Deconstructing David Brooks
Scampering around Manhattan yesterday, I only just now got to the latest offering in the New York Times by my friend—my often stubbornly mistaken friend—David Brooks. It’s all well and good, David argues, for Republicans to use this election to beat back Obama’s effort to expand our already gigantic federal government. But after that? Republicans will simply have to grow up and…come to terms with our already gigantic federal government. To quote him:
The social fabric is fraying. Human capital is being squandered. Society is segmenting. The labor markets are ill. Wages are lagging. Inequality is increasing. The nation is overconsuming and underinnovating. China and India are surging. Not all of these challenges can be addressed by the spontaneous healing powers of the market.
I’d love to hear what folks here at Ricochet have to say about this. Shall I put the conversation in motion?
BROOKS: The social fabric is fraying.
He’s got that part right. But does he honestly suppose the welfare state hasn’t already made matters worse? Has he never heard of Charles Murray’s Losing Ground?
BROOKS: Human capital is being squandered.
And the government can allocate it more efficiently than the market? Is he kidding? What does he suppose was the lesson of Hong Kong, which in during the second half of the last century went from a sparsely populated and impoverished set of rocks to a dense, vibrant center of free markets and free trade?
BROOKS: Society is segmenting.
Not sure what this means. Does he mean to argue that we’re more segmented today than we were when, say, Toqueville visited us? When differences among regions, among trades, between urban and agricultural populations, and between slave and free were truly stark?
BROOKS: The labor markets are ill.
Again, what does he mean? And whatever he means, does he truly mean to suggest that government can dispose of labor more efficiently than markets?
BROOKS: Inequality is increasing.
Income inequality does indeed seem to be increasing, but all the studies of which I’m aware suggest that this is in large part because of increasing returns on human capital—that is, on education. From which it follows that we need to improve our schools—vouchers, anyone?—not expand bureaucracies in Washington.
BROOKS: The nation is overconsuming and underinnovating.
Overconsuming? By what standard? David is really, really smart, but I’m not quite sure how somebody with two deadlines a week has time on his hands to figure out just how much a nation of 300 million ought to consume. What makes this odder, of course, is that the savings rate over the last couple of years is actually up. Underinnovating? Well, if the feds weren’t soaking up quite so much capital, there might be a little more available for R&D. But are we really doing all that badly? When did he last purchase a cellphone designed in India? Apple may manufacture its products in Asia, but move its design shop to Asia? Unthinkable.
BROOKS: China and India are surging.
Why is this bad? Are we to feel prosperous only as long as others remain poor? He opposes inequality within the United States but wishes to perpetuate it between the United States and other nations?
And with that, over to Ricochet.
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Aug '10
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
"Deconstructing David Brooks"
It's about time someone got around to it.
Jun '10
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
I don't agree with Brooks' view of things very often, but I do agree that there's an unhealthy, sometimes blind, love of conformity on the conservative side of the Republican Party these days. For example, everybody is jumping down Karl Rove's throat today because he thinks O'Donnell is an overly-defective candidate. His current job is to share his thoughts and make predictions. We can disagree with him, but if that's what he thinks, that's what he thinks. His prediction is that her candidacy is a sure loser. We'll see. His job is to share his opinion. Last night, that's what it was.
May '10
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
Peter - You've got to stop this pandering. "David is really, really smart..." But he is wrong-headed and stupid on virtually every issue.
He is pro-choice, anti-Second Amendment, called Sarah Palin "a cancer," and has called the Goldwater/Reagan philosophy "outdated." He is slavishly in love with Barack Obama.
If you do have a friendship with him, and being the genial man that you are, you are friends no doubt, don't let it blind you to the fact that he is a full-blown liberal who has forgot the humble whipping put upon him by Milton Friedman those many years ago.
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
I'm sitting at a warehouse waiting for the guys to unload my trailer, do I don't have the time I'd like to have to go into detail here. Perhaps someone could kindly suggest to Mr. Brooks that the circumstances he laments have grown at a rate commensurate with the increase in government intrusion into the private sector. If the ship runs aground, throwing more dirt under it will not set it afloat again. Better to reverse course.
Aug '10
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
Brooks made this argument in favor of electing Obama, so his logic must be that if Democrats getting 90% of everything they want doesn't work, the solution is to eliminate all opposition, grant them the final 10%, and try new ideas from... where? The U.N. and the E.U.?
What about the PIGS (Portugal,Ireland,Greece, and Spain) circling the bankruptcy drain? The entitlements/low productivity enigma in Europe isn't yet solved.
