Liberty and the ruling class.
Hemphill, Thomas A.
Conspiracies of the Ruling Class: How to Break Their Grip Forever
By Lawrence B. Lindsey
263 pp.; Simon & Schuster, 2016
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Larry Lindsey knows whereof he speaks. As a former governor of the
Federal Reserve System from 1991 to 1997, and as director of the
National Economic Council under George W. Bush, he has helped craft
economic policy at the highest levels of government. However, while the
Harvard-educated economist views himself--along with many other people
with whom he served in government--as "getting the job done and
moving on," he is concerned about a different group of top-level
government employees who, he says, have a very different agenda. As he
writes in his new book, Conspiracies of the Ruling Class:
The purpose of their government service
was to accumulate personal power and
to exercise that power over others. They
didn't have a noble cause, even though
they always acted as though they did, but
a hidden need to wield power and maintain
control of their little domain.
Lindsey notes that he did not take "these people" too
seriously until they began expanding their fiefdoms and turned their
attention from the bureaucracy to the country itself and individuals
like him. "These people" are politicians, appointees, and
bureaucrats who are career government employees and academics who wait
for their opportunities to assume positions of political power. He dubs
them "the Ruling Class" and describes them thus:
They view their jobs not as leaders,
who encourage the rest of us to make
the most of our talents, but as people
who are superior--as though they are
the shepherds and we the sheep. They
ridicule the successful and do everything
they can to make the population
dependent on them.
Lindsey identifies "progressives," or modern liberals, as
the ideological group that is the latest incarnation of the Ruling
Class. Secure in their control of the media, the entertainment industry,
and academia, a member of the Ruling Class will adopt an ideal such as
"social justice" when in government service and attempt to
implement this vision of a "just" world by taxing and
spending, thus redistributing wealth by taking money from one person and
giving it to another.
Lindsey divides his book into three parts. In the first, he
discusses the Ruling Class's threat to individual liberty.
Beginning with a historical view of the imperious ruler having absolute
or near absolute control over his subjects through most of the history
of humanity, to the unique notion of a constitution embodying federalism
and the rights of the individual resulting from the heroic efforts of
the Founding Fathers, he lays out antecedents to the modern
progressives' ongoing assaults on the U.S. Constitution. As he
notes, "The Ruling Class have rebranded themselves from the
beneficiaries of a despot who inherited his position to a new kind of
despot who inherited his position for the benefit of his society."
In part two, Lindsey evaluates the governing performance of the
Ruling Class in America over the latter part of the 20th century through
the years of the Obama administration. Increasing economic inequality
for America's minorities; a burgeoning national debt and inadequate
sustainable funding of Social Security and Medicare; declining
performance of American children in reading, writing, and arithmetic (as
compared to other developed nations); bureaucratic and economic
mismanagement of the nation's physical infrastructure; ongoing
governmental threats to limit the rights of Americans to arm themselves
for their self-defense; and expansion and abuse of the government's
powers (and consequent deterioration in due process and accountability)
in the civil taking of citizens' property are explained and
described with publicly available data and explicit examples of ruling
class behavior.
In part three, he offers his policy prescriptions for regaining the
liberties that have been slipping away from Americans. This is the
section of the book that fulfills his subtitle--How to Break Their Grip
Forever--and he explains what activities and policies he believes
Americans must embrace to throw off control by the Ruling Class.
Securing liberty / Lindsey makes an empirical case that there is a
pro-liberty majority in America, noting that in an April 2012 survey,
potential voters said they wanted smaller government by a 22-point
margin and believed that government regulation made society less fair by
a 28-point margin. Moreover, in a March 2015 Rasmussen poll of likely
voters, 52% responded that increased government spending hurts the
economy while just 28% disagreed.
