Clayton Mackey, my next door neighbor and Republican activist of West Shokan, New York, has forwarded the following to me.*
How many zeros in a billion?
The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR tax money.
A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of it's releases.
A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.
While this thought is still fresh in our brain...let's take a look at New Orleans... it's amazing what you can learn with some simple division.
Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D) is presently asking Congress for 250 BILLION DOLLARS to rebuild New Orleans . Interesting number...what does it mean?
A. Well... if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, and child) you each get $516,528.
B. Or... if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787.
C. Or... if you are a family of four...your family gets $2,066,012.
Washington, D. C < HELLO! > Are all your calculators broken??
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA) Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
Telephone M inimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Tax
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago...and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt...
We had the largest middle class in the world... and Mom stayed home to raise the kids. What happened? Can you spell "P-O-L-I-T-I-C-I-A-N-S"?
And I still have to press '1' for English.
I hope this goes around the USA at least 100 times.
What the heck happened?????
*The e-mail was without attribution. If the author objects to my posting it, please inform me and I will remove it.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
The Republicans' Whiggish Error
In Louis Hartz's Liberal Tradition in America* Hartz argues that all American ideology is ultimately liberal, to include the Progressives and the New Deal. Hartz's book was written right around the same time as William F. Buckley's God and Man at Yale. It would be interesting to hear how Hartz might have updated his argument in light of the predominance of European left wing and New Left ideology in today's universities. It is true that the elements of New Left ideology that seem to carry forward are in large part those that fit democratic liberalism, such as diversity. Nevertheless, it is also true that Americans have been increasingly indoctrinated in anti-liberal and anti-democratic rhetoric, such as support for ill-defined regulatory systems that benefit economic elites; emphasis on credentials developed by universities that economically support the same New Left ideologues; and a monetary system that is supportive of economic elites, to include the major universities, whose endowments have mushroomed under the Republicans, at the expense of the common working man, whose hourly wage has been decimated by the Keynesian economic policies that university professors have advocated since the 1930s.
Hartz's book is brilliant and perhaps it does not receive more attention is because of the increased emphasis on New Left solutions, and perhaps because he did not anticipate increased deference to elites by an American public that has been increasingly educated to do so. However, as a description of the main run of American history, to include the present, the book makes excellent points.
The history of the Whigs suggests why the Republican Party of the millennium has failed to capture the public's imagination. The Republicans cannot be an elitist party, that is, they cannot pander to the wealthy at the expense of the public. If they do the voters will, as they have, reject them. One of a number of turning points was Bill Frist's refusal to carry forward a law that would have limited federal support for states which permit private use eminent domain. Their failure do so in light of the case of New London v. Kelo captured the (in the early 19th century American sense) impulse of the Whigs.
In order to be successful, the Republicans must inspire the public with what Hartz calls the Alger myth. Americans are in large part desirous of economic opportunity. The Democrats have sacrificed the image of opportunity on the altar of special interest group politics and advocacy of wealth transfers to professional interest groups, real estate developers and Wall Street in the name of the poor. The Republicans cannot cloak the substance of their ideology in purely altruistic raiment because then America would have not two but one party, the Democratic. Nor can they, as they have done, adopt the 19th century Whiggish elitism that is contemptuous of the public. Rather, the Republicans must cloak their ideology in the raiment of economic opportunity. An ideology that capitalizes on such opportunity is believable only if it emphasizes and nurtures private property rights of individuals as against the state and special interests. As well, the Republicans must fathom the source of economic opportunity, which is free enterprise, without which entrepreneurs cannot execute new ideas.
Under George Bush and Bill Frist the Republican Party became a Whig Party, a party of economic elitism. The methodology it adopted was Federalist and Whiggish (in the nineteenth century American sense). It maintained and strengthened regulation; it supported central bank monetary expansion; and it sacrificed private property rights in the interest of frivolous, inept and too often corrupt big business, Wall Street and real estate schemes which have helped to bankrupt the nation.