Some sort of mental deficiency afflicts Brooks.
1) Social fabric is fraying: Yes, because 'progressives' have damaged our schools and scorned the respect and veneration for America's Founders, our religion, and our unique system of government that we used to have and teach.
2) Human capital is being squandered: See above. Union-run schools and lthe soft bigotry of ow expectations.
3) Society is segmenting: A deliberate tactic of Saul Alinsky 'progressives' to wreck social adhesion. Obama has these people as advisors.
4) The labor markets are ill: America lost its competitiveness because of terrible policies from D.C. Both parties guilty.
5) Inequality is increasing: This is what happens when governments micro-manage to make things more equal.
Out of space...
Jun '10
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
Okay, so we know life is hard. There are always challenges we face as a nation, external and internal. But nearly a century of bigger government has shown that no institution can deliver the utopian equality so many seem to pine for. Markets too, cannot deliver such a thing. Neither the markets nor government were designed for this purpose. Our society is based on a series of imperfect systems, often in great tension. That's just the way it is.
What can be done on the "day after tomorrow", and I think Ryan and A. Brooks allude to this, is to begin to reset the terms of the conversation on the proper role of government and its relationship to its citizens, and to the free enterprise system. Deal with reality as it is, and make the tough, grown-up choices. But cast a principled vision that builds upon our unique American heritage, and enact strategies to move us toward greater freedom and liberty. The problems themselves may or may not go away, but the resources to address those problems will multiply. I know it sounds like fluff, but I'm stickin' to it.
Aug '10
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
Peter Robinson:
David Brooks:
Sure, not all of those challenges can be addressed by the powers of the market, but half of them can be (labor markets, wages, overconsumption/underinnovation), if they need addressing.
As for "inequality": we may be facing a downturn now, but in historical terms, prosperity has only grown. Like most nonnegative distributions, when the average moves to a higher value, there is also a greater spread. So what? What matters is the well-being of the poor. The rest is just envy and resentment -- natural human emotions to be sure, but not worth indulging.
Those problems he mentioned above that can't be solved by markets can the heck be solved by first getting the government out of our business! As Peter and others mentioned, the contributions Uncle Sam has made to fraying our social fabric and squandering our human capital are far from negligible.
Edited on Sep 15, 2010 at 10:29amAug '10
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
Perhaps this is the heart of the problem.
There's nothing quite like a mad, throbbing crush for impairing one's judgement. The survival of the species depends on this fact -- though not in this case...
Jun '10
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
Peter Robinson: David argues, for Republicans to use this election to beat back Obama’s effort to expand our already gigantic federal government. But after that? Republicans will simply have to grow up and…come to terms with our already gigantic federal government.
I’d love to hear what folks here at Ricochet have to say about this. Shall I put the conversation in motion?
Funny, I read Brooks article and thought to myself - "he needs to be questioned on each of those points. I can't start a thread at ricochet, maybe someone else has commented. And here you are, questioning him on each point.
Other than the free market, what are we going to use? Regulation, spending, and taxation, all of which will cause greater problems, that we will need to solve through...regulation, spending, and taxation. Sure sounds like a textbook example of the road to serfdom to me!
Jun '10
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
EJHill: Peter - You've got to stop this pandering. "David is really, really smart..." But he is wrong-headed and stupid on virtually every issue.
He is pro-choice, anti-Second Amendment, called Sarah Palin "a cancer," and has called the Goldwater/Reagan philosophy "outdated." He is slavishly in love with Barack Obama.
If you do have a friendship with him, and being the genial man that you are, you are friends no doubt, don't let it blind you to the fact that he is a full-blown liberal who has forgot the humble whipping put upon him by Milton Friedman those many years ago. · Sep 15 at 9:43am
You guys know where I stand on the issues. But being polite is not pandering, and is it not be an excellent thing--and very much in the spirit of Ricochet--to disagree respectfully with Mr. Brooks? Good post, Peter.
May '10
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
social fabric is fraying. Human capital is being squandered. Society is segmenting... labor markets are ill. Wages are lagging. Inequality is increasing... nation is overconsuming and underinnovating. Not all of these challenges can be addressed by the spontaneous healing powers of the market
Instead of saying "by the market" he has to throw the "spontaneous healing powers" line in there. Classic journalist dirty trick. Brooks obviously has huge contempt for the free market, which pretty much invalidates whatever he says.
