An MIT economist named Jon Gruber has been in the news recently over a series of comments that he made at conferences stating that Obamacare had to be misrepresented to the public in order for the law to be able to pass.
This culminated in a congressional hearing in which Gruber thoroughly debased himself in front of the public.
The voters may be stupid, but the bigger problem is that we have intelligent economists who nonetheless advocate for socialist health care programs, despite the obvious failures of socialism, despite the strong logical and empirical arguments against socialism.
The smartness or stupidity of the American public are less relevant than the moral and intellectual failings of elite professor/consultants like Jon Gruber. The problem with Obamacare is less within the details of implementation and more with the high level design of the thing. It was never going to have a good result from the first step. The details are just not relevant.
Democracies can sometimes achieve impressive things. They can produce occasionally impressive people. The main problem with it is that it tends to promote clever villains like Gruber who are highly capable at manipulating the masses for malign ends, and are similarly capable of convincing themselves that what they’re doing is good.
The incentive structure inherent to democracy rewards men like Gruber who are able to create policies that appeal to to vices common to the American public as it relates to medical care:
- Sloth: I should not have to work to pay the doctor what he is owed.
- Lust: Other citizens should pay for the negative consequences of my lack of sexual discipline. If I get a rash from banging a stranger, someone else should have to pay for it.
- Envy: The wealthier family down the road should have to pay the doctor for me, because they have more than I do.
- Greed: I am entitled to free work from the doctor because I want it so much.
- Pride: Because I’m an American, and because I deserve it, because I’m a good and beautiful person, my medical care should be free. Oprah said I’m wonderful, so I am wonderful.
- Gluttony: Even though most of my medical problems are due to my gobbling and guzzling, other people should pay for my heart bypasses, diabetes medicine, and motor scooters to move around my bulk so that I can fill my basket with more Coke and Oreos.
- Wrath: Anyone who says that I am not entitled to free work from doctors is an evil person who doesn’t understand my fundamental rights as an American.
Gruber is so hated in part because he, unself-consciously, exposed how he exploited a population given to reveling in its own sinfulness, especially as it relates entitlement to medical care that would have been impossible less than a century ago.
This is also another way in which selecting a leadership class based on how well that they perform on quizzes is not a great idea. Whatever Gruber’s capabilities as a manipulator, under scrutiny, he repeatedly humiliated himself and betrayed his political allies. If he were going to be a villain, then it would at least be respectable if he were to be a better class of villain.
Among conservatives who were unable to muster a strong intellectual and moral case against socialized medicine from the word ‘go,’ instead tending to oppose it because it would threaten existing socialized medical care programs, it’s foolhardy for them to act as if they were really on the right side all along. Republicans and Democrats are fundamentally on the same side of the great debate over socialism, as they must be, because the people also favor socialism, whether they know it in those terms or not.
The second that you begin quibbling over the details of some socialist program is the moment that you have already ceded the central point in question: whether or not to have the state plan and regulate medical activity, rather than distributing planning and regulation in a more decentralized way.
Republicans feign shock at Gruber’s frank talk, but they themselves tend to hire similar consultants to help them to manipulate different segments of the population at different stages of their political careers using similar minor legal-vocabulary type tricks.
Stupidity is not so much a vice as it is the natural human condition among most people, everywhere, in all places. What is vicious is the flattering of the stupid that they are worthy to rule, and even worse to tell the capable that this is what’s virtuous, and that they have no other duty except to slake the greed of the mob.
Meanwhile, Singapore gets the same or better health care outcomes while spending 1/6 to 1/4 as much: http://fall09hpm101singapore.providence.wikispaces.net/Health+Care+Outcomes+in+Singapore+vs.+the+U.S.
It’s not that their system is “free-market” or “socialized”… it’s just that they’re not a real democracy, so they can be effective and non-ideological in how their state tackles problems.
I have no idea what the article that you linked to actually means, because it just speaks in generalities.
It actually does matter a lot — there is a distinction between the open market and controlled markets. There is no Chinaman magic that exempts them from economic laws.
There are more socialized markets and less socialized markets, and it’d be harder for the US to be more socialized than it already is, but Obamagruber certainly gave it a shot.
