[Obama] A Gangster of Our Own
Tags: Barack Obama, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Politics of fearDuring Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, the mantras were hope and change and the imagery was that with him in charge, faith in government would be justified. But what America has mainly seen since his inauguration is fear.
The President pushed his bailout plan with apocalyptic language that, without it, the sky would fall. Similarly, his proposals have been targeted to fears of a possible depression, of losing jobs, of losing homes, of losing health care, etc. In every case, the “solution” put forward has been a staggering expansion in the power and scope of the federal government, presented as benevolent rescuer.
And in every case, he has exploited Frederic Bastiat’s insight in “What is Seen and What is Unseen.” The promised benefits are always put on display, to calm fears and make sure they are recognized and lauded. But the coercion, behind those promises — made necessary because government has no resources it does not extract from citizens and no expanded powers that do not detract from liberty — is glossed over. For almost everyone, taxes today and deficits tomorrow are presented as being paid by “not you” and the encroachments on individual freedom as only restricting others who can be demonized.
This combination of fear and coercion has received little notice in the current media. However, it has been insightfully analyzed. In 1959, in The Nature of Man and His Government, Robert LeFevre saw this connection clearly. He saw how the desire to assuage their fears led people to grant power to a gangster of their own, in hope that the gangster would remain their servant, with its power exercised solely for their own good. Unfortunately, he showed that hope to be both logically and historically unsupported. On the 50th anniversary of The Nature of Man and His Government, it is worth revisiting LeFevre’s insights.
“[M]en have organized for the purpose of protecting themselves and their property. Government is the tool of this protection…in practice, the tool of protection…is employed with equal vigor and ferocity against both the criminal and the good and harmless citizen…”
“[G]overnment has a single, possibly legitimate, function, that of apprehending and punishing the criminal…government has, in its manifold legal actions, gone far beyond…to equate the average individual, who is peaceful and orderly, with the criminal who commits acts of aggression with willful intent.”
“[T]hat which was formed for our protection becomes, finally, the very reason we need to be protected.”
“There is only one thing which causes man to look for and to organize a tool which is an instrument of compulsion and prohibition. That thing is fear. Men look to government to protect them because they fear. And virtually without exception, everything that human beings fear becomes a project for government.”
“Governments, then, are not agencies of right, necessarily. They are, necessarily, agencies of strength. It could be said that man, feeling certain that he was surrounded by gangsters, has devised a gangster of his own, theoretically obedient to his own will, who will act with truculence against alien gangsters, while remaining docile and tractable towards his deviser.”
