Academic

FRANCIS CIANFROCCA: What the Tea Party Movement Is Really About: Here?s what the TP itself rea?

By Glenn Reynolds

FRANCIS CIANFROCCA: What the Tea Party Movement Is Really About:

Here?s what the TP itself really fears, in an inchoate way that for most of its members doesn?t rise to the level of clear understanding, but is still intuitively very powerful: the US is embracing central planning as a governing theory, as fast as our legislative processes will allow. . . . Central planning has two primary flaws, when compared with economic freedom: it misallocates resources, and it magnifies the impact of corruption. I could write a decent-sized book explaining both of those mechanisms, but because I?ve never been busier in my life than I have been these past few weeks, I?ll cut to the conclusion.

The endpoint of central planning, if not outright failure, is a much deeper and more intractable division of society into haves and have-nots. After promising a better world for everyone, the progressives will end up creating a society that is more polarized than ever. . . . And we?re already seeing everywhere, from David Brooks to Noam Chomsky, the signs of how the elites will have to deal with the polarization: by loudly proclaiming in their captive media that the have-nots are stupid and, eventually, evil.

Indeed. Related thoughts here: “Money can be used to create value, or it can fuel the exercise of power, but not both. . . . Free people multiply. The all-powerful State is only good at division.”

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on April 26, 2010 (boomark / email).