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by James Buchanan (Center for Study of Public Choice)
George Mason University - 
Abstract.
Although collectivist ideas have everywhere fallen into disrepute,
this essay argues that socialism nevertheless will survive
and be extended in the new century. That gloomy prospect looms,
not because socialism is more efficient or more just, but
because ceding control over their actions to others allows
individuals to escape, evade and even deny personal responsibilities.
People are afraid to be free; the state stands in loco parentis.
The breaching of plausibly acceptable fiscal limits in the
first half of the new century will determine how the basic
conflict between welfare dependency and liberal principles
will be resolved.
Introduction
For this special issue, the editors asked me specifically
to submit an essay under the general title, "Capitalism,
Socialism and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century".
In this solicitation, they were encouraging me to think in
grandiose terms - to offer a public choice-constitutional
political economy perspective on the larger organizational-ideological
alternatives that may emerge. We do not, of course, either
collectively or privately, make choices as among the grand
organizational alternatives. For the most part, and most of
the time, we make choices on the various margins that present
themselves, with the result that all societies are more or
less capitalistic, more or less socialistic, more or less
democratic. Nonetheless, these Schumpeterian terms may be
helpful in organizing my general argument.
This argument can be succinctly summarized. If we loosely
describe socialism in terms of the range and scope of collectivized
controls over individual liberty of actions, then "socialism"
will survive and be extended. This result will emerge not
because collectivization is judged to be more efficient, in
some meaningful economic sense, or even because collectivization
more adequately meets agreed upon criteria for distributive
justice, but rather because only under the aegis of collective
control, under "the state", can individuals escape,
evade and even deny personal responsibilities. In short, persons
are afraid to be free. As subsequent discussion will suggest,
socialism, as a coherent ideology, has lost most of its appeal.
But in a broader and more comprehensive historical perspective,
during the course of two centuries, the state has replaced
God as the father-mother of last resort, and persons will
demand that this protectorate role be satisfied and amplified.
"Capitalism", an unfortunate but widely used term
again loosely described in terms of the range and scope for
individual liberty of action outside collectivized direction
and control, must remain vulnerable to continuing marginal
encroachments, and this thrust of change will remain despite
possible analytical and empirical evidence that such encroachments
signal retrogression along widely recognized success indicators.
"Democracy", defined broadly enough to include
its many institutional variants, will reflect the preferences
of the citizenry, who remain largely immune from the findings
of science, and the increasing corruption that must necessarily
accompany any expanding range of collective-political control
will simply be tolerated and ignored. An overarching theme
of the whole paper is that the thrust of development will
be dictated by "bottoms up" demands rather than
by "top down" dictates of an elite.
I shall flesh out this general argument in later sections.
Only in the final section of the paper shall I offer a more
hopeful alternative to the pessimistic scenario sketched out
above. Such an alternative emerges, however, as much from
a sense of moral obligation to believe that constructive reform
is within the possible as it does from any realistic prognosis
of elements which are discernible beneath the surface of that
which may be now observed.
The Sources of Socialism
There are at least four sources or wellsprings of ideas that
motivate extensions in the range and scope of collective controls
over the freedom of persons to act as they might independently
choose. In the political dialogue these sources are, of course,
intermingled, but in philosophical discourse it seems useful
to make distinctions. I shall label these four sources as
(1) managerial, (2) paternalistic, (3) distributionist and
(4) parental. I shall discuss the first three of these four
categories in this section. I shall treat the fourth source,
that of the parental motivation, separately in Section 3,
because I suggest that this source has been relatively neglected
by analysts and, more importantly, that it is likely to swamp
the other three in influence during the early decades of this
new century.
1. Managerial socialism
This is the form of socialism that is now dead and buried,
both in ideas and in practice, having been "done in"
during the last decades of the twentieth century. This is
the socialism that is defined as the collective ownership
and control of the means of production, and which involves
efforts at centralized command and direction of a national
economy as institutionalized through a central planning authority.
