A week or so ago
in a posting on how to make tax reform even worse, we noted that when the State
starts to take over more and more control over people’s lives, not only the
State becomes overburdened with duties, but the citizens become overburdened
with taxes. Somebody, after all, has to
pay for such things, such as universal basic incomes; money just doesn’t appear
out of nowhere.
Nor is that all. A burden also falls on consumers as a result
of inflating the price level by the government emitting debt to finance social
programs and raising the costs of production by increasing wages. As the solidarist labor economist Goetz
Antony Briefs (1889-1974) noted regarding this
transformation,
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| Goetz Briefs |
It is a fact that large groups of workers today have no
objection to raise against propertylessness — provided their jobs are secure,
their wages sufficient, and provisions are made through social insurance for
old age and unemployment. To meet these
requirements the economic system has had to shoulder increasing burdens and to
put up with an increasing amount of social legislation, which, of course,
implies additional regimentation. As
long as the risks of a propertyless, dependent life were private affairs of the
worker, it paid to transform work more and more into wage work. Now, however, since the concomitant costs of
this process are gradually being made public costs to be carried through taxes levied upon
business and the general public, it is becoming questionable whether or not the
aforementioned process was always as economical as it seemed to be. (Goetz A.
Briefs, The Proletariat: A Challenge to
Western Civilization. New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1937, 273-274.)
After World War
II, the United States relied on the reformed capitalism of the New Deal both domestically and internationally in an
attempt to ensure post-war government-sponsored economic prosperity and full
wage system employment. It could
therefore be argued that the Allied victory in World War II was in spite of,
not because of, the Keynesian economic policies of the New Deal.
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| Alexis de Tocqueville |
The “Frontier
Thesis” of Frederick Jackson Turner (1861-1932) offers an explanation why the New
Deal and its
underlying philosophy were the antithesis of everything that had contributed to
the unique American character. That
character had impressed such diverse commentators and authorities as Alexis de
Tocqueville, William Cobbett (1763-1835),
Michel-Guillaume-Saint-Jean de Crèvecoeur
(“J. Hector Saint John de Crèvecoeur,” 1735-1813),
and every pope since Pius VII. As Turner noted in 1893 in his paper, “The Significance
of the Frontier in American History” —
American
development has exhibited not merely advance along a single line, but a return
to primitive conditions on a continually advancing frontier line, and a new
development for that area. American
social development has been continually beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of
American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its
continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces
dominating American character. The true
point of view in the history of this nation is not the Atlantic coast, it is
the Great West. (Frederick Jackson Turner, “XVIII. — The Significance of the
Frontier in American History,” Annual
Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1893. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office,
1894, 200.)
The American
character thereby developed out of a situation much closer to nature — human nature — than was possible in
Europe with its entrenched economic, political, and social élites. This situation was not
the result of the wilderness, per se,
but the opportunity the wilderness represented for anyone to make his or her
own way, freed from artificial and nature-stifling constraints. This was the opportunity to gain ownership of a reasonable amount of landed capital, and the power that necessarily
accompanies such ownership.
Personal
empowerment through capital ownership and the habit of forming private associations
for every conceivable purpose led to the development of democracy of a different kind than was possible in
Europe, as Pius IX discovered to his cost. American democracy inspired European
democracy, but the latter was a pale imitation of the former based on different
(and, according to the Catholic Church, erroneous)
assumptions about human nature, both individual and social. As Turner noted,
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| Frederick Jackson Turner |
[T]he most important effect of the frontier has been in
the promotion of democracy here and in
Europe. As has been indicated, the
frontier is productive of individualism. Complex
society is precipitated by the wilderness into a kind of primitive organization
based on the family. The tendency is
anti-social. It produces antipathy to
control, and particularly to any direct control. . . . The frontier
individualism has from the beginning promoted democracy. . . . So long as free
land exists, the opportunity for a competency exists, and economic power
secures political power. (Ibid.,
221-223.)
Nor are the
effects of a frontier limited to individual economic and political power:
From the conditions of frontier life came intellectual
traits of profound importance. . . . That coarseness and strength combined with
acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to
find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the
artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that
dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, and withal that
buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom — these are traits of the
frontier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the
frontier. Since the days when the fleet
of Columbus sailed into the waters of the New World, America has been another
name for opportunity, and the people of the United States have taken their
tone from the incessant expansion which has not only been open but has even
been forced upon them. (Ibid.,
226-227.)
With the
closing of the frontier, democracy in the United States began to shift away from its uniquely American
and natural character based on the sovereignty of the individual and the
dignity of the human person with an appreciation of people’s political nature. Democracy gradually began transforming into
the European model based on sovereignty of the collective and the dignity of
the State.
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