newspaper editorial pages decades ago, I recall that Russell Kirk didn’t think much of Dewey.

Lowry and Ponnuru want to portray Barack Obama as a threat to “American exceptionalism.” As I have noted elsewhere on this site, such people hold it against the President that he was at one time a community organizer. Somebody who would work to remove asbestos from a housing project full of poor people, they deem a troublemaker. They hold it against him, as Lindner notes, that his allegiance is “to a hypothetical, pure country that is coming into being.” As an Aristotelian, I would say that the Stagirite would have held that all living things are “coming into being,” and that to forestall such a process would be tantamount to killing them.

Indeed, dogged pursuit of the party-line version of “American exceptionalism” may have a deadly effect, not least in the area of health-care reform, which probably occasioned the polemical exchange under consideration herein. Such a dogged pursuit is indeed something like jumping out of the top floor of a skyscraper — although contemporary affluent Americans do not see it that way, because the victims are out of sight and out of mind, in the ghetto, the barrio and the trailer park.

Limbaugh, for his part, declared that poor people do not deserve health care. By so doing, he thought he was upholding the verities of “American exceptionalism,” I suppose. The country will always be exceptional, even if it adopts more social-democratic measures — and, if it does not, we may find that its creed will come to be associated with kicking people while they are down, or rubbing their noses in the dirt. I recall that, at one of the vaunted “town hall meetings,” a senator was confronted by the sort of woman who is sometimes described as “poor white trash,” who was being ruined by her medical expenses. Essentially, his advice to her was to go around to her neighbors with a tin cup in hand. It’s the gorgon’s face of “American exceptionalism….”

“I like Glenn a lot and I think he has something to teach us. But not what he offered last night,” writes Bill Bennett at National Review Online about Glenn Beck’s Saturday night speech to conclude the CPAC conference.

“Analogizing his own struggles with alcohol to the problems of our polity and in our politics, he said, ‘Hello, my name is the Republican party, and I have a problem!’… Glenn has … taken to our politics a cosmologizing of his own deficiencies. This is not a baseless criticism; they are his own deficiencies that he keeps publicly redounding to and analogizing to. It is wrong and he is wrong.”

I’ll say this much for Beck: He’s moved quickly to preempt Austin plane-crasher Joseph Stack from being turned into any kind of hero or martyr.  Conspiricist Alex Jones is not happy….

John Judis on Obama’s remarks comparing bankers’ bonuses to ballplayers’ salaries, at the New Republic website: “If you have ever had an argument about excessive executive salaries with a rich Republican—I can recall one, for instance, with a downtown corporate tax lawyer—he will invariably compare CEO salaries to those that athletes and entertainers make. And here we have a Democratic president using this spurious ploy.”

Richard Norton Smith of George Mason University on Obama, at the Time magazine website: “That he is the third consecutive President to polarize the electorate — the fourth in five if one looks beyond the posthumous regard accorded Ronald Reagan — reveals more about us than about him.”

In the midst of the Washington blizzard, Sally Quinn went for a walk. “I took a two-hour walk through Georgetown. There was hardly a person on the streets, barely a car in sight. I was overcome. For the first time in a long time I actually saw the city I call home. I walked down to the Potomac River, along the path to the Kennedy Center, and out onto the balcony and over to the corner, where there were no human tracks. I stood there for what seemed forever, just absorbing everything around me with all of my senses. My face was cold, the smell was fresh, I touched the snow and put it to my mouth and tasted it. I could hear no sounds….

” … I haven’t often felt like that in Washington. I couldn’t help thinking that this blizzard was, for me at least, not an accident. On some level it was a deliberate moment for all of us to stop and contemplate what our lives are about, what is important, who we want to be. The toxicity, rancor and division we have seen building up recently here were gone, dissipated, purified. The government was shut down, the Congress, too. The religious might say God was calling for a timeout. We needed this.”

Novelist and ideologue Ayn Rand — often referred to by admirers and followers as “Miss Rand” — would have been 105 years old on February 2. This anniversary, and a spike in interest in Miss Rand that has been provoked by opposition to the Obama administration, provided the occasion for a column on Tuesday by Cathy Young. Young is on the masthead at libertarian monthly Reason, so she feels an affinity for Miss Rand’s thinking — up to a point, at least. She correctly recognizes that, for many, Miss Rand represents something of an adolescent phase to be gone through and then left behind — in my experience, there is a fair chance that any American undergraduate who attempts to think seriously about politics will end up going through a “Rand phase.” Young: ” In pure form, Rand’s philosophy would work very well if human beings were never helpless and dependent on others through no fault of their own. Unsurprisingly, many people become infatuated with her philosophy as teenagers only to leave it behind when concerns of family, children, and aging make that fantasy seem more and more implausible.”

Young notes that Miss Rand fought against “the notion that communism was a noble but unrealistic ideal while the free market was a necessary evil.” Careful readers of this site will have noticed that my view is that a necessary evil is precisely what the free market is. To establish that would require more than a few blog posts. Sometimes suggestive illustrations get to the point more quickly than copious argumentation — and, intentionally or not, such suggestions are just what Young has provided in her column, with her exegesis of the turgid novel Atlas Shrugged — a work through which I have never been able to put aside the time to slog.

Young: “… When charity is mentioned in Rand’s fiction, it is nearly always in a negative context. In Atlas Shrugged, a club providing shelter to needy young women is ridiculed for offering help to alcoholics, drug users, and unwed mothers-to-be.

“Family fares even worse in Rand’s universe. In her 1964 Playboy interview Rand flatly declared that it was “immoral” to place family ties and friendship above productive work; in her fiction, family life is depicted as a stifling swamp.

“Rand’s detractors have often branded her a fascist. The label is unfair, but her work does have shades of a totalitarian or dictatorial mentality….

“Particularly troubling is a passage in Atlas Shrugged in which bureaucratic incompetence and arrogance lead to a deadly train wreck. Rand sarcastically notes that many people would regard the dead passengers as innocent victims of a tragedy and then, in a series of brief character sketches, endeavors to show that they were far from innocent: All had benefited from evil government programs, promoted evil political or philosophical ideas, or both. Especially chilling is Rand’s casual mention of the fact that one of these evildoers, a bureaucrat’s wife, is traveling with her three young children.

“Rand does not advocate these people’s murder (though she is sympathetic to a trainmaster who chooses not to avert the disaster, partly in revenge against the regulators). Yet she clearly suggests that they had it coming. Both in Atlas Shrugged and in Rand’s nonfiction essays, political and ideological debates are treated as wars with no innocent bystanders.

” … Unfortunately, her extremism limits her value as a messenger, and our current intellectual climate makes it likely that many of her new admirers will adopt not her best traits but her worst: intolerance, paranoia, and dehumanization of the enemy.”