The State of Obama’s Union
U.S. Government! U.S. Government!
“[T]he nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation.”
That line from Wednesday night’s state of the union address was one of several in which the current White House occupant, Barack Obama, displayed a rather ominous nationalist—even chauvinist—streak.
He also said, Germany and China “are not standing still. These nations aren’t playing for second place. They’re putting more emphasis on math and science. They’re rebuilding their infrastructure. They’re making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs. Well, I do not accept second place for the United States of America.”
And: “There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products.”
Now some people will think, “What’s wrong with that? All he’s doing is rallying the American people, who are mired in recession and pessimism.”
But of course, that is not all he did. “[W]e made the largest investment in basic research funding in history,” Obama boasted in his speech.
And: “[T]o create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies.”
And: “[W]e need to export more of our goods. Because the more products we make and sell to other countries, the more jobs we support right here in America. So tonight, we set a new goal: We will double our exports over the next five years, an increase that will support two million jobs in America. To help meet this goal, we’re launching a National Export Initiative that will help farmers and small businesses increase their exports, and reform export controls consistent with national security.”
(He neglected to point out that buying imports gives foreigners the money with which to buy American exports.)
And: “We have to seek new markets aggressively, just as our competitors are.” (Flashbacks to nineteenth century imperialism.)
And: “If America sits on the sidelines while other nations sign trade deals, we will lose the chance to create jobs on our shores.”
He also called for further manipulation of the tax code (tax credits) to induce small businesses to hire workers and raise wages, to shift the economy from carbon to renewable green energy sources, to make it easier to go to college (pointless and even damaging for most people), and more.
The upshot? In Obama’s mind, the way to make America (the entity) — us — No. 1 is to have the central government coordinate economic activity, to set goals, and to construct incentives to carry out its objectives. We will do this. Hey, you! Back in line and keep quiet.
Behind the “U.S.A! U.S.A!” is an economy guided by a coterie of politicians, bureaucrats, and their colleagues in what is quaintly still called the “private sector.” Call it what you will, it is not a free market.
This is the truth behind economic nationalism, including “energy independence.” Setting goals for “America” means setting goals for individuals — which means using a variety of measures to direct their economic activities.
This would not be new, of course, just much more of the same. Such intervention to one degree or another has been a feature of the United States for generations. But let’s be clear that this is what Obama heartily embraces.
No Marxist He
If we don’t get the analysis right, we won’t get the response right. Despite what some popular right-wing talk-show hosts claim, Obama is not pushing Marxism, revolutionary or otherwise. The threat is not from socialism in the sense of State ownership of the means of production, much less a proletarian uprising. Rather, he’s pushing good old American progressive-corporate elitism, or corporatism. (Some would simply call it capitalism.) It is anti-free market, but not anti-business.
By that I mean business people, especially those who run big well-connected incumbent firms, love this sort of thing. Why take chances and risk market share in the unpredictable free market when I can get government to keep things orderly? (Translation: tame the competitive process.) Laissez faire is so unrefined. Would the bankers want it? Better yet, let’s have government buy — or require/encourage others to buy — my products. Remember that in Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand warned of the approaching corporate-state alliance.
A few more observations from Obama’s speech:
“[T]he longer it [health care] was debated, the more skeptical people became.”
Now what does that tell us? His impatience with debate reminds me of what Hayek had to say in The Road to Serfdom about government planning’s being incompatible with democracy.
“I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people.”
Is he trying to fool us or himself? The problem was not an inadequate explanation of the health care monstrosity. People got the point all too well.
“But each time a CEO rewards himself for failure, or a banker puts the rest of us at risk for his own selfish gain, people’s doubts grow. Each time lobbyists game the system or politicians tear each other down instead of lifting this country up, we lose faith…. No wonder there’s so much cynicism out there. No wonder there’s so much disappointment.” (Emphasis added.)
That’s the worst offense he could think of for politicians? He just wasn’t not trying.
Here’s to continued doubt, lack of faith, and cynicism about statism.