It is now almost universally acknowledged that the motivating
ideas here were based on scientific-intellectual errors of
major proportions - errors summarized under Hayek's (1988)
rubric of "fatal conceit". Even in its idealized
form, the construction involved an ubiquity of perverse incentives
and ignored the impossibility of ascertaining knowledge from
widely dispersed and dynamic relationships. The scientific
flaws now seem evident, but the cautionary lesson to be learned
is that, for a whole century, among the best and the brightest
economists and philosophers, indeed among the intelligentsia
and academics generally, discussion was carried on in what
now seems a setting of amazing ignorance.
And with tragic consequences. Efforts to implement the idealized
and basically flawed construction, whether piecemeal or in
total, ran up against the limits imposed by the necessity
that ordinary mortals rather than idealized automatons must
operate the system. The gross inefficiency that should have
been minimally predicted emerged; corruption itself became
the only lubricant for otherwise rigid structures of interaction;
rewards disproportionately favored opportunistic behavior;
personalized favoritism was matched by unalloyed cruelty in
the absence of effective exit options.
The economy allegedly organized on the command-control principles
of managerial socialism simply cannot, and demonstrably could
not, deliver the goods in any manner even remotely comparable
to those economies organized under the principles derivative
from Adam Smith's system of natural liberty. This variant
of socialism, which found much of its origin in the highly
successful Marxist ideological thrust, will not soon resurface.
The first half of this new century will not witness demands
for collectivized planning for planning's sake.
2. Paternalistic socialism
The demise of managerial socialism has not, however, substantially
lessened the demands for collectivization that stem from the
alternative sources, including recognition by self-anointed
elites that only by collectivization can the choices and actions
of the masses be directed toward those patterns that "should
be wanted if these masses only knew what was in their own
best interest". This attitude, or set of attitudes, was
importantly present in the imposition of managerial socialism,
but, conceptually at least, it can be separately examined
and analyzed. The ultimate motivation here need not stem from
any argument to the effect that collective control is, in
any sense, more "efficient", as defined in some
neutral aggregative value dimension. The motivation is located
in the value scalar itself; that which persons privately express
is not that which the elite prefer. Preferences need to be
shifted in more acceptable directions. The French term, dirigisme,
is actually more descriptive of this mind-set than any comparable
English term.
The persons who adopt this stance do not necessarily object
to capitalism, or, rather, the market process, as the allocative
means of implementing their objectives. Indeed, the market
may be left to do the heavy lifting, so long as the incentives
are collectively adjusted so as to guarantee results dictated
by the normative ideals of the elite. Much of the current
political dialogue is imbued with this set of attitudes, notably
much of the environmental emphasis, along with the impassioned
crusades against tobacco and obesity.
This source of support for a widened collective control over
liberty of choice will not fade away. It seems unlikely, however,
that it will come to exert a major force toward further socialization.
The limits of such efforts are exemplified, historically,
by the failed experiment with prohibition of alcohol in the
United States in the first third of the twentieth century
and by Hillary Clinton's aborted effort in the early 1990s
to remake the medical care industry. In this case, "democracy",
howsoever its complex processes may actually work, becomes
a conservative bastion against efforts by any elite to impose
its own value structure through collectivized coercion.
3. Distributionist socialism
"Socialism is about equality" - this short statement
moved quickly onto the center stage of discussion after the
apparent demise of central planning and control. The advocates
of centrally managed economies moved with surprising alacrity
to align themselves with the welfare state - social democrats.
The gross scientific errors that had produced the fatal conceit
were swept aside as if they had never been promulgated with
the argument that, all along, distributional equality is and
had remained the primary value for socialists of all stripes.
Nor is the distributionist thrust absent from the arguments
of the paternalists, whose attention may be focused on in-kind
transfers of defined goods and services to designated recipients,
but always aimed in the direction
of more equality in the final access to such goods.
