Tuesday David Brooks produced yet another big think train wreck. He argued that the Obama administration was wrong to think that lessons from the great Depression were applicable to the present day because people trusted government during the days of FDR. Now 64% believe government is the biggest threat to the country; only 26%, according to Brooks believe big business is the biggest threat. Brooks also argued that analogies to the progressive era are inappropriate because the market is no longer a jobs machine (how true) and the country currently lives with libertarian values instead of Victorian values. Aside from some wholly unsupported and non-specific calls for stripping “away decaying structures “ and reforming the welfare state, Brooks’ solution is to restore conservative values.
I am prepared to accept that the balance between libertarian and conservative values is too weighted in favor of the individualist libertarian. But Brooks has no account of how the libertarian culture is to be combatted. Is “untrustworthy” government to play a role? Even more significant, is this Brooks’ solution to the problem of the economy, the subject with which he started the column? Even assuming the libertarian culture can be transformed, will this turn the economy into a jobs machine?
It is precisely because the economy is no longer a jobs machine that government must be looked to as the employer of last resort. To the extent it is not, it is an exercise of moral leprosy not to support those left behind. One of the great failures of the Obama presidency is to play the role of the great compromiser instead of fighting for the political minds and hearts of the American people. The Republicans have been given an almost free ideological ride until very recently. Their cynical idolizing of the “free” market and their support of imaginary “job creators” (as a mask for naked greed) needed to be combatted throughout the Obama administration – not just when elections have drawn near.
Of course, there are grounds to fear Obama’s government. In this election cycle, according to today’s Wall Street Journal, Obama and the Democratic National Committee will raise somewhere between $700 million to $1 billion. As in the campaign against McCain, most of that money will come from large donors. When asked whether we fear government or big business more, it is fair to respond that it is hard to see the difference.
The Democrats and the Republicans support big business in different ways. Obama, contrary to the Republicans, is arguing that the creation of jobs by government support of infrastructure and in generous support of education is necessary to support a thriving economy. What is good for business is not always bad for the country. Even though both parties are captured by big money, there is still more than a dime's worth of difference between the two parties.
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