[Billthedrill]

Lots of grist for the mill here. Hanson is not the first Democrat to observe that his party left him although Reagan's famous lament still seems not to have registered with the current population of that party. But it's a lot more than that.

Two key differences between the generations that Hanson chronicles are increasing urbanization and increasing dependence on government redistribution of income to provide a buffer against the sort of vicissitudes that made country people wonder if they would eat. That latter was the upshot of the Great Depression, rather like treating a toothache with heroin. It's effective enough but when the toothache goes away the heroin habit remains, and so has the dependence on redistribution of income. The difficulty is that it really does provide such a buffer and that we have become so accustomed to it being there that absence is regarded as intolerable hardship. This is certainly true under the social democracies in France and Germany - the evidence is now undeniable - and the comfort level that resulted appears as addictive as a heroin habit and just as impossible to maintain.

I do not think a return to the days of uncertainty and widespread famine is necessarily either the answer or the picture of a better world, but inasmuch as the present nanny state appears to be unsustainable there is certainly room for a few better ideas. Unfortunately the Democrats appear only to offer more of the same. Socialism didn't work so let's try more, central planning didn't work so let's try more, regulation didn't work so let's try still more - at some point you can beat a dead horse into moving but it doesn't mean he's going anywhere.

Although there doesn't appear to me to be any particular theoretical justication for it a middle course between Randian laissez-faire and stifling social democracy has built the most free and successful society so far, a phenomenon that has only given rise to accusations of theft on the part of the less successful and envious. It is actually nothing of the sort. It is certainly untidy, untheoretical, ad hoc and disagreeable to the sort of mind who likes things all tied up in pretty packages with bows around them. These feel that they can command prosperity and force it by undoing a theft that never was. And they have found that offering this makes them electable. And it isn't just the Democrats and certainly not just the Americans.

[Tolik]

Great post, especially heroin dependency analogy. Its right on money.

Two things I'd like to throw into the mix both working against the idea of proud self-reliance, and one in favor of it.

Many parts of the soft buffer of the nanny-state are possible thanks to the technological successes. We CAN feed many more unproductive people quite nicely. Progress made it easier, and will continue so.

Second, current trends of taxation remove more and more people from under the burden of paying taxes. But they can vote. When non-paying population gets to be more than 50%, what stops them to vote the increase of the nanny state for themselves?

The opposite trend is also courtesy of the technological development: Internet. Anybody willing to get knowledge can do it easier than ever. Information monopoly does not exist anymore. MSM try tell people what to think, but many not buying it, making that crucial step toward self-reliance.