In its unadulterated form, however, the distributionist argument
is exclusively about equality, or rather inequality, in the
distribution of goods and services, without concern for the
makeup of the bundle. The allocative function may be left
exclusively to the market (capitalism), as it responds to
the preference patterns of persons as consumers and producers
within the post tax, post-transfer redistributional limits.
The focus here is not upon what the market generates, or even
on how it operates, but rather on the distributional outcomes
that would emerge in the absence of the specifically directed
and collectivized tax-transfer structure.
At the level of abstract political philosophy, and notably
as brought into modern attention through the work of Rawls
(1971), this source for collective action is the only one
that is at all consistent with the precepts of classical liberalism.
Even the hard-core libertarians find it difficult to defend
the unconstrained distributional outcomes of the market process,
of unrestricted capitalism, as embodying widely shared norms
for fairness. Even when the perverse incentives that arise
on both the tax and transfer sides of the fiscal account are
fully recognized, and even if the shortfalls between the stylized
distributional adjustments that may be imagined and the actual
adjustments that are possible through democratic politics
are also taken into account, widespread support for some distributional
correction may be evidenced. And, to the extent that the socialized
sector of activity is measured so as to include the tax-transfer
budget, "socialism" seems unlikely to disappear
from observed political reality.
Support for extending this tax-transfer budget, as motivated
by strictly redistributionist objectives, may, however, be
much less than implied by the oft-encountered class warfare
demagoguery of electoral politics. The poor, the distributionally
disadvantaged, are not observed to be using the majoritarian
processes of democracy to exploit the rich, at least beyond
relatively narrow limits. And, indeed, much of the class warfare
rhetoric seems to reflect the ranting of the elitists who
call on the distributionist motivation to advance their basic
dirigisme.
Parental Socialism
To my knowledge, the term "parental" has never
been explicitly discussed as being descriptive of the motivation
behind the collectivization-socialization of human activity.
I introduce this term here forwant of a better one to describe
a source that is difficult to encapsulate even if easy to
treat in more extended discussion. In one sense, the attitude
is paternalism flipped over, so to speak. With paternalism,
we refer to the attitudes of elitists who seek to impose their
own preferred values on others. With parentalism, in contrast,
we refer to the attitudes of persons who seek to have values
imposed upon them by other persons, by the state or by transcendental
forces. This source of support for expanded collectivization
has been relatively neglected by both socialist and liberal
philosophers, perhaps because the philosophers, in both camps,
remain methodological individualists.
As the title for this paper indicates, and as I have noted
earlier, this ultimate motivation for maintenance and extension
of control over the activities of persons through collective
institutions will, in my assessment, be more important in
shaping the patterns of development during the first half
of the new century than any of the other, and more familiar,
sources discussed in the previous section. Almost subconsciously,
those scientists-scholars-academicians who have tried to look
at the "big picture" have assumed that, other things
being equal, persons want to be at liberty to make their own
choices, to be free from coercion by others, including indirect
coercion through means of persuasion. They have failed to
emphasize sufficiently, and to examine the implications of,
the fact that liberty carries with it responsibility. And
it seems evident that many persons do not want to shoulder
the final responsibility for their own actions. Many persons
are, indeed, afraid to be free.
The term "parental" becomes quite descriptive in
its inference that the attitude here is akin to that of the
child who seeks the cocoon-like protection of its parents,
and who may enjoy its liberty, but only within the limits
defined by the range of such protection. The mother or father
will catch the child if it falls, will bandage its cuts, will
excuse its behavioral excesses along all dimensions. Knowledge
that these things will be done provides the child with a sense
of order in its universe, with elements of predictability
in uncertain aspects of the environment.
