Mark Steyn, writing for the Canadian magazine Macleans, sums up my frustrations about the out-of-control spending habits of our (and many other) governments, and the welfare state they’ve created. Here’s an excerpt.
We’re too broke to be this stupid
It no longer matters whether you’re intellectually in favour of European-style social democracy: simply as a practical matter, it’s unaffordable.
… In any advanced society, there will be a certain number of dysfunctional citizens either unable or unwilling to do what is necessary to support themselves and their dependents. What to do about such people? Ignore the problem? Attempt to fix it? The former nags at the liberal guilt complex, while the latter is way too much like hard work: the modern progressive has no urge to emulate those Victorian social reformers who tramped the streets of English provincial cities looking for fallen women to rescue. All he wants to do is ensure that the fallen women don’t fall anywhere near him.
So the easiest “solution” to the problem is to throw public money at it. … since the Second World War, the hard-working middle classes have transferred historically unprecedented amounts of money to the unproductive sector in order not to have to think about it. But so what? We were rich enough that we could afford to be stupid.
That works for a while. In the economic expansion of the late 20th century, citizens of Western democracies paid more in taxes but lived better than their parents and grandparents. They weren’t exactly rich, but they got richer. They also got more stupid. When William Beveridge laid out his blueprint for the modern British welfare state in 1942, his goal was the “abolition of want.” Sir William and his colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic succeeded beyond their wildest dreams: to be “poor” in the 21st-century West is not to be hungry and emaciated but to be obese, with your kids suffering from childhood diabetes. When Michelle Obama turned up to serve food at a soup kitchen, its poverty-stricken clientele snapped pictures of her with their cellphones. In one-sixth of British households, not a single family member works. They are not so much without employment as without need of it. At a certain level, your hard-working bourgeois understands that the bulk of his contribution to the treasury is entirely wasted. It’s one of the basic rules of life: if you reward bad behaviour, you get more of it. But, in good and good-ish times, who cares?
. . .
In his book The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism (La tyrannie de la pénitence), the French writer Pascal Bruckner concludes by quoting Louis Bourdaloue, the celebrated Jesuit priest at the court of Louis XIV, who preached on the four kinds of conscience: 1) the good and peaceful; 2) the good and troubled; 3) the bad and troubled; 4) the bad and peaceful. The first is to be found in Heaven, the second in Purgatory, the third in Hell, and the fourth — the bad but peaceful conscience — sounds awfully like the prevailing condition of the West at twilight. We are remorseful to a fault—indeed, to others’ faults.
It’s not just long-ago sins like imperialism and colonialism and Eurocentric white male patriarchy and other fancies barely within living memory. Our very lifestyle demands penitence: Americans have easily accessible oil reserves, but it would be wrong to touch them, so poor old BP have to do the “environmentally responsible” thing and be out in the middle of the Gulf a mile underwater. If you’re rich enough to be that stupid, what won’t you subsidize? The top al-Qaeda recruiter in Britain, Abu Qatada, had 150,000 pounds in his bank account courtesy of the taxpayer before the comically misnamed Department for Work and Pensions decided to cut back his benefits.
The green jobs, the gay parades, the jihadist welfare queens, the Greek public sector unions, all have to be paid for by a shrinking base of contributing workers whose children and grandchildren will lead poorer and meaner lives because of the fecklessness of government. The social compact of the postwar era cannot hold. Across the developed world, a beleaguered middle class is beginning to understand that it’s no longer that rich. At some point, it will look at the sheer waste of government spending, the other shoe will drop, and it will decide that it no longer wishes to be that stupid.
There’s more at the link.
Word, Mr. Steyn.
Peter
Interesting times, indeed.
Jim
"the gay parades… all have to be paid for by a shrinking base of contributing workers"
Gays are not contributing workers, and gay parades are an economic burden?
Sigh.
Wayne, that's selective quotation, I'm afraid. What Steyn is saying is that all those unnecessary expenses that are paid for out of the public purse are becoming an impossible burden. As such, he believes (and I agree) that eventually taxpayers will start to revolt against paying for them. If "green jobs … gay parades … jihadist welfare queens … Greek public sector unions" and other such things are to be paid for, let them be paid for out of the pockets of those interested in such causes, rather than by taxpayers.
With that sentiment, I fully agree, just as I agree that things like art galleries, etc. should not be funded by taxpayers. If it's not an essential interest of government, why is government paying for it? Let it sink or swim, financially speaking, on its own.
I would imagine, then, that the responsible thing to do with the vast majority of state and national parklands, forests, wildlife preserves, etc. would be to sell it off to private investors who'll use it in a more profitable manner?
Just playing the devil's advocate here.
Peter, I agree with every libertarian thing the writer–and you–said. However, it seems unlikely that the writer added "gay parades" because it is a particular terrible example of public spending. Why did the writer not mention, for example, bank bailouts, which are not just an elephant in the room, but a whole herd of them. The money that a gay parade costs a city is piddling. No, I'm certain that the writer mentioned gay parades because he's a conservative.
There's nothing wrong with a conservative being a conservative, except when he gets conservative values mixed up with libertarian values. It is a tactical mistake to do so in writing meant to promote libertarian thinking, because no small fraction of potential libertarians are not conservative.
Actually, Chris, you may not be far off the point there. I'd argue strongly that in the US system of government, there should be no national parks or reserves as such. I see these as being in the domain of the States rather than the federal government. Surely it's for the citizens of a State to determine what they want preserved from development, and what they want to use for their economic benefit?
As things stand at present, many of the younger States have vast swathes of their territory belonging to the Federal Government, over which they have no say at all. Much of that land has been tied up in 'reserves' of dubious value (although some is well preserved, of course). I'd think it more democratic to return all unused Federal land to the States, for them to dispose of it according to local priorities.
Yes, this might mean smaller and/or fewer nature reserves, etc. On the other hand, why is the Federal Government paying out billions every year to manage nature reserves? Is that one of its Constitutionally mandated tasks? I'd say not. Let the States handle it.
I guess that makes sense, provided the states themselves can afford it.
The issue that I have is that once certain lands are sold/deeded/abandoned/whatever to private interests in an economic downturn, it's damned hard to get that land back once the financial situation turns around. You can shut down a social service when money gets tight and them start in back up again later. You can't un-sell property.
I don't know if there's an easy answer for this. I live in an area of massive suburban and semi-rural "ranchette" growth from San Antonio and Austin, and I'm worried that every hilltop in 50 miles is going to have a condo or weekend house on it in the next 15 years if massive selloffs of public lands occur. I doubt it will happen here in Texas, but I could see it happening in some of the harder-up states with lots of public land.
Sorry to turn this into a land use discussion 🙂