Attacking Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) State of the Union address, Paul Krugman contends that, while conservatives see smaller government as an end in itself, liberals don’t see bigger government the same way. As he’s raised this argument on other occasions, a response is merited.
The Florida senator asserted: “This idea – that our problems were caused by a government that was too small – it’s just not true.”
Krugman rejoins that Rubio’s statement is the “usual mirror-image fallacy (we want smaller government, therefore liberals just want bigger government, never mind what it does).
A clever dodge. Of course liberals don’t want a bigger government “no matter what it does,” and no conservative has said otherwise; but nor do conservatives want a smaller government “no matter what it cuts.” Abolishing the military, for instance, would shrink government, but no conservative favors that.
The real issue is that each side holds equally opposing values, and these clashing values precipitate an inescapable trade-off between big and small government. The right wants to protect liberty, which preserves the traditional understanding of equal opportunity: that we’re all born with equal “natural rights” and that we’re equal before the law (and in the eyes of God, as understood by our founders). People have an inherent right to cultivate their natural talents and industry, and to keep the fruits of their labor. Government must be restrained from infringing these rights.
The left wants to advance equality, and has radically transformed the traditional understanding of “equality of opportunity.” No longer does it suffice that people possess equal inherent rights and receive equal treatment before the law. People must be given the same opportunities: The State must make equal unequal starting points. Since some are born in to more privileged circumstances than others in life, government must step in and provide, taking from the privileged to give to the less fortunate.
Thus the State is inflated or contracted as a means to each side’s respective ends. If equality wins, liberty loses, and so the reverse.
It is therefore as fair to say conservatives want smaller government as it is to say liberals want bigger government.
No fallacy here.
I’ll answer your question with a question, Do wild bears crap in the woods? The liberal/progressive movement wants total control of our lives from womb to tomb and that takes a lot of bureaucracy.
I have a different take on it.
Liberals want government – That is pervasive, all-encompassing, all-controlling, all-powerful government.
Liberals want EVERYONE to be at some level, employed, managed, indoctrinated by government. It take “…government of, by and for the people…” to the absurd Marxist level of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
In the Liberal world view life is categorized, homogenized, graded, and utilitized. The freedom of liberalism is the freedom of subsistence, guilt free fornication, and intoxication.
The liberal world view is that there only need be enough money to provide relative opulence to the Ruling Class, and comfort to the Commissariat.
The destruction of the Bourgeoisie continues at an accelerating pace, and as Marx predicted they are selling their executioners the rope for their nooses.
The current figurehead of the Regime is the object of the Cult of Personality required to beguile the Proletariat into being the muscle of the destruction of the middle class (Bourgeoisie), in preparation for the Dictatorship to be established.
There is no end date on the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (and Marx was not referring to the Proles having a say in their governance, either…)
Maximilien Robespierre was the first Dictator of the Proletariat (before Marx and Engels even cooked up the verbiage for it) and he was eventually eaten by his own murderous Revolution.
Socialism in all its forms (Marxism, Moaism, Stalinism, Leninism, Social-Democracy, Fascism, Communism) always fails in both its goals and its execution. It is a fundamental insanity to think that it will ever succeed.
r/TMF
At first blush I would say that Krugman is speaking in the theoretical realm and as such is correct in that the first doesn’t necessarily mean the second.
In practice however, he (and his followers who are always sure to include reference to his Nobel prize as if that’s supposed to end any discussion as to his qualifications) are always saying that public sector employment is the key to our economic health (forget that you don’t hire a public sector employee, you essentially marry them for life).
So I conclude that his argument is stated backwards. Conservatives are pushing back on big government in response to liberals’ long standing practices. Conservatives didn’t start the argument. So as stated above it is a “clever dodge” (although not that clever if I can see through it).
I found your piece to have a specious quality to it, Dave. What you don’t address is the fact that conservatives see smaller government as the objective, a philosophical goal in and of itself. But liberals don’t think about bigger government the same way. You try to get around this point by saying that conservatives aren’t ubiquitously in favor of smaller government, because they want things like a military. This is a reductio ad absurdum. Do you really think Krugman is suggesting that conservatives want smaller government to the point where we no longer have a functioning society (i.e., no military, no rule of law, no due process, etc.)? That’s like saying I want to eat less so I can lose weight, and you telling me I’m in favor of not eating at all.
The point, I believe, is that liberals don’t view the size and scope of government as an objective in and of itself. Yes, there are things we think the government should do, but not based on some philosophical belief that “bigger government tends to do things better.” It’s because we believe, in some circumstances, that the evidence proves that having the government do something could yield better outcomes. But the size of government, or whether the free market or the government is better, is really beside the point. No liberal I know went around cheering about how big the government got when, say, Obamacare got passed. But if Obamacare were repealed, you can bet conservatives would be all over the airwaves about how this is good because it “shrinks the size and scope of government.”