I think one reason people on the right have a (reasonable) aversion to the government running certain sectors of the economy is that the US goverment does so many things so spectacularly poorly. Because the Singaporean government comes a lot closer to Moldbug’s “secure, effective, responible government”; the fact that aspects of its health-care system are “socialized” doesn’t bother me nearly as much. And in fact, the system taken as a whole is far more free-market than ours was even before Obamacare. More from everyone’s favorite open-borders autist: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/01/singapores_heal.html
Another example would be public housing; to Americans that phrase implies “poor, dangerous, dirty, dysfunctional, and heavily NAM” but in Singapore public housing is copious, clean, safe, and desireable… simply because their government works.
You’ll find that I never argue for the pragmatic position, because arguing a pragmatic position results in getting half of the pragmatic position. I always argue for more than I expect to be able to get.
Sing government is less democratic than the US, therefore less screwed up, although not going to be ideal.
The US pre-obambocare is arguably more fucked up and socialistic than the NHS. It’s just that it gets called a market system when it isn’t.
Also, the most foolproof way to troll me is to link econlib, so good job.
Yes, it’s important to remember that while Singapore functions a lot better than the US, it has its own problems and is not the Utopia that many NRx’ers, myself included would like it to be.
I do appreciate people trying to expand the Overton window rightward, so no complaints from me on that!
Well, Gruber was right in the sense that most Americans are economically illiterate. I don’t know how that compares to other countries. Gruber may have book smarts but he has no real-world smarts. He has the typical leftist-intellectual conceit that people are always going to act and react according to his plans. The most curious thing is how his plans – and Socialist plans in general – disincentivize producers even as they desperately need the output of producers to fund their programs.
It happens when the people live in sky castles of ideas and never actually have to test them against real humans.
“The main problem with [democracy] is that it tends to promote clever villains like Gruber who are highly capable at manipulating the masses for malign ends, and are similarly capable of convincing themselves that what they’re doing is good.”
Unfortunately clever villains seem to be a serious problem not just for all large governments, but for all large organizations. (E.g. not just huge old autocracies but huge old companies and huge old churches.)
That doesn’t mean that it’s not a particular problem for democracy, but it does mean that en route to that conclusion you should present some evidence that it is typically worse for democracy than for other forms of government, not just jump from what you know how to demonstrate convincingly (that Gruber is a clever huckster) to the conclusion you desire (that it is the fault of democracy). It looks as though it would be a simple matter to rewrite your article to “support” the conclusions that it is the fault of our having excessively free speech, or the fault of having settled in the Northern Hemisphere, or the fault of our driving Satan into a fit of impatient vexatiousness by printing the Bible in too many different typefaces. What distinguishes your intended conclusion that it is the fault of democracy from the conclusion that it is the baleful influence of proximity to the North Pole?
“The incentive structure inherent to democracy” … that passage looks almost as though you intended to flesh our your argument there by contrasting the incentive structure of democracy to the incentive structure of autocracy or some other form of government that stays on course for generations without falling for clever hucksters tailoring their pitches to human vices. I wish you had gone on to write that out; it sounds like a solution to a terrible problem that my species has been wrestling with unsuccessfully at least since the dawn of recorded history, so I for one would be interested in the solution.
I guess I expect people to have read Hoppe and Aristotle, but this is an unreasonable expectation for a lot of newer people.
So, basically, I’m re-hashing Hoppe with not all that much original to add on my own side there.
Mr. Dampier, of all the various “isms”, none seem to fit the definitions which those propounding them. Although not a fan of socialism, it certainly would have been nice to have some of the so-called social benefits as opposed to having been “kicked to the curb” as you so darkly enlightened a few of us boomers a few posts ago. I have noticed a number of neo-reaction blogs promoting ideas related to monarchy and the feudal societies which accompanied them during the middle ages. My limited scholarship of history and writings of this seems to show a number of similarities between socialism and feudalism; one of the major similarities to me seemed to be the concept of “noblesse oblige” where the feudal lord was duty bound to the peasants for protection, etc. in return for the peasants taxes, etc. – and the “promises” of a “social justice” democracy where the government returns e.g “health care” to the peasants for their taxes. In both systems, the promises eventually failed (imperial overstretch, resource depletion, etc), the peasants starve, and systemic change/ revolution occurs to begin another cycle. Some socialist societies (Sweden?) seem to have been successful during the global cheap energy binge, but probably will fail soon for lack of same (along with the vibrant invasion). As the nation state fail, the possibility of feudal societies arising in enclaves here and there seems very real to me.
