Let nobody accuse the tea party enthusiasts of lacking intellectual sophistication, no matter what their favorite candidates might say about evolution, civil rights, masturbation or alcohol prohibition.
According to The New York Times, the movement’s reading list includes works of political economy by such right-wing thinkers as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek and Frederic Bastiat. (And never mind that some of them are reading Glenn Beck’s favorite crank, the late Cleon Skousen, who doesn’t quite belong in the same category.)
What makes this news so bemusing is not that the far right is rediscovering anarcho-capitalism or ultra-libertarianism — an ideology whose potential consequences were observed the other day in Tennessee, where firefighters watched a family’s house burn down because they hadn’t paid a fee. Mises, Hayek and their successors have long influenced the American right, from William F. Buckley Jr. to Alan Greenspan.
What’s funny is the sudden reverence among the tea party’s self-styled super-patriots for a bunch of foreign philosophers whose outlook is known as “Austrian economics,” except for Bastiat — whose Frenchness might be expected to arouse even greater suspicion among our nativists. Among the most bitter complaints against President Obama is his supposed penchant for European notions concerning health care reform, climate change and global security. His angriest critics at tea party demonstrations maliciously suggest that the president is himself a foreigner who doesn’t respect the American way.
So why do those same people now tell us that America should heed the Austrian school of economics, with its strictures against public schooling, public roads and government services of almost any kind?
Why should European ideologies of the far right suddenly become fashionable among citizens who so blithely accuse the White House of importing “socialist” policies from abroad?
The Austrian craze is particularly curious because it has displaced a school of economics that ought to be more appealing to the proud and patriotic, especially those who claim to be true to the views of the nation’s founders. That would be the school known as “the American system” — which offers the added attraction of a real record of promoting national prosperity.
What is (or was) the American system? As articulated by thinkers from Alexander Hamilton to Henry Clay to Abraham Lincoln, it included protective tariffs to foster industry, national support for scientific research, federal spending (and debt!) to finance public works, regulation of private infrastructure (such as railroads) and universal education. That way of doing things persisted well into the past century, influencing policy in the Progressive Era, the New Deal and the Great Society. It preserved the nation’s independence after the Revolution and built the United States into the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world.
But Austrian economics — which the Austrians themselves have wisely rejected, by the way, in favor of a more democratic and egalitarian style — had precisely nothing to do with that historic process.
So why would the tea party movement, so prone to bouts of jingoism and xenophobia, embrace an untried foreign ideology? Why would they ignore the traditional, native-grown concepts that bear the stamp of Hamilton and Lincoln? It is hard not to suspect that the Washington-based exponents of Austrian economics, at corporate-funded outfits like Americans for Prosperity, are promoting their own familiar agenda.
If the “Austrian” ideology prevailed in tearing down government, extirpating regulation and destroying public institutions, what would be left standing? Not much except giant corporations, mammoth banks and hedge funds, whose proprietors would then be able to completely dominate an increasingly impoverished, uneducated and undefended people. Not every aspect of the old American system could or should have been preserved — but it is much preferable to the corporate oligarchy that can be glimpsed behind the tea party.
Joe Conason writes for the New York Observer (www.observer.com).
Copyright 2010 Creators.com
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.