This cozy setting is dramatically disturbed when the child
becomes an adult, when responsibility must be shouldered independently
from the family bounds. Relatively few persons are sufficiently
strong, as individuals, to take on the full range of liberties
and their accompanying responsibilities without seeking some
substitute or replacement of the parental shelter. Religion,
or God as the transcendent force that exemplifies fatherhood
or motherhood, has and does serve this purpose (more on this
below). Organized community is a less satisfactory but nonetheless
partial parental replacement for some persons. More importantly,
and specifically for purposes of the discussion here, the
collectivity - the state - steps in and relieves the individual
of his responsibility as an independently choosing and acting
adult. In exchange, of course, the state reduces the liberty
of the individual to act as he might choose.
But the order that the state, as parent, provides may be,
for many persons, well worth the sacrifice in liberty.
Note that, as mentioned earlier, the source for extension
in collective or state control here is "bottom up"
rather than "top down", as with paternalism. Persons
who are afraid to take on independent responsibility that
necessarily goes with liberty demand that the state fill the
parental role in their lives. They want to be told what to
do and when to do it; they seek order rather than uncertainty,
and order comes at an opportunity cost they seem willing to
bear.
The thirst or desire for freedom, and responsibility, is
perhaps not nearly so universal as so many post-Enlightenment
philosophers have assumed. What share of persons in varying
degrees of bondage, from slavery to ordinary wage salary contracts,
really want to be free, with the accompanying responsibility
for their own choices? The disastrous failure of "forty
acres and a mule" was followed by the lapse into renewed
dependency status for emancipated former slaves in the American
south. And the surprising strength of Communist parties in
the politics of post-Cold War central and eastern Europe attests
to the thirst on the part of many persons "to be controlled".
God Is Dead; Long Live the State
Prior to the eighteenth century, to the Enlightenment, and
particularly in the West, God, as institutionally embodied
in the church (and churches), fulfilled what seemed to be
a natural role as the overarching "parent" who assumed
ultimate responsibility for the individual in a last-resort
sense, as biological linkages were necessarily lost in the
aging profile. Manifestations abound. "We Are All God's
Children", "God Will Take Care of You" - these
familiar hymnal assertions are merely illustrative of the
near-universal attitude. Psychologically, persons went about
their ordinary lives secure in the feeling that God would
clear up any mess they might make, analogous to parents' behavior
toward children. Of course, transgressions might be followed
by punishment, in this or another life, but predictability
characterized both the rules themselves and the prospect for
both reward and punishment. God, as institutionally embodied,
provided order in the lives of all.
But what if Nietzsche is right? What if God is dead? What
happens to the person who is forced to recognize that the
ordering presence of God is no longer real? What if God cannot
be depended on to clean up the mess, even in some last resort
sense? Who and/or what can fulfill the surrogate parent role?
Who and what is there beyond the individual that can meet
the yearning for family-like protectiveness? Who and what
will pick us up when and if we fall? Who and what can provide
the predictability that God and his agency structures seemed
to offer?
In the more extensive idealizations, as imagined by some
medieval scholastics, secular politics, or the state, is an
unnecessary appendage to God's embodiment in the church. Nascent
efforts in post-medieval centuries to establish secular authority
independent of church control were opposed throughout the
European realm. But the monopoly of the Catholic church was
broken, by Luther and his followers, well before the onset
of the Enlightenment. God was no longer monolithic in the
image of one institution. Competing interpretations emerged,
and the conflicts among churches came to be intermingled with
conflicts among states as representatives of those churches.
In the process, secular authority came to be divorced from
ecclesiastical authority and to assume independent stature.
By the time of the Enlightenment, the secular nation-state
had almost reached its maturity, and nationalism, the sense
of nationhood, was a more or less natural repository for the
sentiments of those persons for whom God had died. For many,
the state, as the collectivity, moved into the gap left by
the demise of the church's parental role. The individual who
sought family like protection, but who no longer sensed the
presence of such protection in the church, or in God so embodied,
found a substitute in the collectivity. The individual could
feel that he or she "belonged" to the larger community
and was necessarily dependent on that community. The death
of God and the birth of the national state, and especially
in its latter-day welfare state form, are the two sides of
the coin of history in this respect.
