Liberals And Austerity - Road to the Middle Class

WHEN I WAS a lad in 1950s Britain, the adults used to talk about “austerity.” This, I learned, was the period right after World War II. But what did it mean? I could never quite grasp what was so austere about those years. There was food rationing, of course, and that meant that my parents kept chickens in the back garden. It meant that we were careful to spread the butter on bread very thinly. Then there was the Winter of 1947. It was cold enough to get its own Wikipedia entry.

Now I finally understand. “Austerity” means that the technocratic statists have goofed and that some government benefits may possibly dip in the near future.

That must be what “austerity” means because we have liberals like Robert Reich warning urgently against copying the European austerity here in the United States. It is one thing, apparently, to copy European social democratic programs in good times, but another thing altogether to copy the Euro chappies when sovereign debt default is just around the corner.

But “austerity” is still pretty confusing. The victorious Popular Party in Spain is said to have a “strong mandate to push through further austerity measures” and avoid being “engulfed by the sovereign debt crisis.” But apparently the reason the Spanish voters are chucking out the Socialists is that “many are angry with the Socialists for allowing the economy to deteriorate and then for introducing tough austerity measures.” The voters are retired the austerity Socialists to give the Popular Party a mandate for austerity?

As the US rumbles around the bend heading for its own Rendezvous with Default Destiny, sometimes I wonder about the Democrats like Robert Reich, who seem to think that the whole thing can be solved if only the rich contribute a little more. But then I remember that there is a method to their madness.

The dirty little secret is that any “austerity” is going to disproportionately affect Democrats. All those lovely social programs, those crony capitalist subsidies? They benefit Democrats.

Look at the Tea Party Budget, which cuts a manly $9.7 trillion from the federal budget in 10 years, from 24 percent of GDP to 16 percent.

The Tea Party cuts hit nothing but Democratic sacred cows. Eliminate the Departments of Education and Energy. Cut EPA by 50 percent. Eliminate HUD. Eliminate ethanol and “unproven energy technology subsidies.” Oh, and eliminate “business and economic development subsidies.” That’ll really hit those famous Republican fat-cat CEOs!

Of course Democrats are raging against “austerity.” If we cut health care, the middle class will just suck it in a bit. If we cut education, the middle class will just shrug and pay a little more. But Democrats are all traditionally marginalized folks who are living on fixed incomes. Why if we cut spending on the backs of Democrats we will... Well, we will increase inequality.

Yes, Democrats apparently think they have changed the conversation since President Obama went all class-warfare on us. Says a Democratic aide via Hugh Hewitt:

The worm has turned a little bit. The national conversation now is about income inequality and about jobs, and it’s not really about cutting the size of government anymore or cutting spending.

There it is, that famous “national conversation” again. Last time I checked my political dictionary “national conversation” meant the latest talking point that Democrats are trying to ram down our throats.

Here’s what’s really happening. The Democrats can’t win by doing a pragmatic deal on spending or a down payment on entitlements on the Supercommittee, something that would really help their supporters, long term. They can’t do it because any deal will gore Democratic oxen in the here and now and demoralize or even inflame the base. Bang goes the election in 2012.

So instead they are doing another Bob Schrum special, “fighting for the People against the Powerful” and writing solemn articles about inequality. Here’s Ezra Klein’s effort: “Ryan’s Inequality Plan Means Inequality.”

The whole idea of the welfare state is to provide the little people with a little protection, a safety net, against the major austerities of life, old age, health care, educating the kids. You’d think a party that cared about the little guy would be saying: Wow, things are going to be really tough for the next few years. We’ve got to do what we can to make sure that the little guy is protected. We should ease up on the nice-to-haves like really fast trains and green energy. Why, we could even let the odd oil pipeline get built and turn a blind eye to the occasional horizontal fracking between consenting adults. Instead the Dems have hit the nitro on the Class Warfare Special.

My guess is that we are just weeks from the moment when every tyro realizes what the best strategic minds already know: that Obama’s class warfare strategy is going to make things worse -- for Democrats.

In the aftermath they won’t be whining about “austerity.”

Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

China and Christianity

At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches… they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Civil Society

“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust

Class War

In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status... Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher... The academics lost their power and prestige and... have been gloomy ever since.
Freeman Dyson, “The Scientist as Rebel”

Conservatism

Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

Conservatism's Holy Grail

What distinguishes true Conservatism from the rest, and from the Blair project, is the belief in more personal freedom and more market freedom, along with less state intervention... The true Third Way is the Holy Grail of Tory politics today - compassion and community without compulsion.
Minette Marrin, The Daily Telegraph

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Drang nach Osten

There was nothing new about the Frankish drive to the east... [let] us recall that the continuance of their rule depended upon regular, successful, predatory warfare.
Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

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