The book, American Amnesia by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson is a pathetic attempt to distort history to support a psychopathic adoration for the merits of massive government. The theme of the dissertation is the rejection of the Thomas Jefferson axiom, “The Government is best when it governs least.” For this duo of academic establishment apologists, the Twentieth century under Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a great success. Coming out of the Yale citadel and the bedlam known as Berkeley, these two mentally challenged government sycophants are a pristine example why engagement with such progressive professors is a journey into the warped minds of historic irrationality.
Set aside scholarship and feast upon the doctrine of confused belief in the false proposition that wealth is created by and through a state sponsored economy. The religious ministers of government worship lauds this book as a canon of fantasy faith. Start with the New York Times, ‘American Amnesia,’ by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson and note the unsubstantiated axiom that government involvement in economic partnerships is a healthy and necessary relationship.
“Hacker and Pierson highlight three main prongs of the Republican attack: “Denounce crony capitalism” while catering to narrow business interests; “Feed political dysfunction and win by railing against it”; and “Undermine the capacity of government to perform its vital functions” and at the same time “decry a bungling and corrupt public sector.”
The deplorable betrayal of the American dream of individual liberty and independent economic dynamism that is the hallmark of the last century is not addressed or discussed with even a modicum of understanding of what, how and who creates wealth. The author’s preoccupation of slamming hard Randian Liberationists for their distrust of government intervention is pointed out in the critique, Defending a Mixed Economy, by Herbert Hoverkamp.
“Further, at no time in our constitutional history has the prevailing view of government at either the federal or the state level been predominantly libertarian. The period from Andrew Jackson to the Progressive Era witnessed a significant but only partially successful effort to push the government out of the economy.
So Hacker and Pierson are exactly right on the proposition suggested by their title: the War on Government today is based on a “collective amnesia” about American economic policy. Perhaps “willful ignorance” would be a better term. In any event, the evidence is sufficient to make clear that, notwithstanding its rhetoric, the war on government is in no sense a return to either constitutional or public policy originalism.”
Government is not a productive partner in wealth creation, but is a levy exorcist on the profits of successful businesses. For the millions of government parasites who draw a salary, pension, benefits or subsidy from the state; the few remaining business owner’s who bear the responsibility to make a payroll, remit costs of operations and bear the burden of growing an enterprise that actually is at the formation of a cornucopia for wealth endure the risk of failure, while the government imposes their tax theft as a matter of course.
Such worldly deficient disciples of the collective over at Mother Jones applaud American Amnesia: Three Cheers For the Mixed Economy!
“All that’s left is a seething anger—stoked by a modern GOP dedicated to corporations and the rich—toward jack-booted government bureaucrats who prevent the economy from taking flight. Get rid of the regulators, and all will be well again.
That might be true if we could also return to the America of the 1830s. But we can’t. The United States is bigger, more complex, and far more technologically advanced than it was two centuries ago, and there’s simply no plausible counterweight to powerful corporate rent-seekers other than government regulation. Like it or not, the mixed economy is the only way to run a modern country.”
What the enthusiasts for the all powerful and invasive government miss is that corporatist monologists are NOT the engine of prosperity for the general economy. No, these protected fronts operate in unison with their government bureaucratic partners in crime to eliminate any remnants of anti-trust restrictions. The state is NOT an enforcer of a level playing field, but operates as the ultimate enabler of favoritism to stamp out any real competition.
The Hacker/Pierson philosophy of tax, spend and grow is absurd. The net result is a predictable dislocation of a market economy and a substitute of a command and control government managed system of reduced prosperity. Only the crony sponsors of the government selected and enforced regulation system benefits alongside the egomaniacs that comprise government.
The KIRKUS REVIEW of AMERICAN AMNESIA offers a description of an assessment that is void of any reality of the original promise of America.
“Hacker and Pierson offer a depressing series of case studies to that end—for instance, food industry efforts to fight the Obama administration’s anti-obesity campaign and the rise of private schools, little better than diploma mills, whose outcomes are worse than those of public counterparts but whose owners still manage to receive ample federal funds. The costs of this private looting to the public are not merely economic; write the authors, “in undermining essential public authority, they threaten effective democratic governance itself.” They suggest reforms to curb the worst effects of the libertarian grab, including “rebuilding government capacity” and remaking Senate filibuster requirements so that the system is more “majoritarian.”
Good grief, what obscene crap. Slamming private education and replacing it with government schools has produced a country of literates and greedy leeches that demand more public welfare and elect collectivist demigods.
Paleo-conservatives dread and warn about “majoritarian” rule. Populist legitimacy and the will of the people are quite different from democratic governance. Folks America was created to be a confederation of sovereign states. With the repressive imposition of the U.S. Constitution and the insidious imposition of a powerful central government, the trust in the purpose of the American Revolution was broken.
The promise that a Republic is based upon the rule of law is long dead. In its place we live under the boot of an immoral and dictatorial imperial class of manipulators and the technocratic stooges who do the bidding of their globalist masters.
This is the real essence of the actual American Amnesia that both Hacker and Pierson’s viewpoint utterly lacks The reverence of their sacred “mixed economy” is pure rationalization for supporting their American sacrilege. One cannot throw out Thomas Jefferson and still call the United States – AMERICA.
The 1900’s are often called the American century. If you are one of those lackeys who revel in the internationalism of empire building, you probably applaud the massive expansion and its accompanying debt, as progress. This attitude defies all canons of intellectual scholarship. Yet the Hacker and Pierson twosome would have you believe that their viewpoint is valid, because they have moved beyond the fundamental nature of the founding nation by accepting the Madison model of government that replaced the victory at Yorktown with the capitulation from the District of Criminals.
This disgusting book ends with the following words:
“A Government that effectively promotes human flourishing is a government worth fighting for. More than ever, the problems we face demand a sustained and principled defense of a vital proposition: The government that governs best needs to govern quite a bit. Americans must remember what has made America Prosper”
It should be eminently obvious that Hacker and Pierson are part of the sinister plot to destroy the unique character of the American spirit that created the nation based upon the sentiment expressed in Patrick Henry: Fight against the Constitution. Fabricating a distorted narrative that an all powerful government IS a benefit for the people and a necessary partner in economic affairs is treasonous.
The wealth creation achieved by the country was accomplished in spite of the crony capitalism that government oversees. The results of the “so called” mixed economy are based upon a mountain of debt and loss of individual liberty.
This reality escapes the “PC” professors of deception. Frankly, they argue against private property and independence of economic choice. It is because of this unholy union of academic fraud in the tradition of that infamous educator, John Dewey, that the country has been trashed so effectively in the last hundred years.
If what we have today is defined as progress, pray to God that the future will beckon a second American Revolution. The Hacker and Pierson proposition that more expansive and intrusive government holds the key to a vigorous economy is illogically based upon their dishonest record, because it refuses to recognize the true cause, which comes from the ills of previous state interventions.
Regretfully, the only people who would follow the suggestions in this book need intensive professional help. They obviously cannot come to grips with the evil of the entire governmental apparatus that has eradicated the dreams and pursuit of happiness that Jefferson stated in the Declarations of Independence. These progressive lunatics do not understand the heart and soul of Independence.
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