Comment by Rick on 29 January 2010:
The U.S government versus the U.S.
Wonder who will win on this one.
We must be stupid, since he has to keep explaining it to us.
Oh, to have perfect vision, instead of being caught up in the false hope deliniated in the Constitution and making the false choice for liberty instead of the security of the progressive state.
Comment by Zoran Zaev on 29 January 2010:
Great article. In regards to corporatism, it is a type of socialism i.e. having marxist philosophy to it, as some of the comments suggest. Any time one moves away from a private property respecting, no gov’t interference in business system, one heads to socialism (either one of the state or one of the lawless street mob or something in between). How the socialist system is arranged and how the private property is violated and stolen is simply a different flavor of the same socialist ice-cream, so-to-speak. Interventionist socialism or corporatism, though some call “capitalism”, it is certainly not what traditionally has been understood as capitalism, i.e. free market with strong private property respecting rules.
Comment by Jay on 29 January 2010:
“We will double our exports over the next five years, an increase that will support two million jobs in America.”
As the dollar continues to grow weaker in coming years, no doubt we will be told that this is a good thing because it will “make exports cheaper.”
Comment by Pete H. on 29 January 2010:
This struck me, too: the United States needn’t be in a competition with other countries. I don’t need to compete with my neighbor in order to have a happy, full life; if I cooperate with him, we can both have that.
And if the central government got out of the way with its mandated health care and attendant taxes and bureaucracy, and its tariffs and sanctions, the private people of all the states and countries could trade with each other (and afford to trade with each other) to their mutual benefit. That’s all the explanation I need; his condescending explanation is only an obfuscation of the ways that the charlatans in Washington benefit from the current system and hope to increase their own benefits when it’s expanded.
Comment by Thomas Dickerson on 29 January 2010:
The author of this article needs to read the book “The Road to Serfdom ” by F. A. Hayek.
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 29 January 2010:
I’m quite familiar with The Road to Serfdom. To quote my article above:
“[T]he longer it [health care] was debated, the more skeptical people became.”
Now what does that tell us? His impatience with debate reminds me of what Hayek had to say in The Road to Serfdom about government planning’s being incompatible with democracy.
Comment by John Anello on 29 January 2010:
Who in FEEville thinks Sheldon Richman hasn’t read The Road to Serfdom? Some of the jokers on these threads crack me up.
Comment by Terry on 29 January 2010:
Obama is a master at deception!… He is relentlessly pursuing his goal of “fundamentally changing” the United States. It may or may not be marxism…but IT WILL BE TYRANY! Today I received word about his Executive Order aimed at destroying the power of the tenth ammendment from the Tenth Amendment Center. He will do nothing to stop his assault on our Constitution and our Republic. While we are off watching him give speeches in different parts of the country (spending lots of our tax payer bucks, I might add, for the frivolous press opportunities) he has all of his czars busy working feverously to create “his” vision for our country. He took an oath to defend and protect the constitution of the United States of America…. he’s goal is not U.S. sovereignty… his goal is a united world government. He has unleased previously appropriate restrictions on Interpol’s authority and operation in our country, he has worked tirelessly to promote the Copenhagen treaty which was the establishment of a world govenment (It’s not about protecting the environment…read page 4 of the document) and he received payment from the government of Norway (big bucks) for work as an “incentive” for his future actions (Nobel Peace Prize is awarded not by the prize committee, but by a branch of the Norway government) While he is running around the country obsessed with a “santa clause syndrome” (did you catch the speech in Ohio! He’s got his own “stash of cash” courtesy of the Congress…it’s called stimulus money…and HE’S THE ONE IN CHARGE OF GIVING IT OUT…also at a meeting…if you tell him what your problem is…don’t worry…”you’ll get a call from my people in five minutes” and everything will be ok!), we need to be looking not at him (he’s the “mouthpiece”…a diversion) we need to be looking at what he and his czars and now (after the state of the union message) his wife is doing. (surprised no one mentions in their commentary her “great commission” regarding obesity and education for our youth! She already has 22 “assistants” working for her…how big will her department of change become?)
