Clinton's Economic Plan

Last week, I blogged about Hillary Clinton's economic plan and noted that free markets work best with fewer rules in place.

Mark Alexander, writing at Townhall.com over teh weekend, made note of the same stump speech Clinton gave. "I prefer a 'we're all in it together' society," she went on. "I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none."

In a quintessential example of Clintonista doublespeak, Hillary outlined her economic fairness doctrine:

"There is no greater force for economic growth than free markets, but markets work best with rules that promote our values, protect our workers and give all people a chance to succeed. Fairness doesn't just happen. It requires the right government policies."

So, according to Ms. Clinton, free markets work best when they're constrained by the right government policies. In other words, free markets work best when they're not free.

Apparently Hillary has also been smoking Fidel's hand-rolled cigars. How else are we to account for her failure to recall that centralized economies, like that of the former Soviet Union, are doomed to fail and have cost millions of lives along the way?

Of course, Clinton's allusion to "rules" is Demo-code for taxation, which, as we know, is often the forcible transfer of wealth from one group to another. This taxation, in turn, creates reliable political constituencies for Democrats. As George Bernard Shaw once noted, "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul."

I have been thinking more about the speech and the economic principles in play behind the message.

The thing that offends me most is not the "robbing Peter to pay Paul" framework, since all governments, not matter how conservative they are, do this to support some social programs that we as a nation have deemed important. No the truly offensive statement is this part: "I believe our government can once again work for all Americans."

The message implicit in this statement, that sounds good--"government is working for me"--is the presumption that government can be big and benevolent, that it can act with kindness that is absent from individual human beings or communities. In fact, government is none of these things.

Government, by its very nature, is a cold, coercive beast we tolerate because only because we must. Only government is in a position to protect us from evil from without the country and impose order within. Government cannot be trusted to act in any fashion other than extending its own power. Such a "good government" mindset is an oxymoron of the highest order.

Government can't work for people, it counters the very nature of government which must disregard the wants and needs of individuals in favor of the common good. The common good may actually be wrong for a majority of the people it is supposed to help.

Hillary Clinton wants to make government bigger and make no mistake, to do so means taking more money to expand governmental power. Nothing more.