Sunday, July 12, 2020

The Great Society: A Libertarian Critique

All of these assorted Deals constituted a basic and fundamental shift in American life-a shift from a relatively laissez-faire economy and minimal state to a society in which the state is unquestionably king.

In the United States, a strong libertarian and antistatist tradition prevented the process of statization from taking hold at a very rapid pace.

For although in wartime various states find themselves in danger from one another, every state has found war a fertile field for spreading the myth among its subjects that they are the ones in deadly danger, from which their state is protecting them.

In the United States, the process of statization began in earnest under cover of the Civil War, and reached full flower as a result of World Wars I and II, to finally culminate in the Great Society.

The usual tripartite rapprochement of big business, big unions, and big government symbolizes the organization of society by blocs, syndics, and corporations, regulated and privileged by the federal, state, and local governments.

The indispensable intellectual role of engineering popular consent for state rule is played, for the Great Society, by the liberal intelligentsia, who provide the rationale of "General welfare," "Humanity," and the "Common good".

The cruelest myth fostered by the liberals is that the Great Society functions as a great boon and benefit to the poor; in reality, when we cut through the frothy appearances to the cold reality underneath, the poor are the major victims of the welfare state.

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