Idiotocracy In Charge

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

- Leonard Cohen (Anthem) -

Ever since Barack Obama slithered into office, and his intentions became clear, I've wondered which revolution would happen first - the one pursued by Obama and the pigpile of textbook radicals he's gathered around himself, or the completely unplanned implosion of what James V. DeLong has called The Special Interest State (see "The Coming of the Fourth American Republic"). Today I don't think it's either/or, but only the second choice, either on its own or hastened by Obama.

The Special Interest State is the hypercomplex, bureaucratic, greed-driven Leviathan that doesn't represents the majority of the people. It simply delivers the spoils of government to all the important open hands in exchange for power. It's nearly what we have now. We're ruled by a decomposing idiotocracy of encumbents. The stink of shamelessness is everywhere and they no longer care what we think. But when the excess wealth runs out, the debt piles up, and the massive claims inevitably conflict, the bribery machine breaks down.

Its catastrophic waste, inefficiency and corruption can't be hidden. Like the USSR, its wheels and gears grind to a stop and something new can be born. Post-collapse, there's a lot of competition and renewal; the outcome depends upon immutables, on whether the culture reasserts itself in familiar ways after the collapse. The constitutional process of elections should prevent this sort of thing, and it would do so if it could prevent the establishment of a professional political class. So far, it hasn't.

There's a huge body of literature on the conditions, participants and components of social and political revolutions, but I think they all include, as a first cause, some dramatic failure, bungling or outright collapse of the existing regime. Obama's unintended potential for all three are conspicuous - never mind his intentions -and he's reckless enough to induce chaos when what he only wants is crisis.

Obama and Rahm and the leftist tribe of flunkeys and savants who make up his administration and his supporters in Congress aren't as culturally savvy as their predecessors in the old New Left. The old Left held a torch for personal sovereignty. To these guys, the world consists of hammers and nails, or as Lenin was reported to have asked, "Who, whom?"

They're going to find out.