More on Hassett

Good comments from Archit on AEI economics honcho Kevin Hassett's plan to boost growth by ending democracy:

Do these people actually think about what they are saying? Mitchell says that the problem is democracy's "enabling people to seize unearned wealth through the political process." As opposed to dictatorships? And Hassett starts with the problem of democracy not reflecting popular preference and concludes that dictatorship is the answer. Complete non sequitors abound.

I know for a fact that Cato employs people smarter than Mitchell, and I've heard rumors of one or two good apples at Heritage.

Comments

Didn't Putin recently have some American oil executive arrested on dubious charges because he wouldn't play ball?

Posted by Steve | May 17, 2007 9:24 AM

Again you are misreprenting both the substance and intent of the article. You are fat.

Posted by pimp hand strikes! | May 17, 2007 9:29 AM

"Again you are misreprenting both the substance and intent of the article."

M: ...An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
A: No it isn't.
M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
A: Yes it is!
M: No it isn't!

Posted by James Gary | May 17, 2007 9:32 AM

"AEI economics honcho Kevin Hassett's plan to boost growth by ending democracy"

So, in light of Bush's continued employment of Gonzales as AG, the Cheney/Yoo/etc. "unitary executive theory," the *years* that've passed since it became clear Bush believes himself to *be* above the law, the refusal of Democrats to even keep impeachment "on the table", warrantless wiretapping in multiple programs, past elections with dubious results (Florida more so than Ohio, but still), the ongoing US Attorney scandal, a war on terror and war in Iraq that seem designed (or at a very minimum, *used*) predominantly to attack domestic political opponents, and the conviction of Cheney's right-hand man for a handful of obvious cover-up crimes... can we say conclusively that Hassett's plan isn't working in America?

Or, should we say that the "boost [economic] growth" part of the plan is *window* *dressing* for the "ending democracy" part?

Because *that* part is going quite well here, thank you very much.

Posted by Chris | May 17, 2007 9:53 AM

Harvey Mansfield...Kevin Hassett...everybody at NRO...most of the Bush administration.

These people don't merely lack an understanding of democracy and the rule of law (my previous position), but actively oppose them.

One thing I resent about the right is the way they make me sound like a ranting hippie circa 1971. I've voted mainly Republican until 2004. And yet I can't help but conclude that the movement has turned fascist (that word again).

Is there any other word for it? They want a strongman unbound by law or checks and balances. They have, at long last, become what they were once wrongly accused of: out and out fascists.

Posted by Slippery Pete | May 17, 2007 10:08 AM

Will Wilkinson's a good guy.

Posted by mk | May 17, 2007 10:28 AM

Cato, of course, is a mixed bag, but when we look for honest conservatives, that's certainly where we look.

but why the honest conservatives tolerate the propagndisic right-wingers in their midst is beyond me, and why anyone would propose an argument that so hates the welfare state that dictatorship is, in some sense, preferable, is beyond insane.

Posted by howard | May 17, 2007 10:50 AM

The real silliness is entailed by using a demarcation between political freedom and economic freedom. Too little of one usually leads to having too little of the other as well.

Posted by Will Allen | May 17, 2007 10:54 AM

To say nothing of the fact that most dictatorships do, in fact, operate a welfare state. I mean, unless the dictator is going to go Full Stalin, and simply starve a significant percentage of the population to death, using a welfare state of some sort is one way the dictator maintains control.

Posted by Will Allen | May 17, 2007 11:00 AM

Howard, there are two reasons "honest conservatives" tolerate propagandistic right-wingers in their midst:

1. They'd rather be in power and share it with people whom they disapprove of (note: they *don't* disapprove so strongly that they won't work with them, though),

or

2. They'd rather empower authoritarian assholes than let moderates and liberals have any political power.

That's why I put "honest conservatives" in quotes: because I think they're full of shit and like power - and after the last several years, I don't see a lot of other logical explanations.

Posted by Chris | May 17, 2007 11:00 AM

I will say this. While the argument is extremely unsophisticated (and I cannot emphasize this enough) and most recent research holds that it's not true, it shouldn't be rejected off-hand. It merits some thought.

For example, the juxtaposition between an authoritarian but economically liberalizing China and the politically liberal but economically backward Russia should give some food for thought.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | May 17, 2007 11:03 AM

To run on, however, none of this discounts the real problems that exist when people use centralized state power to obtain what they could not obtain via decentralized, mutually agreed upon transactions, such as the fact that entirely corrupt and inept bureaucracies which can obtain more capital via state power hardly ever dissolve, whereas even the most deceptively corrupt (think Enron) bureaucracy, which must obtain more capital via voluntary transaction, eventually runs out of suckers.

Whether the former bureaucracy is operating in a democracy or not, however, doesn't make much difference, in terms of the potential for it to be dissolved.

Posted by Will Allen | May 17, 2007 11:12 AM

Nick- Russia hasn't been "politically liberal" in any very serious sense ever and hasn't been so at all since 1993 so I don't think the China/Russia split works quite as well as that. (There are interesting comparisons to be made but it's not on a liberal/non-liberal split.)

Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | May 17, 2007 11:29 AM

Obviously I didn't mean liberal in the classical sense.

I should have said a country that chose to liberalize its politics first; and this is what Russia did with Glasnost and Perestroika. Now, Russia didn't become liberal, but arguably the effect of allowing a rudimentary freedom of expression, also allowed an explosion of social demands and pressures which did not bode well with implementing unpopular but much needed economic reform.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | May 17, 2007 12:03 PM

I think the bottom line is that there are no countries where enough of all the other factors are equal except for democractic vs authoritarian so there is no way to compare.

Posted by Eric | May 17, 2007 12:50 PM