Last week I began with a deconstruction of Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny, going over the three basic types of information (dogma, omission, distortion) found in the first chapter. To recap, Levin takes a dogmatic approach to knowledge and politics, which historically retards progress and prevents learning from experience. A center point of Chapter One is the problems with the New Deal, but Levin omits and distorts the details revealing that the problems that he complains about neither have their origins nor their worst transgressions during the New Deal era. Why he should misinform us, or who his misinformation serves (Misinformation Principles 4-6), is what this post is about.
Levin seems to be aware of only one type of Founder, the Federalists that supported strong, centralized government for the sake of commerce and defense. These Founders were indeed the ones initially in control of the Federal Government, but the majority of colonialists were of the opposite camp–supporting an agrarian culture and strong states rights. Thus the record of packing the Supreme Court with corporate lawyers and aristocrats before the New Deal also goes unmentioned by Levin. Also escaping his attention is the fact that the greatest proliferation of special interests happens from the decade of the seventies on, not after the New Deal. A report on the Think Tank Explosion reported that 48% of these think tanks, have an economic function and 37% a health policy function, predominantly in support of corporate-friendly solutions to the issues.
Whether this is his intent or not, the implication of his misinformation in his first chapter is that paternal governance for social goals is bad, paternal governance for corporate goals is good. Whether or not you sympathize with corporate goals the fact remains that for the world to be as Levin wants government has to command the economy to benefit corporations, much like the current favorable costs of funds provided large banks over small banks. That is the only way businesses can grow big and succeed, through government assistance.
Thus Levin’s paternalistic paradise requires a heavy-handed partnership between federal government and corporations, where a Supreme Court packed with corporate lawyers and aristocrats continues to define corporations as individuals and equates money with free speech.
Levin’s vision is realized by continued subjugation of state influence in commerce to federal authority, just as the Federalists initiated long ago. For example, Levin would not be content, could not be content, with allowing variation in health policy between states. There is one system that fits all, the global corporate system. Because of this necessity of conforming the entire country to one corporate system, self-interest is being served over the public interest.
Finally, Levin echoes in this chapter the primacy of private property, equating it with liberty. Admittedly, this does coincide with the opinions of at least the well-heeled Founders, but it is simply a false equation. Government is required for private property that can be hoarded independent of use; private property is required for liberty; thus government is required for liberty. But there are liberties that we can only claim for ourselves, such as independent thinking, and government can only interfere. When money is free speech the impact of equating government/property with liberty is to create unequal “Blessings of Liberty” which invariably advantages the few at the expense of the many.
Here is previous background material.
An overview of misinformation principles
A basic understanding of free markets
A basic understanding of property
Tags: Corporate Capitalism, Government Entitlements, Ideological Interest Groups, Libery and Tyranny, Party Democracy