With regard to doubling our exports….in trying to figure out what in the names of heaven we can “export”, my sister is the one that realized what it will be (…notice how he mentioned “farmers” in there.) We will be exporting our grain! It will all be done in the name of “altruism” and “the right thing to do”. We will be shown pictures of starving woman and children. We will increase our production, and the government will step in and nationalize our food production…. all for a good cause of course. And the farmers will be told they will be the winners because they will get all this money…. and there will be work for immigrants, and the unions can unionize them…. And then comes the “plight”… natural or manmade… and the trap on the American people will snap closed. The government will control finance, healthcare (and they will know everything about your private health information — because part of their plan is to put all of that information in a central government data bank — READ THE BILL), transportation (all those trains we’re building…and government run security/police protection units– for our safety of course!), manufacturing (but we’ll have good windows made by the EPA’s husband’s firm) and food production. With the enactment of his latest Executive Order, all national units will be under the “President’s” control and all Governors will be subservient to “the President”. We will all be unionized. The unions will get our “dues”. The Constitution will be “beside the point”, and we will submit to a world governing body. Of couse, since the only population currently growing in the world at any rate of future sustainability is Muslim, it will be a muslim world government at that point… and yes, women of America…. we will all be wearing burkas!
While Obama may not be a Marxist…he may be something much more frightening! PLEASE, EVERYONE PAY ATTENTION TO THE DIRECT ASSAULTS ON THE CONTITUTION… THAT WAS A DELIBERATE ACT OF DISRESPECT TO THE JUDICIAL BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT IN HIS SPEECH… HE ALSO TOLD CONGRESS, SINCE YOU DIDN’T PASS A BILL HE WANTED HE WILL JUST ISSUE AN EXECUTIVE ORDER REVERSING THEIR DECISION, AND HE TOLD CONGRESS NOT TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE “POLLS” OF PUBLIC OPINION (that’s you and me)…SAYING IN AFFECT…THEY HAVE A GREATER DESTINY TO UPHOLD! WAKE UP AMERICA!!!
Comment by Terry on 29 January 2010:
Quick p.s. to previously posted message about Obama’s “santa claus syndrome”: message to all towns and cities across the country…hurry up and get on his travel itinerary… make sure he comes to your town… we here in Allentown/Bethlehm PA made off pretty good with goverment money after his visit!
Comment by James on 29 January 2010:
Let’s remember Obama did not start this rush to tyranny, but as Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has said, “You never want a good crisis go to waste ” they are fully aware that this climate of desperation and confusion is a perfect opportunity and are pushing hard and fast.
The same is true for people who still love and long for our freedoms. This crisis is opportunity to turn this back around from “I The Government”, back to “We the People”
The Federal government is the only sector in America growing, while the private sector is stifled, they are hiring, spending, and looking for ways to seize more money to feed their insatiable appetites, by controlling, subsidizing, and regulating everything they can their hands on.
I think now the time is critical, we at about a 50/50 point, 50 percent of the people pay taxes, 50% of the people profit from them. Federal employees vote for these big government socialist style programs, the more they get the harder it gets.
Whatever label you put on Obama, he’s bad for freedom and democracy,if we are not exactly following Russia, yet, we are at the very least following old Europe, either way dark days are coming.
Comment by Doc on 30 January 2010:
We’re doomed.
Pingback by TGIF: The State of Obama’s Union | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty on 30 January 2010:
[...] Read TGIF here. [...]
Comment by Fredric Williams on 30 January 2010:
Perhaps the essential tenets of Marxism have been so long accepted as reasonable in our progressive democracy that we now fail to recognize them as the essence of communism. A review of the ten points Marx said would be advanced by democracy and the adoption of universal suffrage might be educational. See “Liberty, Democracy, and Marx” at http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=12331
As for Obama’s speech, I think there is much more that can be said. I’ve said some of it at http://tinyurl.com/StateofIllusion.
