{"id":6677,"date":"2013-10-29T10:38:41","date_gmt":"2013-10-29T17:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6677"},"modified":"2013-10-29T10:38:41","modified_gmt":"2013-10-29T17:38:41","slug":"obamacare-and-the-techocratic-abyss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamacare-and-the-techocratic-abyss\/","title":{"rendered":"ObamaCare and the Techocratic Abyss"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

The continuing disaster of the Obamacare website, like the law itself, illustrates one of the biggest bad ideas of the Progressive movement, one that reflects a central assumption of modernity: that new knowledge is now available that will allow an elite of technicians to order society more justly and efficiently, and eliminate the tragic realities of existence. Progressives bought into this idea wholesale, and ever since have wanted to expand the scope and reach of the state in order to empower those technocrats so they can lead Americans into a world of justice, equality, prosperity, and universal happiness. The metastasizing federal government now bankrupting the country is the creation of this dubious proposition.<\/p>\n

The Progressives, however, uncritically accepted this faith. In his essay \u201cThe Study of Administration,\u201d published in 1887, Woodrow Wilson asserted that administration was the most important function of government. But no \u201cscience\u201d of administration existed in America, unlike in Europe, where statist governments with centralized power managed the lives of their citizens. Wilson yearned for such a political system, for new economic and technological changes had multiplied the functions of government: \u201cThere is scarcely a single duty of government which was once simple which is not now complex,\u201d and \u201csteadily widening to new conceptions of state duty; so that, at the same time that the functions of government are every day becoming more complex and difficult, they are also vastly multiplying in number. Administration is everywhere putting its hands to new undertakings . . . Whatever holds of authority state or federal governments are to take upon corporations, there must follow cares and responsibilities which will require not a little wisdom, knowledge, and experience. Such things must be studied in order to be well done.\u201d The aim of such study will be to \u201copen for the public a bureau of skilled, economical administration,\u201d made up of the \u201chundreds who are wise\u201d empowered to guide the thousands who are \u201cselfish, ignorant, timid, stubborn, or foolish.\u201d As a \u201cscience,\u201d then, administration \u201clies outside the proper sphere of\u00a0politics<\/i>. Administrative questions are not political questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The unproven assumption behind Wilson\u2019s argument is that traditional wisdom, experience, common sense, businesses, and civil society are incapable of solving problems. Progressive journalist Walter Lippmann suggested as much in 1914: \u201cWe can no longer treat life as something that has trickled down to us. We have to deal with it deliberately, devise its social organization, alter its tools, formulate its method, educate and control it. In endless ways we put intention where custom has reigned. We break up routines, make decisions, choose our ends, select means.\u201d Such activism is possible because \u201cthe great triumph of modern psychology is its growing capacity for penetrating to the desires that govern our thought.\u201d Left unexamined is the question whether \u201cmodern psychology,\u201d or sociology, or economics really possesses such knowledge, and even if these \u201csciences\u201d do, whether large government bureaucracies, freed from market discipline and political accountability, are the best venues for applying such knowledge.<\/p>\n

This ideal of what Franklin Delano Roosevelt called \u201cenlightened administration,\u201d has in form at least become a reality. There are now over 500 federal agencies, commissions, and offices, with 2.3 million employees costing $200 billion annually. This leviathan in 2013 will spend almost $3.5 trillion dollars ($645 billion of it borrowed), 45% of it on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. These monstrous agencies allegedly are staffed and managed by \u201cexperts\u201d who presumably have objective knowledge and techniques that enable them to manage the old age and health care of millions of people, who presumably are too \u201cselfish, ignorant, timid, stubborn, or foolish\u201d to do it themselves. And now another gang of \u201cenlightened administrators\u201d has given us Obamacare, a complex, incoherent, badly constructed program slated to cost $1.8 trillion over the next 10 years, not to mention raising health-care costs and not even achieving its main aim, to cover the uninsured. Given the massive fraud, waste, unforeseen consequences, duplication, and character-corrupting moral hazard that all these progressive programs have left in their wake, we should be skeptical that the Progressive idea of\u00a0 \u201cenlightened administration\u201d or \u201cbureau[s] of skilled, economical administration\u201d has been anything other an ideological\u2013\u2013and massively\u00a0un<\/i>economical\u2013\u2013 fantasy.<\/p>\n

More important, the notion of federal technocrats\u2013\u2013supposedly apolitical, but many utterly politicized, as the recent abusive practices of the IRS illustrate\u2013\u2013contradicts the assumptions behind the Constitutional order. The Founders created a government of checks and balances and divided powers because they feared both the tendency of the majority to tyrannize minorities, but also of minorities to tyrannize the people. As James Madison explained in\u00a0Federalist<\/i>\u00a051, the \u201cseparate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government\u201d would allow each branch \u201cto resist the encroachment of the others,\u201d for \u201cambition must be made to counteract ambition.\u201d Any elite, whether of birth, wealth, or presumed superior knowledge, if given concentrated power will be corrupted by it and eventually compromise the freedom of the whole. This is because all humans are flawed and subject to greed, ambition, pride, and numerous other vices. Thus an elite of technocrats armed with taxpayer money and the coercive power of the state is as dangerous as aristocrats or plutocrats. As Alexander Hamilton said inFederalist\u00a0<\/i>85, \u201cI never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man. The result of the deliberations of all collective bodies must necessarily be a compound, as well of the errors and prejudices, as of the good sense and wisdom, of the individuals of whom they are composed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Worse yet, unlike state and federal politicians, who are selected by the people and thus to some measure accountable, these federal bureaucrats are anonymous functionaries, not subject to the accountability of voters or the market. No matter how much they fail, no matter how much money they waste, their budgets will be increased and their numbers will grow. The functionaries upon whose watch 4 Americans were murdered in Benghazi were given paid vacations then reassigned. Lois Lerner, up to her neck in responsibility for the political abuse perpetrated by the IRS, has retired with a fat pension. Do you think any of the Park Service employees who drove veterans away from their memorial in D.C. or harassed privately owned museums and monuments like Mt. Vernon will ever be held accountable? This lawlessness is exactly what the Founders feared about concentrated power beyond the reach of the citizens.<\/p>\n

