In this column Sheldon Richman takes a look at Obama’s optimistic talk about the economy.
There is no reason to be optimistic. As Sheldon points out, we’ve just made a gigantic economic mistake thanks to government policies that brought on the housing bubble and now we’re stuck with a president and majority party intent on replicating most of the socialistic agenda of the British Labour Party (redistribution of wealth, national health care, more union power, increasing government control over business and industry). We know how that turned out and how it must always turn out. Politicizing the economy squelches initiative and diverts resources away from production and into politics. That’s why, by the mid-70s, people were calling Britain the Sick Man of Europe. Capital was fleeing and interest groups wrangled over the division of a shrinking national output.
Thinking that the same results do not await us is foolish. It’s like thinking that next time, water might go uphill.
I haven’t done this, but I’d bet that if you looked at Labour Party rhetoric back then, it would have also sounded optimistic.
I have to wonder if the optimism is just a facade. What if Obama had stood up and said, “Look people, my intention is to create a welfare state dedicated to social justice and environmentalism. That is going to mean falling national output, but I regard that as a small price to pay for the construction of a better America. You’ll have less freedom and less money, but you should be happy about that because I’m setting our priorities straight.” I believe that’s what our arrogant, authoritarian president actually thinks, but of course he can’t say that. Not in public at least. So he puts on the smiley face about economic expansion. It buys time for his transformation to get locked in. There might be a political rebellion if enough people realized what his agenda really entails.