The transposition through which the state replaced God in
the parental role, for many persons, was aided and abetted
by two historically parallel developments. First, the Enlightenment,
in itself, did not contain justification for the burgeoning
of the state, as such. From the Enlightenment, classical liberalism
rather than collectivism emerged. But, as the next section
will indicate, classical liberalism singularly failed to offer
persons any psychological security coincident with the loss
of religious faith. Almost immediately following the Enlightenment,
however, arguments for socialism, as treated above, were advanced.
And all arguments for socialist organization depend critically
on the expansion of the collectivized or politicized sector
of activities.
Implementation of the socialist proposals for change, in
whole or in part, was accomplished through the combination
of Marxist ideology, paternalism of the intelligentsia, distributionist
argument and the residually desperate search for a parental
replacement for God. Socialist collectivism promised the order
that seemed absent in post-Enlightenment liberalism. Persons
more or less readily accepted the dependency status that socialism
carried with it because, by becoming dependents of the collectivity,
they were able, at the same time, to share in the communal
project that collectivism seemed to represent.
The state did, indeed, become God. This transposition was,
of course, most evident in the Soviet Union and other Communist
regimes. But essentially the same psychological shift in public
attitudes took place in Western democratic societies. Persons
accepted the dependence on the state as normal; even those
who at the same time railed against the increasing collective-governmental
intrusiveness. It came to be increasingly rare to find persons
and groups who supported releasing the shackles of dependency.
The collapse of the Communist regimes in the last decades
of the century did little or nothing toward slowing down the
growth of the welfare state; this, in itself, demonstrates
that the parental motivation for collectivization remains
perhaps the strongest of those identified above.
The Lacuna of Classical Liberalism
The central organizing idea of classical liberalism emerged
from the Enlightenment, notably from its Scottish variants.
This idea, best enunciated by Adam Smith, is that extensive
collective direction and control over activity is not required
at all; that, with minimally invasive institutions that guarantee
person, property and contract, persons can be left at liberty
to make their own choices and, in so doing, generate maximal
value. The spontaneous order of the market, emergent as persons
are allowed to make their own choices in a "simple system
of natural liberty", implies that there is only a limited
role for the sovereign state.
Modern socialism, at least in the first three variants noted
above, was born as a reaction against classical liberalism,
and especially against the limited successes of classical
political economy during the first half of the nineteenth
century. As indicated, managerial or command-control socialism
was based on intellectual error, on a failure to understand
the basic principles of market order. Paternalistic socialism
rejects the democratic features of market outcomes, and, by
inference, also rejects small-d democracy in governance. Distributional
socialism can, as noted, be accommodated within classical
liberalism by appropriate adjustments imposed on market outcomes.
The lacuna in classical liberalism lies in its failure to
offer a satisfactory alternative to the socialist-collectivist
thrust that reflects the pervasive desire for the parental
role of the state. For persons who seek, even if unconsciously,
dependence on the collectivity, the classical liberal argument
for independence amounts to negation. Classical liberals have
not involved themselves in the psychological elements of public
support for or against the market order.
"The spontaneous order of the market" - this is
an intellectual idea that is not naturally understood by those
who have not been exposed to the teachings of economists.
And economists themselves in their sometimes zeal for working
out the intricacies of complex models have neglected their
primary didactic purpose. They have assumed that, like the
ideas in the natural sciences, once an idea is accepted by
the scientific community, it will become a part of the conventional
wisdom of the public, as implemented in institutional reforms.
Economists, as the putative repositories of the principles
of classical liberalism, have not sensed the categorical differences
in public reception of their scientific findings and those
of their fellow natural scientists. In a very real sense,
every person is his or her own economist, who pays little
or no respect for the truths of economic science.