Hamilton believed that there is a class of people, large commercial operators, who are best equipped to guide the economy. He was wrong. As all who have worked in the real world of industry know the best ideas come from the man or woman on the production line, not the executive. One example is that of Ray Kroc, the builder of McDonald's, who did not create most of the chief concepts that made McDonald's successful (with the exception of a strong emphasis on uniformity and quality of execution), from the concept of scientific management of fast food production to Ronald McDonald, to the firm's use of cash flows, to real estate investment in the stores, to the Big Mac to the Filet O Fish, almost all of McDonald's chief ideas came from franchisees or Kroc's employees.
If so, then why have the Republicans chosen to revert to the Hamiltonian fantasy of a big business elite that is able to guide the economy with freshly minted Federal Reserve counterfeit rather than the reality that the development of new ideas depends on entrepreneurs? The Kelo case brought the Republicans' Whiggish error home.
To quote Hartz (pp. 94-5):
"American Whiggery...could have transformed the very liability of the American liberal community into a tremendous asset. For if the American democrat was unconquerable, he was so only because he shared the liberal norm. And this meant two things: one, that he was not a real threat to Whiggery; and two, that Whiggery had much to offer him in the way of feeding his capitalist impulse. Thus what Whiggery should have done, instead of opposing the American democrat, was to ally itself with him...It should have made a big issue out of the unity of American life, the fact that all Americans were bitten with the capitalist ethos which it was trying to foster. It should, in other words, have developed some sort of theory of democratic capitalism which fit the Tocquevillian facts of American life.
"But this, as we know, is precisely what Whiggery failed to do until it saw the light in 1840, and indeed, in any large sense until the post-Civil War days of Horatio Alger and Andrew Carnegie. Over most of its early history, it pursued a thoroughly European policy, and instead of emphasizing what it had in common with the American democrat, it emphasized precisely what it did not have in common with him. Instead of wooing this giant, it chose, quite without any weapons, to fight him. This would be a high species of political heroism were it not associated with such massive empirical blindness. One can admire a man who will not truckle to the mob, even though the mob is sure to beat him, provided there is actually a mob in the first place. But in America there was no mob: the American democrat was as liberal as the Whigs who denounced him. Consequently the suicidal grandeur of Fisher Ames is tinged with a type of stupidity which makes admiration difficult. At best one can find in the Whigs a kind of quixotic pathos....They pursue the usual conservative strategies but are baffled and dumbfounded at every turn..."
*Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1955.
Hartz's book is brilliant and perhaps it does not receive more attention is because of the increased emphasis on New Left solutions, and perhaps because he did not anticipate increased deference to elites by an American public that has been increasingly educated to do so. However, as a description of the main run of American history, to include the present, the book makes excellent points.
The history of the Whigs suggests why the Republican Party of the millennium has failed to capture the public's imagination. The Republicans cannot be an elitist party, that is, they cannot pander to the wealthy at the expense of the public. If they do the voters will, as they have, reject them. One of a number of turning points was Bill Frist's refusal to carry forward a law that would have limited federal support for states which permit private use eminent domain. Their failure do so in light of the case of New London v. Kelo captured the (in the early 19th century American sense) impulse of the Whigs.
In order to be successful, the Republicans must inspire the public with what Hartz calls the Alger myth. Americans are in large part desirous of economic opportunity. The Democrats have sacrificed the image of opportunity on the altar of special interest group politics and advocacy of wealth transfers to professional interest groups, real estate developers and Wall Street in the name of the poor. The Republicans cannot cloak the substance of their ideology in purely altruistic raiment because then America would have not two but one party, the Democratic. Nor can they, as they have done, adopt the 19th century Whiggish elitism that is contemptuous of the public. Rather, the Republicans must cloak their ideology in the raiment of economic opportunity. An ideology that capitalizes on such opportunity is believable only if it emphasizes and nurtures private property rights of individuals as against the state and special interests. As well, the Republicans must fathom the source of economic opportunity, which is free enterprise, without which entrepreneurs cannot execute new ideas.
Under George Bush and Bill Frist the Republican Party became a Whig Party, a party of economic elitism. The methodology it adopted was Federalist and Whiggish (in the nineteenth century American sense). It maintained and strengthened regulation; it supported central bank monetary expansion; and it sacrificed private property rights in the interest of frivolous, inept and too often corrupt big business, Wall Street and real estate schemes which have helped to bankrupt the nation.
