Making Economic Sense
Making
Economic Sense
by Murray Rothbard
(Contents
by Publication Date)
Chapter 105
The Revolution Comes Home
The election of 1994 was an unprecedented and
smashing electoral expression of the
popular revolution that had been building up for many months: a massive
repudiation of
President Clinton, the Clintonian Democratic Party, their persons and
all of their works. It was a
fitting follow up to the string of revolutions against government and
socialism in the former
states and satellites of the Soviet Union. The anti-government
revolution has come home at last.
An intense and widescale loathing of President Clinton as a person
fused with an ideological
hatred of Washington D.C., the federal Leviathan, and centralized
statism, to create a powerful
and combustible combination in American politics. So massive was the
repudiation that it even
changed many state governments away from the Democrats and the
Democratic ideology of
government intervention in the lives and properties of Americans.
Formerly effective attempts to
alter the meaning of the elections by Clinton and media spin artists
(e.g that it was
"anti-incumbent") were swept away as laughable by the patent facts of
the electoral revolution.
After Leon Trotsky was sent into exile by Stalin,
he wrote a bitter book famously entitled
The Revolution Betrayed. In the case of the
Bolshevik Revolution, it took about fifteen years for
Stalin's alleged betrayal of the Leninist Revolution to take place.
(Actually, despite the
fascination of Western intellectuals with the Stalin-Trotsky schism, it
was far more an
intra-Bolshevik personal and factional squabble than any sort of
ideological betrayal.)
In the case of the magnificent free-market
revolution of November 1994, however, the
betrayal began to occur almost immediately. Indeed it was inevitable,
being built into the
structure of current American politics.
The basic problem is the lavishly over-praised
"duopoly" two-party system, cemented in
place by a combination of the single-district, winner-take-all
procedure for legislatures, and the
socialized ballot, adopted as a "progressive reform" in the 1890s. This
reform permits the
government to impose onerous restrictions on the
public's access to the ballot, to the
expression of its electoral will. Before the adoption of the
socialized, or what used to be called
"the Australian," ballot, voting was secret but was achieved by
dropping a card supplied by one
of the candidates into the box. There was no "ballot" to worry about.
Because of the two-party system, the only way that
the electorate of 1994 could express
its revolutionary desire to throw out the hated Democrats was to vote
Republican. Unfortunately,
the controlling elites of the Republican Party have long had views very
similar to those of the
Democrats, thus depriving the American public of any genuine
philosophical choice.
The ideology common to the ruling elites of both
parties is Welfarist, Corporatist Statism;
whether it's called corporate "liberalism" or "conservatism" is largely
a question of nuance and
esthetics. Essentially, the corporate and media elites have long been
engaging in a shell game in
which the American public are the suckers. When the public is fed up
with one party, the elites
offer up an alleged alternative that only turns out to more of the
same.
All is not hopeless however. The inner-tension with
the system comes from the very fact
that the public has been led to think there is a
genuine choice, and that there are strong
ideological differences between the two parties. As result, the
rank-and-file, both among the
voting public and among the respective party activists, tend to have
clashing ideologies and to
pour forth severely contrasting rhetoric.
The rank-and-file, as well as party militants, tend
to believe the rhetoric and to take it
seriously. And while the American public, especially the conservatives,
tend to be satisfied with
the rhetoric of their political leaders and not to bother with the
reality of their deeds, they are also
more likely now to turn their attention to what is really going on,
with the American public rising
up angry against the ever-burgeoning Leviathan State fastened upon them
by Washington, D.C.
By this time, conservatives at the grass-roots have
caught on to Robert Dole, who is now
well-known for his accommodationist devotion to ever higher taxes and
spending. The real
danger is Newt Gingrich, who has cultivated a firebrand rhetoric that
has
seduced the
conservative masses into placing trust in Newt to lead their
revolution.
Even rhetorically, Newt Gingrich is all too
reminiscent of the erratic Clinton, blowing hot
and cold, changing from day to day, one day calling for a revolution
(what David Broder of the
Washington Post recently called "the bad
Newt"), alternating with pledges of "cooperation" with
his alleged arch-enemy in the White House ("the good Newt"). The
much-contested Gingrich
"con tract," for example, far from an expression of roll-back of Big
Government, is either trivial
or phony. Let us go down some of the crucial aspects of the anti-
central government revolution,
and see how the Republican elites, including Gingrich, shape up.