For far too many members of the body politic, the market
order requires that persons subject themselves to "the
blind forces of the market", as if the independence so
offered carries no offsetting gains. There is a widespread
failure to understand that the independence offered by the
entry and exit options of the market offsets the dependence
on others when markets are closed
or displaced. And such dependence, importantly, includes dependence
on the state, and on its bureaucratic agents. The individual
can readily walk away from a market relationship. He cannot
walk away from the taxing authority.
The entry and exit options provided by the market serve as
the omnipresent frontier open to all participants. And economists
could well have done more to exploit the familiar frontier
experience by instancing the analogue here. Their failure
to do so illustrates the point made above, that adherents
of classical liberalism, and especially economists, have not
been sufficiently concerned with preaching the gospel of independence.
Classical liberalism, properly understood, demonstrates that
persons can stand alone, that they need neither God nor the
state to serve as surrogate parents. But this lesson has not
been learned.
Capitalism and Its Contradictions
Capitalism ("free enterprise" would be a much better
term here) is the institutionalized embodiment of classical
liberalism. As idealized, it is best described as a system
in which values are set; resources are allocated; goods and
services are produced and distributed through a network of
voluntary exchanges among freely choosing-acting persons and
groups - a network that functions within a collectively imposed
legal structure that protects persons and property and enforces
contracts while at the same time financing those goods and
services that are most efficiently shared among many users.
Such an idealized capitalistic system would, at most, command
collectively up to 15% of national value product.
During the half-century since World War II, we have observed
that, even in Western countries outside the nominally socialized
Communist bloc, the collectivized sector has extended its
allocative-distributive reach to estimates ranging from 40%
to 60% of total value generated. What are such systems to
be called? Half capitalist and half socialist?
Contradictions become apparent once we recognize that the
principles upon which the whole organizational structure allegedly
rests are those derived from classical liberalism rather than
from socialism in any form. It is as if these principles carry
the politicized or socialist half of value on their backs,
as it were, as a deadweight burden. Such principles include
the rule of law, which requires that all persons, regardless
of dependency status, be subjected to the same law, including,
importantly, those who become agents for the collectivity.
In addition, democracy, as a political form, requires open
and universal franchise, with eligibility for agency roles
being open to all. Within the appropriately defined jurisdiction,
all persons are guaranteed freedom of entry and exit to and
from occupational and geographical opportunities, subject
only to the respect dictated by the legal protections noted
above. All persons in the organized polity are insured that
personal rights are protected - rights to speak, to practice
religion, to associate with whom they may choose.
The listing might be extended, but the point made should
be clear. There is no discrimination among persons in the
implementation of the basic principles of classical liberalism.
The implication also is clear. To the extent that the burgeoning
tax-transfer element in the budgets of modern democracies
is motivated by demands that the state take on a parental
role, this element must be characterized by generality. Persons
become subject to tax on the one hand and eligible for transfer
payments on the other by their membership in the polity and
not by their identification as a member of this or that group,
as defined in non general terms (see Buchanan & Congleton,
1998). Any departure from the generality norm, any discrimination,
must introduce classification among persons, which violates
the classical liberal presupposition of equality.
Major programs in the welfare-state budgets are, at least
nominally, organized on generality principles. Tax financed
or pay-as-we-go pension schemes are general in coverage, although
with built-in redistributive elements. Tax financed medical
services are open to all members of the community, although
here, too, there are built-in redistributive features. Contradictions
emerge, however, as the fiscal demands placed on these programs
increase, almost
explosively, in the face of changing age profiles and rapid
advances in medical technology. Pressures will increase, and
indeed are already observed, to contain such demands in part
by explicitly introducing departures from generality, by imposing
means-tests as criteria for eligibility for transfers. To
the extent that changes are made in this direction, public
support for the programs that stem from the parental motivation
must decline. As increasing numbers of persons come to recognize
that, with the changes, the state will no longer take care
of them, even in some remote residual sense, their image of
these programs is dramatically modified. The transfers will
come to be viewed as discriminatory payments to politically
selected groups, rather than transfers to an inclusive class
of eligibles.
