Sunday, January 04, 2009

State Power Is An End In Itself.

The New Deal is usually presented as having been a roaring success that saved America and the world fro the Great Depression. This is the opposite of reality so when liberals and leftists acknowledge that it was ineffective I don't want to be too harsh on them because this realisation is rare. Even so what sense can be made of someone who realises that FDR's statism was a failure but who supports it anyway on the grounds that:
FDR's achievements have always been as much political as economic. What the 32nd president did was to shift the 20th-century paradigm from neoliberal let-alone to state intervention. He convinced the American people that society as a whole, operating through the federal government, must and could protect itself against the impersonal and amoral vagaries of the market.
So untrammeled state power is an end in itself, not simply a means to security or prosperity.

2 comments:

James Higham said...

It is an end to itself - the endless inwards grabbing of the reins of power.

North Northwester said...

He goes on to write:
"And while it is questionable whether the British economy really needs more state intervention, in the face of City greed and Tory laissez-faire, Roosevelt's inspiring advocacy of effective government deserves to be heard again."

So, let's do the stupid thing because it makes us feel good? And these stupes think we're too daft to order our own lives, so they step in to save us?

Ross, another nail, another head.