Taxes. Forget the piddling and
minor cuts in capital-gains taxes, the increase of the child
deduction, etc. The crucial point is that Gingrich and the other
leaders are committed to the
disastrous Bush-Clinton-bipartisan (a dread word that itself signifies
duopoly and sellout of
principle) concept of never reducing total
government revenue, so that any tax cuts anywhere
must be compensated by tax increases (or "fee" increases) somewhere
else. In particular, until
drastic cuts in the monstrous income tax are at least proposed,
let along passed, by the
Republican elites, the leadership's alleged embrace of small government
will continue to be a
fraud and a hoax.
Repeal the Brady Bill and gun control in
general. Not a word by the leadership or in the
"contract."
Repeal of affirmative action.
Not a word.
Deregulation, i.e. repeal of
OSHA, the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Clean Air
Act, etc. Not a word.
Immigration control. On
opposition to floods of illegal immigrants, immigration in
general, or welfare for immigrants, not a word.
Abolition of foreign aid. Not
only not a word, but the entire Republican leadership,
including Gingrich, is deeply committed to an American foreign policy
of global intervention,
economic and military.
Withdrawal from the UN, IMF, World Bank,
etc. Ditto, since the entire leadership is
committed to a continuation of the global
interventionist foreign policy both parties have
pursued since World War II.
Gatt and WTO. In this crucial
drive toward managed world trade, with the public, insofar
as they know anything about it, solidly against it, Gingrich, Dole, and
the entire Republican
Establishment are fervently for it, and heedless of the public's
opposition. The exception is Jesse
Helms, who has begun to rediscover his Old Right roots.
Government spending. No real
cuts advocated by the elites; instead, the contract pledges
increased military spending in a world where the Soviet threat has
disappeared. Again the
public's desire for a foreign policy strictly in the national interest
is thwarted.
Abolition of the Federal Reserve.
Ha!
Abolition of the Department of Education,
Energy, etc. Ha!
Instead, the Republican elite serve up hoaxes such
as the Balanced Budget Amendment,
and increasing Executive power over Congress with
the line-item veto. There will be no real
devolution of power to the states, or restoring the 10th amendment.
So why isn't the situation hopeless? Because of
angry anti-government fervor at the grass
roots. Because a lot of the new Republican Congressmen were not thought
to have a chance of
winning, and therefore were not stifled in their political cradles by
the party elites. A lot of these
freshmen backbenchers reflect the Hard Right sentiments of their
constituency.
If the public is alert and keeps up the pressure on
the weak-kneed and unprincipled party
elites, they might be drummed into and kept in line. Furthermore, the
revolution is a polarized
reaction to the advent of Clinton and the Clintonian movement. What the
professionally
"bipartisan" elite wants above all is almost identical major parties.
The elites dumped Bush for Clinton in '92 because
they thought that Clinton was a safe
and centrist "New Democrat." Instead, Bill, and especially Hillary,
turned out to be Hard Left
ideologues who pushes the entire political conflict in America many
leagues leftward, too far for
the centrist Social Democrats who want the political dialogue confined
to such "moderate"
Democrats as Al From and Al Gore in perpetual dialogue with "moderate"
Republicans like
George Bush and Bob Dole. Clinton's sharp move leftward
upset the applecart and
created a gap within which an anti-government populism could develop
and flourish.
Clinton's move leftward polarized American
political opinion, and generated a massive
reaction in the opposite direction. Genuine libertarians and
conservatives must keep up and
intensify the pressure from below on the Republican leadership, give
heart to the back-benchers,
and threaten to walk out and sit home should the leadership follow its
instincts and betray
Republican principles to the Democrats.
The peoples' revolution is not a one-shot
proposition; it is an ongoing process, of which
the grand sweep of November 1994 was a notable instance. The new
populist revolution is
multi-pronged, and necessarily takes place both inside and outside the
machinery of elections.
Note the war for whatever is left of the soul of
Slick Willie since the election. The
Republocrat elites are pleading with Clinton to move toward the center
and fuse a coalition with
"moderate" Republicans. The main hope for liberty and small government
paradoxically, is for
Clinton to follow Hillary and the ideologues and go Left instead,
appealing to his core
constituency, and polarizing and mobilizing a still more intense and
massive populist reaction
against his rule. If that happens, Clinton will be left with Jesse
Jackson and ACT-UP, while
anti-tax, anti-regulation, anti-government populism rises up and
topples his rule.
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