Yet President Obama, an advocate of expansive government, won
re-election in 2012 with a 4 percent majority of voters. Why? According
to Lindsey, Obama's Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, failed to
connect with voters on one key self-oriented value, "Cares about
people like me," even though Romney was viewed by voters as
preferable to Obama on the leadership qualities of strength, vision, and
values. While Lindsey does not believe that a liberty-oriented candidate
should enter into a "bidding war" with a progressive Ruling
Class candidate for votes, those voters who believe they are being
abused by the government bureaucracy need to believe that a candidate
embraces liberty because he or she genuinely cares about voters like
them. Thus, a presidential candidate who frames the election as a choice
between liberty and the progressive Ruling Class will win over the
pro-liberty majority.
Lindsey also believes that a philosophy for a winning political
campaign should be focused on improving people's lives through
increased independence and individual control. When it comes to tax
increases, the previously mentioned March 2015 Rasmussen survey found
that 50% of voters believe tax increases hurt the U.S. economy while
just 23% disagree. Lindsey recommends that, to be "philosophically
populist and operationally libertarian," one should propose tax
code simplification, for example a flat tax that is simple as well as
fair in terms of taxes paid by different groups. As for the Affordable
Care Act (ACA), he recommends repealing the individual mandate,
repealing the employer mandate, and ending federal mandates and
restrictions on what policies must cover and who may offer coverage.
Those steps would address the desires of 49% of those surveyed in a
December 2015 Rasmussen poll who wanted to go through the law
piece-by-piece and improve it.
He next turns to what must be done once a pro-liberty majority has
been reestablished in Congress. First, he argues that Congress must
reassert control of its constitutional responsibilities over
administrative rulemaking. Federal lawmakers have delegated this
authority to so-called "experts" in the executive branch and
independent agencies. The first reform is to move this decisionmaking
away from the "experts" and return it to Congress, while the
executive branch focuses on enforcement responsibilities. Second, he
looks to end lifetime careers in federal policymaking, both by
implementing term limits for Congress and--more importantly-removing
employment protections from Ruling Class bureaucrats who have numerous
rights of appeal and who are rarely penalized for poor performance, much
less fired. (Unfortunately, he offers no specific suggestions for civil
service reforms.) He also recommends the federal court system end
lifetime appointments to the bench, suggesting an 18-year term instead,
which he believes is long enough to avoid the threat of political
pressure.
As to the critical issue of budget reform, Lindsey first recommends
that all government spending must go through the appropriations process
(not just the present 30%, which excludes costly and expanding
entitlements programs). Second, he would force Congress and the
president, when enacting either a new entitlement or changing an
existing one, to honestly estimate and designate a funding source for
the long-term costs. Third, he would have long-term budget scoring in
present-value terms be applied to both taxes and spending. Fourth, the
currently weak PAYGO rules (which ostensibly require any increase in
federal spending or reduction in taxes be offset by other fiscal
changes) would be reformed so they better adhere to long-term, honest
budgeting principles. Fifth, he wants to establish a systematic method
of addressing any political impasse that could result in a government
shutdown. Sixth and most importantly, he wants a way to enforce these
recommendations, suggesting that members of Congress must remain in
Washington, D.C. (and away from family members) until the necessary
compromises are reached.
Lastly, he confronts the public's distrust of the Federal
Reserve. According to a November 2013 Rasmussen survey, only 34% of
Americans viewed the Fed favorably, while 50% held an unfavorable view.
He addresses some of the public's major criticisms of the Fed, and
makes short shrift of them. For example, some Fed-bashers argue that it
should follow some explicit "rule" when making monetary
policy. However, he notes that if history provides little guidance on
the relationship between Fed policy in the short-term and its effect on
inflation, a rule that works well at one time might prove disastrously
inappropriate at another. As for critic demands to "audit" the
Fed, Lindsey points out that all expenses incurred by the Fed are
already audited extensively by both internal and external auditors, and
the Federal Reserve balance sheet is disclosed and audited. This demand,
he argues, is really an effort to "second guess" Fed policy.
