The Vision of the Anointed

I'm on a Thomas Sowell binge I guess. The subtitle of this one is "Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy". I like his terminology of "constrained vs unconstrained" used in Conflict of Visions better, but this one is even more readable, and focuses on the real use of the unconstrained vision in social policy with disastrous results that are never allowed to be attributed to "vision problems" because the media is part of the "anointed".

He mostly calls unconstrained "anointed" in this book, the constrained is either called "benighted" or "tragic". I think "tragic" is OK, since it points to the "tragedy" of mans position -- limited, flawed, mortal and all the while tending to think far more of ourselves than an unbiased "higher power" likely would.

I think he does a great job of capturing how the anointed put their ideas over on the sheep:

1. Assertions of a great danger to the whole society, a danger to which the masses of people are oblivious. (remind anyone of Global Warming?)
2. An urgent need for action to avert impending catastrophe. (Stimulus?)
3. A need for government to drastically curtail the dangerous behavior of the many, in response to the prescient conclusions of the few. (Carbon Cap and Trade)
4. A disdainful dismissal of arguments to the contrary as either uninformed, irresponsible, or motivated by unworthy purposes. (The Surge HAS failed -- Harry Reid, before it started)

One of the points Sowell  hammers home very well is how the anointed find the decisions of "others" to always be wrong -- it makes no difference if they are the cumulative decisions of thousands of years of law and culture or the combined decisions of a market of millions or even billions of people, the anointed believe in their vision of "justice" or "equality" or "morality" with such fervor that there will be no consideration for alternate views whose results they blame for all problems. Their vision will fix all that -- TOMORROW! Their perfect ends justify use of any means.

I love this quote from Hayek: "Compared with the totality of knowledge which is continually utilized in the evolution of a dynamic civilization, the difference between the knowledge that the wisest and that which the most ignorant individual can deliberately employ is comparatively insignificant. "

Well said!

This is about as true as it gets: "Systematic processes tend to reward people for making decisions that turn out to be right-creating, producing great resentments among the anointed, who feel themselves entitled to rewards for being articulate, politically active, and morally fervent".

I enjoyed his discussion on the political left and right. "Among the many thoughtless labels which have gained currency, the dichotomy between the political left and right is one of the most striking, not only for its wide acceptance, but also for its utter lack of definition--or even an attempt at definition. Essentially, only the left is defined -- very loosely, and "the right" is just defined as "those that are opposed to the left". As he points out; "Although the free market is the antithesis of state control of the economy, such as fascists advocate, the left-right dichotomy makes it seem as if fascists are a more extreme version of "conservatives"".

I find his "constrained/unconstrained" to be a MUCH better description of the differences that we commonly refer to as "left/right" or "liberal/conservative" in this country.

It is hard to leave this book without having a significantly negative prospects for the long term chances of the US. The anointed are never interested in the actual results of their policies, in fact, when one of their policies like "the war on poverty" INCREASES poverty, that is simply a call to do more of the same!

The same sort of problem is very severe in the case of the courts. While those of the tragic vision feel that a constitution is meant to be followed and only amended by the procedures for amendment that were set down at the founding, the anointed feel that each case ought to be judged on "the best capabilities of the judges on that day". Sadly, since the those of the tragic vision have a strong desire to preserve precedent, the nation continues to legally drift to the vision of the anointed with very little prospect but for the "rate of slide" to be slowed during some periods of history.

I highly recommend the book and at this point suspect that I need to try to find the time to read most everything this guy has written.