Dear Friends,
It seems to me, recent experience teaches us that the bureaucracy is the greatest threat to our republic since the Civil War. Smart and wise people would roll our laws back to pre-Woodrow Wilson days. That would put an end to the failed experiment of central planning by bureaucrat of the last century. Central planning is one of those ideas that is very appealing yet utterly devastating. It’s like political heroin. Once a system tries it, the addiction is immediate, and the consequences are distant. At first a little goes a long way. Then it takes more and more to get the rush. Eventually the system needs an Oxy 80 a day just to feel okay. Every kind of mechanism has been tried to implement it. From despot to bureaucracy, and so far every one has yielded national and international disaster. Like heroin…
Intellectuals love the idea of centrally planning society, the economy, and our lives. Moreover, they have the hubris to think they can pull it off. Their educations teach them, if nothing else, that they’re smart. The smarter a person is, the greater the absurdity they can rationalize. So the brainiacs fall in love with the idea of central planning, even as politicians idealize it. This is because it gives them unlimited power. They are more interested in extracting wealth than anything else, so that’s what they do. They extract wealth from the nation, even as the clumsy intelligentsia fumble the ball over and over. Central planning then has a magnetism to it that is powerful enough to overcome the wisdom of most brainiacs and politicians… like heroin does.
Once a system enacts even a small amount of central planning, people in charge get a rush of power. The social experimenter gets a laboratory full of lab rats to experiment with. This explodes his or her ego. The politicians get the rush of raw power, (mixed with plenty of grift). So, now that person who formerly had to count pennies, like the rest of us, has a bottomless pocketbook. The joy of the privileged in such a system is countered by the increasing misery of the people. This is almost like the body politic gets the dopamine reward and the nation gets the addiction. Whole industries pop up to exploit the government grift. This creates a faction that follows Olsen’s Logic of Collective action. Which means, they have a vested interest in keeping the grift flowing. Isn’t that just like an addiction?
Central planning is pernicious and perverted enough but when it’s done in the dark by unaccountable bureaucrats in the brightly lit cubicles of the administrative state, it has even more power to destroy. Everyone knew who Stalin was. He was the figurehead of the regime. He was the one they blamed for their misery and he had the power to change it. The bureaucrats who were the sprockets and cogs of the machine labored out of sight. Today the bureaucracy still labors out of sight, and we have politicians to blame, but the whole system runs on autopilot. Even if every politician went home, including the President, the administrative state would hum along… increasing the tax burden, regulatory burden, and lowering the lot of mankind. Addictions don’t go away because you lost your job.
Heroin destroys people by promising Eden and delivering Hell. Central planning does the same. Both are addictive to the body politic and the intelligentsia. Once they get a taste, they’re hooked. The rush of power, wealth, and prestige are hard to turn down. Then there’s the rush of being above the law. Once law has replaced morality, it serves those who write it, extracting from those who don’t. The brainiacs are always baffled why it failed again. Their conclusion is always that they didn’t centrally plan enough! If only they had more control, like with a CBDC or total surveillance, then it would work. They fiddle while their nations burn. But no bother, because they can simply rule over the ashes if need be. That’s why bureaucratic central planning is like heroin… it’s addictive and devastating.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