Hamilton believed that there is a class of people, large commercial operators, who are best equipped to guide the economy. He was wrong. As all who have worked in the real world of industry know the best ideas come from the man or woman on the production line, not the executive. One example is that of Ray Kroc, the builder of McDonald's, who did not create most of the chief concepts that made McDonald's successful (with the exception of a strong emphasis on uniformity and quality of execution), from the concept of scientific management of fast food production to Ronald McDonald, to the firm's use of cash flows, to real estate investment in the stores, to the Big Mac to the Filet O Fish, almost all of McDonald's chief ideas came from franchisees or Kroc's employees.
If so, then why have the Republicans chosen to revert to the Hamiltonian fantasy of a big business elite that is able to guide the economy with freshly minted Federal Reserve counterfeit rather than the reality that the development of new ideas depends on entrepreneurs? The Kelo case brought the Republicans' Whiggish error home.
To quote Hartz (pp. 94-5):
"American Whiggery...could have transformed the very liability of the American liberal community into a tremendous asset. For if the American democrat was unconquerable, he was so only because he shared the liberal norm. And this meant two things: one, that he was not a real threat to Whiggery; and two, that Whiggery had much to offer him in the way of feeding his capitalist impulse. Thus what Whiggery should have done, instead of opposing the American democrat, was to ally itself with him...It should have made a big issue out of the unity of American life, the fact that all Americans were bitten with the capitalist ethos which it was trying to foster. It should, in other words, have developed some sort of theory of democratic capitalism which fit the Tocquevillian facts of American life.
"But this, as we know, is precisely what Whiggery failed to do until it saw the light in 1840, and indeed, in any large sense until the post-Civil War days of Horatio Alger and Andrew Carnegie. Over most of its early history, it pursued a thoroughly European policy, and instead of emphasizing what it had in common with the American democrat, it emphasized precisely what it did not have in common with him. Instead of wooing this giant, it chose, quite without any weapons, to fight him. This would be a high species of political heroism were it not associated with such massive empirical blindness. One can admire a man who will not truckle to the mob, even though the mob is sure to beat him, provided there is actually a mob in the first place. But in America there was no mob: the American democrat was as liberal as the Whigs who denounced him. Consequently the suicidal grandeur of Fisher Ames is tinged with a type of stupidity which makes admiration difficult. At best one can find in the Whigs a kind of quixotic pathos....They pursue the usual conservative strategies but are baffled and dumbfounded at every turn..."
*Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1955.
Letter to Senator Chuck Schumer Concerning Commodities Regulation
I oppose your recent proposal to regulate commodities speculation. The reason for the recent run up in oil prices is ultimately due to Federal Reserve Bank monetary policy, which since 1932 has been inflationary. The US Senate has oversight authority over the Fed, and you have chosen to do nothing. Hence, you are part of the problem, Senator Schumer. Now, rather than tell the truth, specifically, that the sub-prime crisis, oil and food price run ups and the stock market bubbles of the past 10 years are all due to policies about which the Senate, including yourself, has remained silent, you posture with an incompetently conceived, joke solution.
Common sense suggests that commodities speculation can have only a temporary effect on prices because futures contracts have 3 or 6 month terms, and if the speculators are bidding up prices excessively there will be reductions in end-user demand upon delivery, causing a fall in prices.
On the other hand, stupidly conceived regulation (and I do not believe that the Senate is capable of any other kind) can have crippling effects by misleading economic actors, causing waste and favoring specific economic interests, such as Wall Street, to which I have no doubt you are especially beholden.
As a result of these considerations, I assure you that I consider you to be bad at representing the public and I do not hope for your reelection.
Common sense suggests that commodities speculation can have only a temporary effect on prices because futures contracts have 3 or 6 month terms, and if the speculators are bidding up prices excessively there will be reductions in end-user demand upon delivery, causing a fall in prices.
On the other hand, stupidly conceived regulation (and I do not believe that the Senate is capable of any other kind) can have crippling effects by misleading economic actors, causing waste and favoring specific economic interests, such as Wall Street, to which I have no doubt you are especially beholden.