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 30 January 2010:
Maybe Marx picked up some old ideas and built on them.
Pingback by Obama is not a Marxist « LIBERTY POINT on 30 January 2010:
[...] Read the full article by Sheldon Richman here. [...]
Comment by John and Dagny Galt on 30 January 2010:
We wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire.
Ask us how we really feel…
Starving The Monkeys Continually And Forevermore,
John and Dagny Galt
Atlas Shrugged, Owners Manual For The Universe!(tm)
.
Comment by Scott Bieser on 30 January 2010:
One of the greater barriers to clear thinking about political ideas is the current confusion about the terms “socialism” and “capitalism” and what they mean.
Within the Right, socialism = statism but the socialists I talk to don’t see it that way. They regard government controls and ownership as simply a means to an end, the end being material egalitarianism. Even Marx, after all, opined that once socialism was fully achieved, the state would “wither away.”
Also within the Right, capitalism = free markets but for most people it also means the economic system as it exists in the West today. This confusion is how the progressives get away with blaming our current economic problems on “free-market fundamentalism.”
In their original coinage, “socialism” was a philosophy of leveling, which sought to destroy class barriers and establish equal distribution of wealth. And “capitalism” was a particular variant of the class system favoring a particular class of people who owned a lot of capital (factories, mines, merchant ships).
It was Marx, Engels and their followers who established the identity of “socialism” and statist means, and “capitalism” with private property and free exchange. And once they had established those associations even in the minds of their opponents, they gained an enormous advantage which they still enjoy today.
Comment by MarkZ on 31 January 2010:
Quite the diatribe, Terry.
The constitution won’t help you. Your opponents will just cite it themselves. And then the discussion evolves into which historical white guy said what, and what they meant by it, rather than an actual debate of the topic at hand. The constitution was a very flawed document and a stupid idea.
Anyway, Obama’s foray into the nationalist arena is ugly, hateful, and probably a bad omen. I think Sheldon buried his lead.
Comment by Gus S. Calabrese on 1 February 2010:
luv ya, Sheldon
The US Constitution was a nice try. After over 200 years it serves merely as window dressing while government and corporate pirates steal everything the can lay their hands on.
Comment by Stu on 1 February 2010:
you’re all obviously too stupid to understand Obama’s great vision for your future. Never mind what you want or think you need, this isn’t about you. oh ya, except that is about you. But remember, you’re probably not a Harvard graduate. and also remember, even if you are a Harvard graduate, you’re not Obama, so you’re stupid.
Pingback by The American Conservative » TGIF: The State of Obama’s Union on 5 February 2010:
[...] Read TGIF here. [...]
Comment by Joe on 9 February 2010:
“politicians tear each other down instead of lifting this country up”
Yeah, he definitely wasn’t trying hard enough. This ties in nicely with one of the media’s favorite fairy tales–that the problem with govt is that there’s too much partisan bickering. Like if they could just get along they’d be able to solve all of our problems and we’d all live happily ever after. I guess we wouldn’t want the unwashed to get the crazy idea in their heads that maybe the politicians themselves are the problem.
Comment by Matt J. on 13 January 2011:
Sheldon does not have a clue what he is talking about. Unless, of course, he is practicing deliberate deception.
I will only one small example and dissect it to show how far from the truth it is: desperately looking for excuses for unjustifiable criticism, Sheldon labels the President’s prudent and insightful observation as “impatience with debate”.
Huh? How did you make THIS leap in illogic, Sheldon? The President was absolutely right: the longer the debate went on, the more skeptical people became. Why? Because of the many deceivers on the right poisoning the debate, filling both Congress and the media with a deluge of disinformation about all the various options. People became sick and tired of it. Thanks to that army of deceivers, it was not ‘debate’ that they grew sick and tired of: it was a cynical, heartless parody of debate.
Of course, it did not help that Kucinich on the far Left was peddling his own disinformation, but his fellow Democrats finally talked him into just enough sense to agree on the final package — which was and still is a historic achievement.