Politics as a Profession

[Valin]

The American Spectator:

Roger Scruton
Oct. 2010

Angelo Codevilla's examination of the American political class in The American Spectator of July this year will surely take its place among the seminal texts of American conservatism. It brings into clear focus the great danger to the American settlement that has arisen during the course of the last century -- which is the slow, steady confiscation of political decisions by a self-defining elite. The cost of those decisions is borne by the people; the benefits accrue to the elite and to those who share its lifestyle. As a result the American political process is beginning to resemble the political process in Europe, where only unimportant matters are discussed in elected legislatures, and where the real decisions are taken behind closed doors, among members of the political class. This class includes a few elected politicians, or at any rate politicians who have at some point been elected to some office that may or may not still exist. But elected politicians form only a small proportion of the elite, most of whose members are in any case unelectable. Far more important are the upper echelons of the bureaucracy, the "captains of industry," the trade union barons, the favored members of the professoriate, and the people who, for whatever reason, are owed favors by the ruling party.

In a lecture delivered at the University of Munich in 1918, just after the defeat of Germany, and before the new order of German democracy had begun, the great sociologist Max Weber spoke of "politics as a calling" (Politik als Beruf). He drew attention to the inevitable consequence of democracy, which is that while some people will live for politics many more will live from it. The democratic process is open to capture by cohesive groups who, in the course of one parliamentary session, can build institutions and tax-flows that grant a permanent rent to their members, regardless of whether they have been elected to government, and regardless of whether they have ever been honestly and gainfully employed. This capture has been achieved by the trade union elites in France and Germany, by the utilities companies in Scotland and France, by the motor and aerospace industries in Britain, and by all those who live from the welfare state -- which means, primarily, not the teachers in schools or the doctors and nurses in the hospitals, but the bureaucrats who control them, and who are in a position to demand an ever larger share of the public revenue.

(Snip)

True, things are unlikely to go that far. But the American president has expressed his approval for the European superstate, and American politicians talk and act as though people like our "foreign minister" really are entitled to speak for us. Moreover the political class in America has discovered its own way of bypassing the people, legislating through the Supreme Court rather than through Congress, and creating government agencies that give permanent rents and regulatory powers to its members. Just how far the ruling class can proceed in the European direction is debatable, but this fall our bravest member of the European Parliament, the English conservative Daniel Hannan, is publishing an important book that spells out the dangers, brilliantly summarizes the state of play, and shows exactly why the American Constitution both deserves and needs protection from the new ruling class. The New Road to Serfdom (Harper), which takes its title from the famous anti-socialist tract published by Friedrich Hayek, is subtitled A Letter of Warning to America. And no reader of this magazine should be without a copy.

(Snip)

[Pepper]

Valin!

 

Thanks for article and reminder. You can get Hannan's book for 15.00. It'd make a good present as well.

 

PS And I am going to buy an illustrated version of Hayek too....

 

[Valin]

Valin!

 

Thanks for article and reminder. You can get Hannan's book for 15.00. It'd make a good present as well.

 

 

DAMN! Now I'm going to be forced to go buy another book. sigh