As a result of these considerations, I assure you that I consider you to be bad at representing the public and I do not hope for your reelection.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Conformity, Rigidity and Decline
Max von Weber developed the thesis that America's Protestant roots led to a focus on capitalism because several Protestant sects view success in the world as evidence of divine grace. Reinhard Bendix developed Weber's spirit of capitalism thesis further in his Work and Authority in Industry in which he saw a historical pattern in the American interpretation of divine election's being carried forward in an ideological justification of managerial power despite the nation's democratic value system. Managers and big businessmen are entitled to social approval and legitimacy because of an evolving ideological justification. Bendix argued that the religious justification became a moral one, then shifted into social Darwinism and a biological justification. The ideological justification of managerial power then focused on psychological variables such as positive thinking. Frederick W. Taylor's scientific management was but one additional step on the road of ideological justification of business power. Taylor's scientific management, which holds that an industrial engineer is necessary to design work and control workers in turn evolved into the human relations school which argued that managers could understand workers' emotions and so constitute an elite, continuing the religious interpretation of divine election as applicable to management.
However, as Bendix emphasizes in his comparative study, managerial authority is justified in alternative ways around the world. The existence of managerial power is in part the result of economic and business necessity, for business cannot be managed democratically. Organizations can be managed democratically if there is little need for coordination. As coordination needs incrase, the possibility of democratic governance diminishes. Thus, capitalism, which depends on free market coordination and so does not require direction is most consistent with democracy, while socialism, in which government officers must direct the economy as well as the civil and military state functions tht exist under capitalism, tends toward dictatorship and suppression of diversity. Universities require little coordination because the work of scholarship is individual or collaborative on a small-group basis, hence universities can be run relatively democratically, but collaboration and coordination on a large scale is required of large manufacturing firms, so they must be run on an authoritarian basis. Thus, one of the most important writers on the subject of unity of command was not an American Protestant but a French Catholic, Henri Fayol. Fayol, a mining executive, emphasized authority, discipline, unity of command and unity of direction in his book General and Industrial Management, published in 1917. But Fayol's principles of management focus on large-scale industrial enterprise, and so may be less important to small firms, firms where coordination is not necessary (such as in universities, think tanks, firms with heavy emphasis on individual salesmanship or consulting firms). Thus, as Thompson has pointed out, technology is likely to influence the method of control. Thompson argued that there are three basic kinds of technologies, pooled, sequential and reciprocal. In sequential technologies tasks are performed in a required order and planning is critical. An example would be an assembly line. In pooled task interdependence the workers work separately but are guided by a central office. Coordination demands are minimal. Examples would be many service industries, sales offices where the salesmen work separately and universities. In reciprocal interdependence work may be broken into units that must interact flexibly. Thompson argued that sequential processes require the most control and should be grouped by process. In contrast, work requiring pooled processes need to be coordinated at a high level and coordination may not be possible. Reciprocal technologies such as involving teamwork need to be coordinated at a low level. If there are multiple reciprocal technologies then complexity necessitates decentralization.
Thus, the nature of authority relations may be imbued with a religious sense but may also shift with changing technology. The demands of government and the economy may shift in response to changing technology. As innovation changes the pace and rate of interaction, the nature of authority relations, public intervention in the market place, political control and the flexibility of government agencies might need to change along with it. Regulatory systems that mandate standard practices may be inappropriate in an economy where the flexibility of pooled or small group reciprocal relations requires rapid change. Yet because of the religious quality of authority structures, political factions may insist on ritualized patterns that seem important to them.
Americans in part believe in a natural aristocracy, one that is created by markets. But the religious aspect of Americans' value system may permit the emphasis on markets to be replaced by tradition. Because a businessman was successful in the past, there is a tendency to believe that he is entitled to success in the present and future as well, even if his decisions fail to correspond to reality. Thus, public conformity tends to support regulatory and financial systems even when the technology to which they respond have changed, have moved from sequential to pooled and reciprocal. The United States is no longer a manufacturing country, but its financial and regulatory regimes assume the importance of large firms, rigid production requirements and the need for government-supplied financing.
