Obama, Orwell, and Burgess
Obama is personally very popular, but people who look at him with skepticism worry about his plans and programs. If those are wrong-headed, then his popularity becomes problematic and even dangerous. That sort of concern tends to be dismissed because is so often expressed in terms of an abhorrence of socialism and fears about the loss of liberty, which sounds like yet another repetition of a tiresome line of right-wing cant. Everybody understands how liberty is lost through fascist oppression, but to many people it's not so obvious how liberty can be lost through expansion of benefits provided by an ever more caring government.
George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984" portrayed life in an England that had become thoroughly fascist and oppressive -- constant surveillance, and plenty of Big Brother's jack-booted thugs around to make sure nobody stepped out of line. Orwell had experienced Stalin's tactics first-hand when he fought, and was nearly killed, as a member of a leftist brigade for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, a story told in his book, "Homage to Catalonia." As a result, unlike many artists, writers, and intellectuals of the time, he had no illusions about what communism meant in practice, and "1984" was his attempt to convey that vision.
But Anthony Burgess, another highly esteemed British writer ("A Clockwork Orange" and much else) argued that as fine and effective a book as "1984" might be, Orwell had got it wrong. Orwell's version of future events was correct in portraying the loss of liberty, but it was not correct about how that would happen. Burgess's reply to Orwell is found in his novel, "1985." That book is not nearly so well known as Orwell's, but it is a very good book on its own. Here is the argument its story makes:
It is true that liberty can be lost through brute, fascistic force, no doubt about it. (North Korea remains as a reminder of what that kind of society looks like. North Korea is, in a word, Orwellian.) But liberty will not be lost to oppressive force permanently. The loss of liberty to oppressive force is always temporary, because oppression always provokes reaction and resistance, as a matter of
human nature. Eventually, the costs of the surveillance and discipline necessary to keep everyone in line become too high, and resistance succeeds.
According to Burgess, the loss of liberty will not come from the oppressive Right, but rather from the benevolent Left. In "1985," people had progressively and voluntarily traded away their liberties in return for government benefits. The villains for Burgess in that swap were the labor unions, a predictable view for a Brit writing in the 1970s. He saw the unions gaining unrivaled political power, and
using that power to expand government into every aspect of what had once been private life. They gained political power by promising an endless expansion of free benefits, to be paid for by the rich, or through greater efficiency, or whatever else can be pulled out of the Left's grab bag of fantasies.
The unions are not such a major force in this country, but the arguments are the same, here carried forward by those who call themselves "progressives." Obama is about to present his ideas for a massive, and massively expensive, expansion of the government role in health insurance. He will promise that it will not entail a financial burden on "working families." We will all be better off, and the costs will be borne by others. Obama does not seem impressed by the challenge to first show how it would work by using it to fix the sucking maw that is Medicare. No, he thinks we need to start with the Full Monty. He's a man in a hurry, and it will all no doubt sound plausible to those who badly want it to be true. But no country in the world has come close to devising a government program that can contain health care costs, even with draconian rationing, and we won't, either. As the economy is crippled by an explosion of costs (go back and look at the original estimates for the costs of Medicare; they're hilarious), more government intervention will be
required on all fronts.
My conclusion and prediction from all this is that Burgess was right. A program of progressive expansion of benefits, supposedly to be paid for by somebody else, does not provoke reaction and resistance; it provokes willing, grateful acceptance. That, not Orwell's nightmare, is the path to permanent loss of liberty. Thank you, Obama. Thank you, Big Brother.
Byron
George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984" portrayed life in an England that had become thoroughly fascist and oppressive -- constant surveillance, and plenty of Big Brother's jack-booted thugs around to make sure nobody stepped out of line. Orwell had experienced Stalin's tactics first-hand when he fought, and was nearly killed, as a member of a leftist brigade for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, a story told in his book, "Homage to Catalonia." As a result, unlike many artists, writers, and intellectuals of the time, he had no illusions about what communism meant in practice, and "1984" was his attempt to convey that vision.
But Anthony Burgess, another highly esteemed British writer ("A Clockwork Orange" and much else) argued that as fine and effective a book as "1984" might be, Orwell had got it wrong. Orwell's version of future events was correct in portraying the loss of liberty, but it was not correct about how that would happen. Burgess's reply to Orwell is found in his novel, "1985." That book is not nearly so well known as Orwell's, but it is a very good book on its own. Here is the argument its story makes:
It is true that liberty can be lost through brute, fascistic force, no doubt about it. (North Korea remains as a reminder of what that kind of society looks like. North Korea is, in a word, Orwellian.) But liberty will not be lost to oppressive force permanently. The loss of liberty to oppressive force is always temporary, because oppression always provokes reaction and resistance, as a matter of
human nature. Eventually, the costs of the surveillance and discipline necessary to keep everyone in line become too high, and resistance succeeds.
According to Burgess, the loss of liberty will not come from the oppressive Right, but rather from the benevolent Left. In "1985," people had progressively and voluntarily traded away their liberties in return for government benefits. The villains for Burgess in that swap were the labor unions, a predictable view for a Brit writing in the 1970s. He saw the unions gaining unrivaled political power, and
using that power to expand government into every aspect of what had once been private life. They gained political power by promising an endless expansion of free benefits, to be paid for by the rich, or through greater efficiency, or whatever else can be pulled out of the Left's grab bag of fantasies.
The unions are not such a major force in this country, but the arguments are the same, here carried forward by those who call themselves "progressives." Obama is about to present his ideas for a massive, and massively expensive, expansion of the government role in health insurance. He will promise that it will not entail a financial burden on "working families." We will all be better off, and the costs will be borne by others. Obama does not seem impressed by the challenge to first show how it would work by using it to fix the sucking maw that is Medicare. No, he thinks we need to start with the Full Monty. He's a man in a hurry, and it will all no doubt sound plausible to those who badly want it to be true. But no country in the world has come close to devising a government program that can contain health care costs, even with draconian rationing, and we won't, either. As the economy is crippled by an explosion of costs (go back and look at the original estimates for the costs of Medicare; they're hilarious), more government intervention will be
required on all fronts.
My conclusion and prediction from all this is that Burgess was right. A program of progressive expansion of benefits, supposedly to be paid for by somebody else, does not provoke reaction and resistance; it provokes willing, grateful acceptance. That, not Orwell's nightmare, is the path to permanent loss of liberty. Thank you, Obama. Thank you, Big Brother.
Byron
posted by Byron | Tuesday, June 16, 2009
|
0 comments