Most important, for all the Progressive talk of expressing the peoples\u2019 \u201cinterests\u201d and solving their problems, now these interests do not arise from the people, but are selected and imposed upon them by others. As Woodrow Wilson put it, \u201cWhoever would effect a change in a modern constitutional government must first educate his fellow-citizens to\u00a0want<\/i>\u00a0some change. That done, he must persuade them to want the particular change he wants. He must first make public opinion willing to listen and then see to it that it listen to the right things. He must stir it up to search for an opinion, and then manage to put the right opinion in its way.\u201d Every major problem that justified a massive federal agency\u2013\u2013from Social Security to Obamacare\u2013\u2013was sold to the people as a problem only an expanded federal government could solve using methods the Federal government chose.<\/p>\n

Obamacare is merely the most egregious example of this process. Democrats for decades have asserted that health care is a \u201cconstitutional right,\u201d that the system is in crisis and putting millions at risk. And they have insisted that only the Feds could solve this problem. The result is the bureaucratic Rube Goldberg machine we call Obamacare. Other solutions\u2013\u2013letting insurance be purchased nationally, instituting tort reform, reforming Medicare and Medicaid\u2013\u2013were dismissed out of hand. The malfunctioning website is merely the consequence of a bad law and the incompetence of a federal bureaucracy that always spends other people\u2019s money and is seldom called to account.<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re unhappy about Obamacare, just remember it is the latest example of nearly a century of arrogant Progressive technocrats increasing and centralizing power in order to \u201ceducate citizens to want some change\u201d\u00a0and then \u201cto want the particular change\u201d the technocrats want. Meanwhile the Constitutional order\u2013\u2013created to defend our freedom, not solve our problems\u2013\u2013is insidiously weakened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine The continuing disaster of the Obamacare website, like the law itself, illustrates one of the biggest bad ideas of the Progressive movement, one that reflects a central assumption of modernity: that new knowledge is now available that will allow an elite of technicians to order society more justly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22,278],"tags":[12,1064,40,693,688,426,527],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1JH","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6672,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamacare-redefines-the-shutdown\/","url_meta":{"origin":6677,"position":0},"title":"Obamacare Redefines the Shutdown","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 Democratic senators up for reelection in 13 months are now embracing, in their calls to delay Obamacare, the same themes as did the House Republicans and a few senators a few weeks ago\u2014hoping to preempt mounting criticism. In this surreal landscape, three weeks\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Healthcare"","block_context":{"text":"Healthcare","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/healthcare\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6544,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-would-the-founders-think-of-defunding-obamacare\/","url_meta":{"origin":6677,"position":1},"title":"What Would the Founders Think of Defunding Obamacare?","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine\u00a0 A few days ago CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin, speaking about the Republican House bill defunding Obamacare, commented, \u201cCertainly not the way the Founding Fathers maybe drew this thing up.\u201d\u00a0It\u2019s certainly a surprise to hear an anchor on CNN, an organization biased in favor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6799,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/affordable-care-of-patient-protection-or-obamacare\/","url_meta":{"origin":6677,"position":2},"title":"Affordable Care or Patient Protection or Obamacare?","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 There are some rumors that the administration wants to distance itself from the slang \u201cObamacare,\u201d a term the president embraced in the 2012 campaign but now finds hurtful to his polls and his colleagues in the Congress. But what would be alternatives? We\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Healthcare"","block_context":{"text":"Healthcare","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/healthcare\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6745,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamacare-is-dead-long-live-obamacare\/","url_meta":{"origin":6677,"position":3},"title":"Obamacare Is Dead. Long Live Obamacare!","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 In the next 90 days, the Obama administration will have to declare victory and then abandon most of Obamacare. The legislation defies the laws of physics\u2014more and broader coverage for more people at\u00a0less\u00a0cost\u2014as well as logic: Young people, on average as a cohort\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Healthcare"","block_context":{"text":"Healthcare","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/healthcare\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6659,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/new-coke-health-care\/","url_meta":{"origin":6677,"position":4},"title":"New Coke Health Care?","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 The president has compared the rollout disaster of Obamacare to temporary tech glitches with a new-model iPhone. But a better comparison is the disastrous 1985 campaign to replace Coca-Cola with \u201cNew Coke,\u201d a new sweeter formula that was supposed to stop Pepsi from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Healthcare"","block_context":{"text":"Healthcare","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/healthcare\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6643,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/where-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":6677,"position":5},"title":"Where Now?","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 The government gridlock is, to use now politically incorrect metaphors, only one lost battle in a long campaign, and we are now back to the original proposition of watching the administration try to implement Obamacare. We know the president does exceedingly well when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6678,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6677\/revisions\/6678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}