Government Shutdown Jitters

Even the soundest government, the toughest morale and the most robust society bear only a certain maximum of state activity, state finance and state intervention

BY JR NYQUIST

In a book written in 1944 under the original title of Civitas Humana, the economist Wilhelm Roepke asked, “Has there ever been such lack of character, so little civic courage, so much conformity and cynical opportunism, so many weak knees as in our generation?” In 2013 we can answer in the affirmative; for if Communism was allowed to run rampant after 1917, and National Socialism after 1933, we have added appreciably to the mix with our own variation on the theme. America is collapsing under a regime of regulation and social engineering that has not been fully understood, not even by the so-called conservatives. As a consequence, our national government continues to plunge toward bankruptcy while our society is helpless to do anything. Even attempts by the U.S. House of Representatives are bound to prove futile, especially given the overall media climate.

Every year the federal budget grows and overgrows. Decade after decade the government gets more intrusive. Regulations pile on regulations. The national economy is struggling. At the same time we avert our eyes. As Christopher Lasch once observed, “If the designation of contemporary culture as a culture of narcissism has any merit, it is because that culture tends to favor regressive solutions instead of ‘evolutionary’ solutions….” Lasch believed our problems were driven by social pathologies which he listed as follows: “the emergence of the egalitarian family, so-called; the child’s increasing exposure to other socializing agencies besides the family; and the general effect of modern mass culture in breaking down distinctions between illusions and reality.”

This last item, where the line between reality and illusion has been fudged, helps to explain why the country is able to move forward on false economic principles so readily – as if nothing bad is happening. The fact is, of course, that this advance toward catastrophe is ongoing and inexorable. We are in grave danger, yet we do not act effectively to avert the danger.

“The first and perhaps the worst danger of all,” Roepke warned, “is the overburdening of the nation – something which in itself is already a characteristic feature of the modern interventionist ‘welfare’ state….” This overburdening strikes at the heart of sound economy, financial sense, and lawful order. Bankruptcy from runaway state expenditure occurs in concert with a plethora of evils, and may lead to lawlessness, corruption, societal demoralization and even anarchy. “Even the soundest government,” Roepke continued, “can be burdened only with a certain optimum of activity. If this is over-reached then the balance between the collective organization and the individual is destroyed.”

We are seeing this playing out today. The federal government is headed for bankruptcy if spending is not brought under control. It is not surprising, therefore, that the U.S. House of Representatives is attempting to tie government funding to a one-year delay of Obama’s health-care law. This effort has met with fierce resistance and is not acceptable to the U.S. Senate and White House. On one side we have an attempt to restrict the runaway spending regime. On the other side we find those who think the government is obligated to alleviate the economic distress of the less fortunate. In the midst of this gridlock, unless a stop-gap spending bill is passed by midnight September 30, non-essential federal programs and agencies will be shutting down for the first time in 17 years.

Of course, the shutting down of non-essential services would hardly be a disaster for the economy. In fact, it would be a relief! So much has been laid at the door of government, and so complex is the job of regulating the economy, that none of us can grasp the size and scope of the thing. The leviathan thus engendered is unlike any the world has ever seen. It is also unsustainable.

According to Roepke, “even the soundest government, the toughest morale and the most robust society bear only a certain maximum of state activity, state finance and state intervention. Over and above this maximum you get estrangement between government and the people; disrespect for law and corruption become ever more general and finally poison all arteries of society.”

Roepke warned that overburdening society with government finance is profoundly subversive. The economy suffers a setback, it is true. But the process, he adds, is “intrinsically calculated to undermine the state” because it involves “the increasing exploitation of the government for the satisfaction of the desires of [powerful] parties or groups” which “elbow out the weaker parties they do not need to bother with.” Through this process, noted Roepke, “government itself decays through the struggles of pressure groups and is robbed of the dignity appropriate to an institution which serves the community….” A government thus undermined, does not remain the government of all, but the government of a plundering minority who view the national economy as booty.

One might ask about the children, or those who are starving in the streets, or those who are sick and cannot work. What does Roepke (the economist) say about them?

“When demanding assistance from the state,” Roepke answered, “people forget that it is a demand upon the other citizens merely passed on through the government….” The government, in fact, does not supply people with anything. The government merely removes wealth from one set of citizens and gives this wealth to others. This fact, says Roepke, threatens the moral unity of the nation “and therewith the basic foundation of a healthy … legitimate, democratic and decentralized state.”

Roepke called this situation a disease, and wrote that “the worst source of the disease today is unquestionably socialism in the true sense of the term, above all of the Marxist type, which … has been preaching civil war for a whole century.” Here we see the poor lined up against the rich. No longer do we suppose that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” The slogan of the day is “eat the rich.” And every scheme is now put forward to make this feast a reality.  

“We are unable to comprehend the history of recent decades unless we know there has taken place an unbelievable shifting towards collectivism,” Roepke wrote. And so it has happened, and here we are. A few brave (or not so brave) souls in the U.S. House of Representatives are trying to forestall the government takeover of health-care, fearing that the economy may not endure yet another government-inspired punch in the nose. Yet the government prepares to advance its agenda regardless of cost, as if it purposes its own destruction. It was Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center who wrote of the current administration, “Given all we have learned of Obama’s history, I believe the best way to understand the president’s policies is to see them as a series of steps designed to slowly but surely move the country closer to a socialist ideal.” (Radical-In-Chief, p. 355.)

The country seems ready for the socialist yoke. The economy lurches from one crisis to the next. Few understand the danger we all face. Perhaps this pessimism is unwarranted, but if past is prologue to the future then we already know how the current battle will end; that is, to quote T.S. Eliot, “Not with a bang but a whimper.”