Finally, he dismisses "End the Fed" sloganeering, pointing out
that another institution, such as Congress, would step in to set
interest rate and money supply targets, unless the nation returns to an
inelastic currency, which raises the specter of sudden financial crashes
like those of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Lindsey offers what he characterizes as a modest "reform"
proposal (yet "philosophically populist and operationally
libertarian"): pass a constitutional amendment that protects
people's right to use something other than Federal Reserve notes to
write a contract. That right does exist today, but it can be suspended
at any time by presidential decree, as Franklin Roosevelt did in 1933.
Lindsey concludes his book by arguing that the progressive Ruling
Class is eroding economic opportunities in America by "actively
compressing, enervating, extinguishing, and stupefying us with complex
rules, taxes, and obligations." The Ruling Class, he says, views
America as a country and not as a cause, and has "nothing to offer
but empty promises built on the quicksand of ever-increasing demands on
the resources, energy, and freedom of the rest of us." In contrast,
in his philosophy, liberty and the subsequent advancement of humankind
is the moral high ground, and this political philosophy will be the
foundation for permanently breaking the Ruling Class' grip on the
levers of power.
Populist and libertarian? / The phrase "philosophically
populist and operationally libertarian" sums up Lindsey's
political and policy approach to throwing off the shackles of the
progressive Ruling Class. As he notes, his academic training as an
economist allows him the comfort of thinking in terms of
"tradeoffs" in public policy and winning elections. After 100
years of embedding themselves in public institutions, it will be a
daunting challenge to remove progressives from their Ruling Class
positions.
His "populist" approach to regaining a pro-liberty
majority will not make diehard libertarian/constitutional conservatives
joyful, but it may begin to turn the tide of modern progressivism in
federal institutions. How? Through the successful election of more
pro-liberty political candidates who will begin the arduous task of
changing government from its increasingly active role as
coercer/regulator of the American populace to a return to the Founding
Fathers' vision of government as the protector of individual
rights.
While most of his public policy proposals have broad public support
and have a strong "common sense" basis to them, I take issue
with a few of them. Granted, attempting to deal with key provisions of
the ACA could effectively implode the legislation. But repealing it and
immediately legislatively substituting a real health care reform law
that embraces market-based options, supports individual choice in health
care management, and offers the potential for real cost controls (and
limited government oversight) would be a far more effective response
than keeping much of that 2,700-page legal and regulatory monstrosity in
effect. Allowing Congress to actively reembrace its rulemaking
authority--if it were circumscribed to being mandatory (as it is
presently optional and rarely operationalized) for major rules, i.e.,
costing $ 100 million or more--would be a welcome first step for the
legislative branch exercising its constitutional authority. I would also
agree with Lindsey that his recommendation for a constitutional
amendment to use something other than Federal Reserve notes to write a
contract is a "modest" proposal. I doubt, however, that this
would be any game-changing policy for a pro-liberty candidate to run on
successfully, and may actually appear to many voters as an avoidance of
what is emotionally their primary issue: the continued existence of the
Federal Reserve.
I enjoyed reading Lindsey's book. He provides a wonderfully
accessible description of the foundations of Ruling Class philosophy
throughout the ages, and a thorough, empirically based analysis of the
failures of progressive Ruling Class public policies in recent decades.
I also appreciated his honest approach to legislatively dealing with the
national budget and the need to directly discuss major entitlement
programs such as Social Security and Medicare on an annual versus
continuing basis. While I like his overall approach to evaluating public
policy issues, and I think it has merit as a practical approach to
politically coalescing a pro-liberty majority of voters, I did find
myself a little disappointed by his policy prescriptions in the final
section of the book. Nevertheless, he writes exceptionally well, with a
remarkable ability to blend data with a measured narrative flair--no
mean feat for an economist. I certainly would recommend this book for
anyone who values liberty and would like to be a better informed voter
in this election cycle.
THOMAS A. HEMPHILL is professor of strategy, innovation, and public
policy in the School of Management at the University of Michigan, Flint,
and a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.