Bobo Puzzles

David Brooks's columns are like puzzles where the goals are to figure out the holes in the argument; to discover the subtle mischaracterizations, exaggerations and biases; and most importantly to find out which issues important to the topic at hand are being left out of the column. They usually skew anti-liberal in favor of a cosmopolitan fiscal (or pro-rich/trickle-down) conservatism, i.e. bourgeois bohemianism or the ideology of the Bobos. His favorite tactic of late is to adopt a philosphical skepticism and cynicism against science and reason and the ability of humanity to employ those two tools to make things a little better, or at least a little less awful.

In his latest column he remarks upon the recent growth of government bureaucracy - 2001 - 2010 (or rather Federal bureaucracy seeing as state and local governments are mercilessly slashing theirs).

The admirable Dana Priest and William M. Arkin have a series in the Washington Post about the metastasizing national security bureaucracy which Brooks discusses. Liberals will applaud him for pointing this out and he does note that much of the expansion includes private companies on the public tit. This huge expansion of big government is a Republican "porkulus" which delivers questionable bang for the buck.

But next Brooks turns to his real targets, Democrats and liberals. He notes that health care reform increased the bureaucracy, but fails to say it was done in response to massive private sector failure. He mentions the recently-passed financial reform law. And again he fails to highlight the massive private sector failure the legislation was a response to. It's as as if the Democrats just decided to increase the bureaucracy for no reason.

Towards the end of the column, Brooks returns to a familiar trope: class war between the common people and elite government technocrats. This is inaccurate. In reality, these technocrats are appointed by representatives of the people, i.e. elected officials. They are appointed by our representatives because the elite of the corporate sphere (and their government enablers) have run roughshod over our health care and financial systems. And if these technocrats don't provide some checks and balances on the rapacious elite whom Brooks never criticizes or even hardly mentions, the entire nation will suffer another crisis. What does Brooks expect us to do? Just lurch from crisis to crisis?

He writes:

This progressive era amounts to a high-stakes test. If the country remains safe and the health care and financial reforms work, then we will have witnessed a life-altering event. We’ll have received powerful evidence that central regulations can successfully organize fast-moving information-age societies

At least he suggests these "tests" might work, although many liberals feel both health care and financial reform were too watered down to pass the test before them. Of course he doesn't mention this. And the second sentence is classic Brooks. "Central regulations" versus "fast-moving information-age societies." Come on! It's more like democratic checks and balances versus highly destructive, secretive, monopolistic corporations that are concerned with nothing but short-term profits. 

If the reforms fail -- if they kick off devastating unintended consequences or saddle the country with a maze of sclerotic regulations -- then the popular backlash will be ferocious. Large sectors of the population will feel as if they were subjected to a doomed experiment they did not consent to. They will feel as if their country has been hijacked by a self-serving professional class mostly interested in providing for themselves.

Okay, so the public servants of the "professional class" are self-serving and mostly interested in providing for themselves, while the executives of the pharmaceutical, insurance and financial industries are paragons of selflessness working tirelessly for the public good? Give me a fucking break.

If health care reform fails, the government will default on its debts and we'll have whole lot more to worry about than a "popular backlash" against technocrats. If financial reform fails again we will suffer another financial crisis and probably won't be as lucky with the quality of our leadership as we were this time around. An overweening bureaucracy will be least of our concerns.

If that backlash gains strength, well, what’s the 21st-century version of the guillotine?

He ends with the typically galling metaphor. As Doug Henwood points out, if things really go south, it usually ends up helping the right wing. See Nazi Germany. Jews like Brooks will be lynched. On rare occasions, like America during the New Deal, the better angels of our nature prevail for the most part. I wouldn't count on it.

Mostly throughout history when things fall apart, tribalism will rear its ugly head. Scapegoats are found and punished. See the partition of colonial India. Reflect on the collapse of the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence.

1. Yugoslavia falls apart and genocide occurs in Europe for the fist time since World War II.
2. "Roughly 230,000 to 250,000 Georgians were expelled from Abkhazia by Abkhaz separatists and North Caucasians volunteers (including Chechens) in 1992-1993. Around 23,000 Georgians fled South Ossetia as well, and many Ossetian families were forced to abandon their homes in the Borjomi region and move to Russia."
3. The Nagorno-Karabakh War between Azerbaijan and those backed by Armenia.
4. 20 years after the collaspse of communism, there are continued clashes between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in Kyrgyzstan.
5. etcetera

At least Brooks came out for extending unemployment benefits and aid to the states, things Senate Republicans were filibustering in order to make Obama fail. Maybe he outlines how a reasonable column would go and then switches about protagonists and antagonists? I'll include him in my rogues gallery with an asterisk.