In Louis Hartz's Liberal Tradition in America Hartz argues that because America lacks a feudal tradition, it has never been drawn to socialism. Rather, he argues that Progressivism and New Deal social democracy are variants of Lockian liberalism. American society was based on Locke and was free prior to the American revolution, so Americans did not overthrow a feudal past. Rather, the American revolution reinforced values that were already present (p. 10):
"Here is a Lockean doctrine which in the West as a whole is the symbol of rationalism, yet in America the devotion to it has been so irrational that it has not even been recognized for what it is: liberalism. There has never been a liberal movement or a real liberal party in America: we have only had the American Way of Life, a nationalist articulation of Locke which usually does not know that Locke himself is involved...Ironically, 'liberalism' is a stranger in the land of its greatest realization and fulfillment. But this is not all. Here is a doctrine which everywhere in the West has been a glorious symbol of individual liberty, yet in America its compulsive power has been so great that it has posed a threat to liberty itself. Actually, Locke has a hidden conformitarian germ to begin with, since natural law tells equal people equal things, but when this germ is fed by the explosive power of modern nationalism, it mushrooms into something pretty remarkable. One can reasonably wonder about the liberty one finds in Burke.
"I believe that this is the basic ethical problem of a liberal society: not the danger of the majority which has been its conscious fear, but the danger of unanimity, which has slumbered unconsciously behind it: the 'tyranny of opinion' that Tocqueville saw unfolding as even the pathetic social distinctions of the Federalist era collapsed before his eyes...The decisive domestic issue of our time may well be the counter resources a liberal society can muster against this deep and unwritten tyrannical compulsion it contains. Given the individualist nature of the Lockean doctrine, there is always a logical impulse within it to transcend the very conformitarian spirit it breeds in a Lockean society..."Amricanism" oddly disadvantages the Progressive despite the fact that he shares it to the full, there is a strategic impulse within him to transcend it...In some sense the tragedy of these movements has lain in the imperfect knowledge that they have had of the enemy they face, above all in their failure to see their own unwitting contribution to his strength."
American conformitarianism has accepted a regulatory reform and institution of elites that is impractical because technology and the pace of market change has rendered them obsolete. As Americans sense a deterioration, not only in the average hourly real wage but also in the volatility of the housing and stock markets, they sense that there is something amiss; that systems have not responded to their expectations. But the systems have become institutionalized to a degree that has never existed in America before. Previously, because Americans lived in a laissez faire world, only the courts, the local governments and a few federal systems such as the post office were institutionalized rigidly. Now, much of American life, not only in the public sector in areas like Social Security have become rigidly institutionalized and unable to change, but also in the private sector. Firms are no longer permitted to fail.
However, as Bendix emphasizes in his comparative study, managerial authority is justified in alternative ways around the world. The existence of managerial power is in part the result of economic and business necessity, for business cannot be managed democratically. Organizations can be managed democratically if there is little need for coordination. As coordination needs incrase, the possibility of democratic governance diminishes. Thus, capitalism, which depends on free market coordination and so does not require direction is most consistent with democracy, while socialism, in which government officers must direct the economy as well as the civil and military state functions tht exist under capitalism, tends toward dictatorship and suppression of diversity. Universities require little coordination because the work of scholarship is individual or collaborative on a small-group basis, hence universities can be run relatively democratically, but collaboration and coordination on a large scale is required of large manufacturing firms, so they must be run on an authoritarian basis. Thus, one of the most important writers on the subject of unity of command was not an American Protestant but a French Catholic, Henri Fayol. Fayol, a mining executive, emphasized authority, discipline, unity of command and unity of direction in his book General and Industrial Management, published in 1917. But Fayol's principles of management focus on large-scale industrial enterprise, and so may be less important to small firms, firms where coordination is not necessary (such as in universities, think tanks, firms with heavy emphasis on individual salesmanship or consulting firms). Thus, as Thompson has pointed out, technology is likely to influence the method of control. Thompson argued that there are three basic kinds of technologies, pooled, sequential and reciprocal. In sequential technologies tasks are performed in a required order and planning is critical. An example would be an assembly line. In pooled task interdependence the workers work separately but are guided by a central office. Coordination demands are minimal. Examples would be many service industries, sales offices where the salesmen work separately and universities. In reciprocal interdependence work may be broken into units that must interact flexibly. Thompson argued that sequential processes require the most control and should be grouped by process. In contrast, work requiring pooled processes need to be coordinated at a high level and coordination may not be possible. Reciprocal technologies such as involving teamwork need to be coordinated at a low level. If there are multiple reciprocal technologies then complexity necessitates decentralization.