The market does not heal. It provides and processes various info streams and acts as an incremental corrective on decision making and preferences. So instead of the millions of uncoordinated decisions made on the market, what all-seeing, all-knowing force does Brooks put his trust in to "solve" all these "challenges"? The state? How's that working out so far? Again the classic trick of saying "America is free market and things are not perfect so that must prove the free market doesn't work". Sure. Cos there is no state involvement going on in ANY of those areas Brooks mentions. To quote Sowell, their answer is that "if Policy X isn't working we need more Policy X!".
Jun '10
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
Summary of The Road To Serfdom: Centralized planning leads to authoritarian government through structural necessity.
A) democratic agreement on ends is general (or we don't need government to do it)
B) policies must be local/specific
C) Once B confronts A, democracy and consensus becomes ineffectual, requiring leaders to have more power to overcome the lack of consensus - "Czars".
D) Leaders uncomfortable with taking this authoritarian power in the face of incomplete/uncertain information get replaced by those who are comfortable and can project confidence to the electorate.
E) The more control they take, the more the "free" areas become obstacles to exercising control, requiring more control.
F) the more this system breaks down (lack of information), the more desperate the people become, and the more power they give to the leaders.
G) the more power the leaders need and assume, the more dissent will rise, and the more that dissent becomes a threat to the power, leading to crackdown on the non-ideologically aligned.
H) as people feel the power is being misused, they speak out, and the crackdowns on dissent become widespread and institutionalized, rewarding those who turn in their neighbors and punishing those who don't.
Aug '10
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
I believe it was John Adams who said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” If many of the issues Mr Brooks mentioned are the result of moral decay - and I believe they are - then it is preposterous to think that the goverment can solve any of these issues.
People need to get over this notion that the federal government thinks, knows or cares. It is a vast apparatus that must be closely watched and tightly reined in. People care - governments don't (see hurricane Andrew).
The role of the federal government is to fulfill the very narrowly defined role the constitution gives it. Anything more than that is progressive nonsense.
Jul '10
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
It's all about Freedom:
"The social fabric is fraying." We should be Free to do so.
"Human capital is being squandered." We should be Free to do so.
"Society is segmenting." We should be Free to do so.
.......................
Our Constitution is all We need to know.
Beware of anyone who "thinks" the federal government is a solution, and anyone who begins a sentence with "There oughtta be a law....."
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
I rather like David Brooks, when he's writing about edge cities and exurbs and Bobos in Paradise. Politics and policy, not so much.
But I agree with him totally that the problems he describes -- fraying social fabric, a segmented society, broken labor markets, inequality and squandered human capital, tougher competition from China and India, and a collapse in innovation and manufacturing matched by a rapid increase in consumption -- are all, in fact, real problems. He's right -- we're in trouble.
The solution to most of these problems, though, isn't more government intervention. I'd suggest that government intervention is the cause of most of these problems. In education -- with huge, corrupt, unresponsive government monopolies; in innovation -- with high corporate taxes, overregulation, capital gains and death taxes on the rise; labor markets -- distorted and perverted by powerful labor unions, which have bankrupted GM, and are about to do the same to California.
Why do we want more of this? And why should we believe that this time, finally, government is going to get it right?
Sep '10
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
Why are we even wasting a thread on David Brooks?
The man's credibility went out the window the day he endorsed Obama on the basis of a well-ironed pair of pants. It's not going too far to say that Brooks is downright infatuated with Obama – in a very unseemly way. It gives me the creeps.
And Brooks is a hard-core elitist. He fully shares Obama's deep disdain for the hoi polloi.
Peter, you keep talking about this oh-so-smart guy who just happens to be oh-so-wrong on every conceivable issue. If a man consistently takes "stupid" positions, you finally have to ask yourself: How smart can he really be? Do not confuse being bright with being wise.
Edited on Sep 15, 2010 at 11:48amAug '10
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
Jimmy Carter:
Beware of anyone who... who begins a sentence with "There oughtta be a law....." ·
Yep. "There oughtta be a law..." is one of my pet peeves. No, more than a peeve. It's such a dictatorial, narcissistic way of framing things, that just because you don't like something, it should be outlawed.
What's saddest is to hear it from the lips of people who say they're in favor of smaller government (my dad does this all the time, and he's far from the only one.)
As the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, the road to tyranny is paved with "There oughtta be a law..."
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
Odd how people who live in the throbbing, vital nexus of Washington inevitably conclude that the solutions must flow through Washington. I'm starting to think we should build our own Brasilia, perhaps in Iowa. If only for the fun of watching everyone in Washington try to sell their house at once.
Sep '10
Re: Deconstructing David Brooks
I don't see why that would be unthinkable. I happen to know that Texas Instruments does design work in India. I don't know of any reason Apple couldn't.