government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.
See, for example, the housing finance collapse in 2008.
All the devils are here.
How neatly this piece by Sowell melds with the following reference to Wurman.
From Sowell’s piece:
“That is why the left has for more than a century been trying to get the Constitution’s limitations on government loosened or evaded by judges’ new interpretations, based on notions of “a living Constitution” that will take decisions out of the hands of “We the People,” and transfer those decisions to our betters.”
That seems to fit Arnold’s “cultural” observations.
The Federal Administrative State avoids the limiting principles of the Constitution. It centralizes powers the Constitution separates. It provides routes to transfer decisions from the delegates (they are NOT “representatives”) of the authority of the electorate to those who “know better.”
See the following for the results.
It is unfortunate that Dr. Sowell didn’t call this by its proper name, interventionism. It is true the fascists were highly interventionist in economic policy a process facilitated by their organization for violence the incremental socialists, who came to be known as fascists developed to combat the unrestrained murders and violence of the revolutionary socialists, i.e., communists.
But then, while the classically liberal imbued West was resistant to the revolutionary socialist conquest, like the frog dropped in boiling water, the incremental, (peaceful) socialists have had great success starting out cold and slowly, incrementally, by increasing intervention increasing the socialism in Western society. We even speak their language with Welfare State, Regulatory State, etc. But oddly publicly naming and shaming interventionism seems to be verboten.
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“Finally, we still have to speak of interventionism. According to a widespread opinion, there is, midway between socialism and capitalism, a third possibility of social organization: the system of private property regulated, controlled, and guided by isolated authoritarian decrees (acts of intervention).”
Mises, Ludwig von (2010-12-10). Liberalism (p. 63). Ludwig von Mises Institute. Kindle Edition.
I finally get it, even though I’ve referred to this concept numerous times. Sowell is not talking just about intervention.
Another aspect is that leaving firms in private ownership they don’t just off-load the political credit, but they also off-load the financial losses. Again, see the banks. Then they get to justify more intervention during crises. Nobody stops to ask why all the past regulations in the most regulated industry did not serve their stated goal of preventing crises.