Thus, the nature of authority relations may be imbued with a religious sense but may also shift with changing technology. The demands of government and the economy may shift in response to changing technology. As innovation changes the pace and rate of interaction, the nature of authority relations, public intervention in the market place, political control and the flexibility of government agencies might need to change along with it. Regulatory systems that mandate standard practices may be inappropriate in an economy where the flexibility of pooled or small group reciprocal relations requires rapid change. Yet because of the religious quality of authority structures, political factions may insist on ritualized patterns that seem important to them.
Americans in part believe in a natural aristocracy, one that is created by markets. But the religious aspect of Americans' value system may permit the emphasis on markets to be replaced by tradition. Because a businessman was successful in the past, there is a tendency to believe that he is entitled to success in the present and future as well, even if his decisions fail to correspond to reality. Thus, public conformity tends to support regulatory and financial systems even when the technology to which they respond have changed, have moved from sequential to pooled and reciprocal. The United States is no longer a manufacturing country, but its financial and regulatory regimes assume the importance of large firms, rigid production requirements and the need for government-supplied financing.
In Louis Hartz's Liberal Tradition in America Hartz argues that because America lacks a feudal tradition, it has never been drawn to socialism. Rather, he argues that Progressivism and New Deal social democracy are variants of Lockian liberalism. American society was based on Locke and was free prior to the American revolution, so Americans did not overthrow a feudal past. Rather, the American revolution reinforced values that were already present (p. 10):
"Here is a Lockean doctrine which in the West as a whole is the symbol of rationalism, yet in America the devotion to it has been so irrational that it has not even been recognized for what it is: liberalism. There has never been a liberal movement or a real liberal party in America: we have only had the American Way of Life, a nationalist articulation of Locke which usually does not know that Locke himself is involved...Ironically, 'liberalism' is a stranger in the land of its greatest realization and fulfillment. But this is not all. Here is a doctrine which everywhere in the West has been a glorious symbol of individual liberty, yet in America its compulsive power has been so great that it has posed a threat to liberty itself. Actually, Locke has a hidden conformitarian germ to begin with, since natural law tells equal people equal things, but when this germ is fed by the explosive power of modern nationalism, it mushrooms into something pretty remarkable. One can reasonably wonder about the liberty one finds in Burke.
"I believe that this is the basic ethical problem of a liberal society: not the danger of the majority which has been its conscious fear, but the danger of unanimity, which has slumbered unconsciously behind it: the 'tyranny of opinion' that Tocqueville saw unfolding as even the pathetic social distinctions of the Federalist era collapsed before his eyes...The decisive domestic issue of our time may well be the counter resources a liberal society can muster against this deep and unwritten tyrannical compulsion it contains. Given the individualist nature of the Lockean doctrine, there is always a logical impulse within it to transcend the very conformitarian spirit it breeds in a Lockean society..."Amricanism" oddly disadvantages the Progressive despite the fact that he shares it to the full, there is a strategic impulse within him to transcend it...In some sense the tragedy of these movements has lain in the imperfect knowledge that they have had of the enemy they face, above all in their failure to see their own unwitting contribution to his strength."
American conformitarianism has accepted a regulatory reform and institution of elites that is impractical because technology and the pace of market change has rendered them obsolete. As Americans sense a deterioration, not only in the average hourly real wage but also in the volatility of the housing and stock markets, they sense that there is something amiss; that systems have not responded to their expectations. But the systems have become institutionalized to a degree that has never existed in America before. Previously, because Americans lived in a laissez faire world, only the courts, the local governments and a few federal systems such as the post office were institutionalized rigidly. Now, much of American life, not only in the public sector in areas like Social Security have become rigidly institutionalized and unable to change, but also in the private sector. Firms are no longer permitted to fail.
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