On the other hand, if the generality principle is preserved,
even if not fully honored, the predictable demands on the
fiscal capacities of the welfare states are simply not sustainable.
Efforts to meet the commitments under the various programs,
most notably the pension and medical services systems, would
require that the extraction of taxes from pretax market returns
goes well beyond the limits that are behaviorally feasible,
quite apart from public choice questions about political will.
After all, the Laffer curve relationship is a very real constraint
in any polity.
Almost without exception, the welfare-state democracies are
being, and will be, increasingly confronted with the disjuncture
in the two-pronged decision structure, which, ultimately,
reflects the clash between classical liberalism and socialism.
As their preferences are expressed through the political process,
citizens may genuinely want to extend the parental role of
the welfare state, to allow the state to replace God. At the
same time, however, citizens may, at their private choice
margins, seek to minimize their tax obligations. The liberal
principle that persons are to be free to create taxable capacity
as and if they so choose is not consistent with the socialist
principle that the welfare dependency be expanded beyond plausibly
acceptable fiscal limits. The first half of the new century
will determine how this basic conflict may be resolved.
Prediction and Prospect
Straightforward prediction, based on an assessment of the
workings of democratic processes, as observed, would suggest
that the budgetary pressures will provoke increasing departures
from generality norms in various welfare programs. Means testing
or targeting will be extended well beyond current levels.
The ranks of those who are explicitly classified as dependents
of the nanny state will be reduced, perhaps substantially.
As noted, such a breakdown in the generality norm will be
accompanied by withdrawal of political support as claimant
groups come to be seen as net parasites on those who create
taxable capacity. Western welfare democracies may well approach
the model for "the churning state", described by
de Jasay (1985), in which differing groups compete among themselves
for claims against each other.
Of course, such predictions need not be fulfilled. As an
example, consider predictions that might have been made, say,
from the early 1970s. Who might have predicted that Margaret
Thatcher's reforms would move Britain dramatically up in the
European league tables; that Ronald Reagan would restore the
American spirit; that the Soviet Union would collapse? Western
welfare democracies have not yet passed the point of no return.
Public attitudes, as reflected through political leaders,
may come to embody the recognition that the collectively generated
demands on the fisc cannot be met from revenues produced from
tax structures that remain plausibly acceptable. The principle
of generality in welfare programs may be maintained, more
or less, as the demands are scaled back within reasonable
limits. As such reforms are implemented, increasing numbers
of the citizenry may actually shed off, at least in part,
the sense of dependency on the state.
The legacy of Marx is a spent force. The legacy of Bismarck
is alive and well. It can, however, be contained with leadership
and understanding, as Bismarck himself thought possible.
Postscript
This paper has been written on the presumption that terrorism,
through the damage inflicted, the reaction and response, along
with preventive measures, will not permanently change the
basic institutions of Western democracies. If this presumption
is invalid, the effects can only be to reinforce the central
argument advanced. Terror, in actuality or in threat, almost
necessarily places the individual citizen in a more enveloping
dependency relation with the state. Events may dictate that
the range and scope of collectivized controls be extended.
And, along this dimension, even the ardent classical liberal
finds difficulty in mounting effective opposition.
In such extension, a comparable tension to that instanced
above will arise. Pressures will emerge for departures from
the institutions of generality and toward the introduction
of discrimination with consequences that are perhaps worse
than those involved under the welfare umbrella, narrowly defined.
References
Buchanan, J. M., & Congleton, R. D. (1998). Politics
by Principle, Not Interest: Toward
Nondiscriminatory Democracy. Cambridge University Press:
New York and Cambridge.
Hayek, F. A. (1988). The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism.
University of Chicago Press:
Chicago.
de Jasay, A. (1985). The State. Basil Blackwell: Oxford.
Rawls, J. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Harvard University
Press: Cambridge.
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