Barack von Bismarck

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More good reading today–this one coming out of the Acton Institute.

A short piece, nevertheless it points out that Otto von Bismarck was the father of the welfare state, and maintains that Obama is following Bismarck’s vision of government. Read below.

The November congressional elections are not so much a referendum on the Obama administration as a check on whether President Barack Obama’s implementation of a Bismarckian vision of government will continue.

Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian prime minister/German chancellor from 1862 to 1890, is the father of the welfare state. He advanced the vision that government should serve as a social services institution by taking earned wealth from the rich and from businesses to deliver services to those who are not as advantaged. Bismarck’s Kulturkampf campaign intended both to keep radical socialists at bay and undermine the church’s role in meeting the needs of local citizens by positioning government to be the primary source of social services. He initiated the ideal of an ever-expanding, beneficent government, which was subsequently imported to the United States in Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, expanded further with Lyndon Johnson’sWar on Poverty, and currently drives the policies of the Obama administration. Barack Obama is not a 19^th-century socialist, but his agenda is unquestionably Bismarckian.

In 1891, William Dawson, in Bismarck and State Socialism, explained that Bismarck believed it was the duty of the state to promote the welfare of all its members. On November 22, 1888, in response to Germany’s 1873 economic crisis, Bismarck proclaimed, “I regard it as the duty of the State to endeavor to ameliorate existing economic evils.” In Bismarck-like fashion, commenting on America’s economic crisis, President Obama declared in January 2009 that,  “It is true that we cannot depend on government alone to create jobs or long-term growth, but at this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the cycle that are crippling our economy—where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending; where inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit.” In a Bismarckian world, “only” government can set the national economy right.

Regarding universal health insurance, on March 15^th, 1884, Bismarck asked, “Is it the duty of the State, or is it not, to provide for its helpless citizens?” He answered, “I maintain that it is its duty.” It is the duty of the state to “the seek the cheapest form of insurance, and, not aiming at profit for itself, must keep primarily in view the benefit for the poor and needy.” Similarly, under the federal healthcare reform law, Congress forbids health insurance companies from raising insurance premiums until insurers submit to Obamacare officials “a justification for an unreasonable premium increase prior to the implementation of the increase.” In effect, government determines health insurance premiums.

On unemployment, Bismarck believed that government is ultimately responsible for finding jobs for those unemployed through no fault of their own, those lacking opportunity to work and thus prohibited from properly sustaining themselves. On March 15, 1884 Bismarck exclaimed, “If an establishment employing twenty thousand or more workpeople were to be ruined . . . we could not allow these men to hunger”—even if it means creating government jobs for national infrastructure improvements. “In such cases we build railways,” says Bismarck. “We carry out improvements which otherwise would be left to private initiative.” Likewise, in July, President Obama proclaimed, “I believe it’s critical we extend unemployment insurance for several more months, so that Americans who’ve been laid off through no fault of their own get the support they need to provide for their families and can maintain their health insurance until they’re rehired.” Then, in September, President Obama announced a six-year, $50 billion infrastructure proposal “to rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads,” “maintain 4,000 miles of our railways,” and “restore 150 miles of runways.” To keep America working, Obama is channeling Bismarck’s vision of government as creator of jobs.

By the 1890s, for several reasons, Germany was forced to abandon many of Bismarck’s specific reforms. However, Bismarck’s method of using of government as the ultimate provider of social services paid for by the earned wealth of others is the modus operandi of the Obama administration. The outcome of contests for congressional seats will determine whether the nation continues down the path chosen by Barack Obama, but blazed long ago by the visionary of the omnicompetent state, Otto von Bismarck.

Thoughtful Reading: Thomas Sowell

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As we head into the election homestretch, I wanted to share with you a brief but poignant essay by economist Thomas Sowell over at the Jewish World Review. Sowell reminds us of the disastrous effects of government intervention into the economy during the Great Depression–a situation that is being paralleled today.

Songs that are “golden oldies” have much less pleasant counterparts in politics– namely, ideas and policies that have failed disastrously in the past but still keep coming back to be advocated and imposed by government. Some people may think these ideas are as good as gold, but brass has often been mistaken for gold by people who don’t look closely enough.

One of these brass oldies is the idea that the government can and must reduce unemployment by “creating jobs.” Some people point to the history of the Great Depression of the 1930s, when unemployment peaked at 25 percent, as proof that the government cannot simply stand by and do nothing when so many millions of people are out of work.

If we are going to look back at history, we need to make sure the history we look at is accurate. First of all, unemployment never hit 25 percent until after– repeat, AFTER– the federal government intervened in the economy.

What was unemployment like when the federal government first intervened in the economy after the stock market crash of 1929? It was 6.3 percent when that first intervention took place in June 1930– down from a peak of 9 percent in December 1929, two months after the stock market crash.

Unemployment never hit double digits in any of the 12 months following the stock market crash of 1929. But it hit double digits within 6 months after government intervention– and unemployment stayed in double digits for the entire remainder of the decade, as the government went in for one intervention after another.

The first federal intervention in June 1930 was the passage of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs by a Democratic Congress, a bill signed into law by Republican President Herbert Hoover. It was “bipartisan”– but bipartisan nonsense is still nonsense and a bipartisan disaster is still a disaster.

The idea behind these higher tariffs was that reducing our imports of foreign goods would create more jobs for American workers. It sounds plausible, but more than a thousand economists took out newspaper ads, warning that these tariffs would be counterproductive.

That was because other countries would retaliate with their own import restrictions, reducing American exports, thereby destroying American jobs. That is exactly what happened. But there are still people today who repeat the brass oldie that restricting imports will save American jobs.

You can always save particular jobs in a particular industry with import restrictions. But you lose other jobs in other industries, not only because other countries retaliate, but also because of the economic repercussions at home.

You can save jobs in the American sugar industry by restricting imports of foreign sugar. But that results in higher sugar prices within the United States, leading to higher costs for American candy producers, as well as American producers of other products containing sugar. That leads to higher prices for those products, which in turn means lower sales at home and abroad– and therefore fewer jobs in those industries.

A study concluded that there were three times as many jobs lost in the confection industry as were saved in the sugar industry. Restrictions on steel imports likewise led to an estimated 5,000 jobs being saved in the steel industry– and 26,000 jobs being lost in industries producing products made of steel.

Similarly, the whole idea of the government itself “creating jobs” is based on regarding the particular jobs created by government as being a net increase in the total number of jobs in the economy. But, since the government does not create wealth to pay for these jobs, but only transfers wealth from the private sector, that leaves less wealth for private employers to create jobs.

Songs that are golden oldies bring enjoyment when they return. But brass oldies in politics just repeat the original disasters.

A statistical analysis by economists, published in 2004, concluded that federal interventions had prolonged the Great Depression of the 1930s by several years. How long will future research show that current government interventions prolonged the economic crisis we are living through now?

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell102710.php3