Feudalism is entirely different from socialism and it’s wrong to equate the two of them.
Feudalism didn’t entirely fail due to internal reasons, but because it was out-competed (on the battlefield) by the state system.
>show a number of similarities between socialism and feudalism; one of the major similarities to me seemed to be the concept of “noblesse oblige” where the feudal lord was duty bound to the peasants for protection, etc. in return for the peasants taxes,
All governments claim to be there for the protection of the subjects or citizens, but certain types are better at it than others. So, they all make these claims, but as thinking people, we have to evaluate how true those claims are for differing societies and forms of government.
Also, as rightists, we tend to be skeptical of notions that the form of government is more important than the quality of the people that control it. Sweden is semi-functional with national defense out-sourced to the USA, a tiny population, and a mostly homogeneous population. We have to try to see the whole of a historical circumstance rather than seizing on small ideological points.
Sweden’s most successful corporation, Ikea, is also one of the most effective tax avoiders in the world. So, quite wrong to attribute the success of Ikea to the wonders of Swedish socialism. They get major exceptions; the rest of Sweden suffers under the yoke.
Gruber apparently thinks Gruber was wrong. Which should give us immediate pause. Why does he need so desperately to have been wrong (and stupid and misinformed and pretending to have been smarter than he was, and all the sundry ways in which he now debases himself in front of congress)?
He was wrong only in revealing the inner workings of USG and now he must retract that university professors and the media must sell whatever crap USG wants to shove down the collective American throat. Because, of course, the American people are dignified, and the American Republic is healthy. Because… if not… Mr. Gruber loses power.
If you were wrong, Mr. Gruber, here is a sword. Fall on it.
Their general issue with him is that he embarrassed the government further with his frank comments.
He’s also a useful scapegoat to help the democrats to prune the law a little.
? sorry if I am not “getting it”- the success of IKEA (and other subsidized “capitalist” industries in quasi-“socialist” states was not my (failed) point: “suffering under the yoke” is not even noticed except by those who are able (educated sufficiently) to notice the on-comng multiple train wrecks. In the meantime (during the cheap energy glut), the Nordic “socialist” states kept up really cool welfare state benefits to the masses, whose brainwashing is totally different than anglo-americans: We prefer to die for “our freedoms” (cheap oil and humvees), dream of winning the lottery ticket out of redneck serfdom, signing up for death panels, voting against any kind of “socialist” benefits except welfare, and keep voting tweedle dee and tweedle dumber to maintain corporate “socialist tax breaks” – just like all other western societies.
You did note that all “elites” (governments/ states of whatever “ism”) share the same pathological similarities of making promises they will eventually renege on (which was what I was trying to say). And that historical cycles will move that failed “ism” into another. I note your new post on “hard money”, which I believe was widely used during feudal societies as well- but very little was in the hands of the peasants.
I was merely curious if you thought that feudal societies might arise after the failed nation states episode we are currently seeing the end of, and whether you felt if that ‘model’ of political structure has any merit in the future (as some other neo-reactionary bloggers seem to think). Historically, it appears to have had longevity and stability through periods of low technology, low access to knowledge, and low access to high energy sources- which, IMHO, is where we are headed.
> I note your new post on “hard money”, which I believe was widely usd during feudal societies as well- but very little was in the hands of the peasants.
Depends entirely on the country and the time period. The Ottomans, for example, used bimetallism to reinforce hierarchy (gold for the central rulers, silver and debased coins for the serfs).
>I was merely curious if you thought that feudal societies might arise after the failed nation states episode we are currently seeing the end of
Would almost certainly look very different relative to past feudal societies, just because even technologies like the spreadsheet and the printing press made the old forms of government less competitive.
“What is vicious is the flattering of the stupid that they are worthy to rule, and even worse to tell the capable that this is what’s virtuous, and that they have no other duty except to slake the greed of the mob.”
Excellent.